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The Return of Charlie Chan
USA 1973
produced by Jack Laird, John J. Cole (executive) for Universal
directed by Daryl Duke
starring Ross Martin, Richard Haydn, Louise Sorel, Joseph Hindy, Kathleen Widdoes, Don Gordon, Peter Donat, Leslie Nielsen, Rocky Gunn, Virginia Ann Lee, Ernest Harada, Oh Soon-Tek, Patricia Gage, Ted Greenhalgh, Graeme Campbell, Neil Dainard, Otto Lowy, Pearl Huang, Adele Yoshioka, John Juliani, William Nunn
story by Gene R.Kearney, Simon Last, screenplay by Gene R.Kearney, based on characters created by Earl Derr Biggers, music by Robert Prince
Charlie Chan
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Someone has made an attempt on Greek tycoon Hadrachi's (Leslie Nielsen)
life, so Oriental detective Charlie Chan (Ross Martin) is forced out of
retirement to go look for the killer, who's believed to still be on
Hadrachi's yacht. On his way to Hadrachi's yacht, Chan is already almost
shot by someone who's only just killed by Hadrachi's right-hand man
Lambert (Don Gordon). On the yacht, we find the usual collection of
suspects, amidst all of whom Hadrachi seems to be celebrating an endless
party, which is only interrupted every now and again when he has another
heart attack after dancing too much Sirtaki (he's Greek, what else would
he do?). Then someone, a certain George Lovell (Richard Dainard), is
murdered though, and suspicion immediately falls upon Adamson (Peter
Donat), a shady alleged businessman who has tried to get away with
Hadrachi's collection of jewels and Hadrachi's wife Ariane (Louise Sorel),
who just happens to be his girlfriend. The two of them didn't get far
though, and for the police the case soon is closed ... but Chan begs to
differ and soon finds evidence pointing to pretty much everywhere. This
eventually leads to the murder of Hadrachi's doctor (Ted Greenhalgh) by
none other than Chan's best friend Kidder (Richard Haydn), who has
apparently killed him out of jealousy because Kidder has originally
introduced Ariane to Hadrachi - but the film has lost me on that one. Anyways,
the whole story with Kidder and the doctor doesn't have anything to do
with the main case anyways, which apparently is about Hadrachi's son Paul
(Joseph Hindy) and his right-hand man Lambert wanting to keep a family
secret, that Hadrachi is suffering from Altzheimer's. Lovell though has
eventually been revealed to be a writer working on a story on Hadrachi,
and he would have exposed this to the world - so he had to die. In the
ending, everybody is impressed by the love Paul had to his father - as if
keeping a family secret would justify to go around and killing people ... This
attempt to reboot the Charlie Chan-series fails pretty much
on all accounts: Basically the mystery plot is way too convoluted and
overpopulated to even give the audience a clue of what's going on, then
the characters and their conflicts are all strictly soap opera material
and treated in the same superficial way, and on top of that, the solution
of the case leaves a lot to be desired, the killers' motives were weak,
and everyone's reaction to them almost deplorable. What's much worse
though is the film was not in the least entertaining, the humour that
pervaded earlier Charlie Chan-films is totally amiss here,
Chan himself is portrayed as onedimensionally as can be, and his kids
(Rocky Gunn, Virginia Ann Lee), usually the comic relief of the Chan-movies,
totally fail to shine. Add to this an extremely impersonal direction and a
weak cast, and you are left with, to put it into one word, a
disappointment.
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