Very Cool!!!

Excellent, a Must See

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Some supposedly bad folks live in a castle in the desert. We are privy to a murder, when a man who has had some friction with the principle characters, dies from a poison drink. Meanwhile, Charlie and Jimmy receive a cryptic message to come to the castle. The family, which are supposedly descendants of the Borgias, are shunned by their neighbors. Charlie gets someone to take him there against the wishes of others in the town and not long after that the number two son shows up like a bad penny. It turns out that this is one weird family. A private detective shows up shortly after and he is poisoned. I rather enjoyed the bleakness of this as well as the skeletons in the closet of these persons. It was quite entertaining.

Reclusive historian Paul Manderley lives in a a spooky castle replica on the Mojave Desert. His wife Lucy is a descendant of the infamous Borgia family who poisoned their way to power in Italy during the Renaissance. His doctor, lawyer, lawyers wife, butler, chauffeur, publisher, and historical researcher are all there. Thats a lot of people around for somebody who claims to enjoy his solitude as Manderley does. One of them is poisoned but the body is planted in a hotel room in Mojave Well a town 35 miles away.Manderley doesn't want to be bothered with a police investigation. Charlie Chan receives a request from Mrs Manderley to come to the castle and investigate.Leaving San Francisco and arriving at Mojave Wells he finds the hotel manager extremely hostile to anyone associated with the castle. When the limo from the castle and Charlie gets in another traveler emerges from the hotel and slides in the backseat next to Charlie. He is Watson King a New York City sculptor and art critic who has also received a summons from Mrs Manderley.Mr Manderley is quite irritated when the two men arrive. When it's discovered that the note summoning Charlie is a forgery and Lucy Manderley didn't ask him to come to the castle, Paul Manderley insists that both men immediately leave. However, the butler soon informs Mr Manderley that the distributor cap has been removed from the limo engine and the car will of course not start. Mr Manderley, reluctantly asks Charlie to investigate the strange happenings at the castle.Another private detective shows up. Number 2 son Jimmy Chan and a star gazer and psychic from the town sneak in through the basement torture chamber. Another guest is poisoned, and yet another is killed by the dart from a crossbow. Everything revolves around the 20 million dollar Manderley estate and who will have control of it.Charlie unmasks the real killer in the end.This is my favorite Charlie Chan film. It was the last film in the 20TH Century Fox Charlie Chan series. It was, in my opinion, the best of the Sidney Tolar Chan movies. The castle setting and basement torture chamber give the film a dark and eerie ambiance It also has three of my favorite mystery actors in the cast. Malevolent Henry Daniell is one of my favorite screen villains. Daniell could be menacing just taking a puff from a cigarette. Skeletal Milton Parsons was like a figure of death. No matter what kind of a role he played, he always seemed like a mortician.Ethel Griffie's repertoire of eccentric and unconventional ladies made her an audience favorite and her role as the desert fortune teller is one of the highlights of the movie. Castle in the Desert certainly is not perfect. The are plot holes, contradictions and discrepancies in the story. It becomes fairly obvious who the killer is very early in the story. Jimmy Chan is his irritating self. That said. Castle in the Desert is a very entertaining 58 minutes of mystery and suspense.

"Castle in the Desert" is noteworthy because it was the last of the Charlie Chan movies produced and released by 20th Century Fox. This one has the look of a Universal "B" horror film in that it set within the walls of a remote castle in the middle of the Mojave desert complete with a dungeon, a mysterious owner, shadowy halls, things that go bump in the night et al.Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) is summoned to the castle by a note apparently sent by Lucy Manderly (Lenita Lane) the wife the wife of the owner (Douglas Dumbrille) a mysterious partly masked eccentric. On his arrival Charlie and later No. 2 son (Victor Sen Yung) find that a guest has apparently been poisoned. Lucy Manderly it seems is a descendant of the notorious Borgia family so suspicion immediately falls onto her. Manderly we learn, is a student of Cesar Borgia and is living as a recluse in an isolated castle to replicate Borgia's life and to write a book about him.Also at the castle are suspects Carl Dethridge (Richard Derr) who is there researching a project, sculptor Watson Key (Henry Daniell), Madame Saturnia (Ethel Griffies) a seer who predicts tragedy, Dr. Retling (Steven Geray) the Manderlay's personal physician and their lawyer Walter Hartford (Edmund MacDonals and his comely young wife Brenda (Arleen Whelan).Attempts are made on the lives of some of the guests including Charlie. Charlie discovers a sinister plot to discredit Manderly and take over his $20 million dollar fortune. And then a key figure is murdered. As part of Charlie's investigation son Jimmy dons a suit of armor with hilarious results. Needless to say Charlie unravels the mystery, identifies the culprits and moves on.Although this was the last of the Fox Chans that had begun in 1931, the series would be resurrected 1944 by poverty row studio Monogram where it would run first with Toler until his death in 1947 and later with Roland Winters until 1949.

Not ONE of the other Charlie Chan films can touch this one! The casting is brilliant, the acting is superior, the cinematography is dramatic and, the location is PERFECT. Imagine that! A castle in the desert!This is a poisoning case, (sort of), and Charlie is summoned to help solve it. He's warned from going from the moment he's invited and, of course, one of his numerous sons (not quite so goofy as some others we've seen), tags along to watch out for his dear dad. Dark characters are everywhere and the sub-plots are above average.Fans of Charlie Chan films will drool over this one but the average viewer can enjoy this light mystery as well. The desert town, old vehicles, the landscapes, the castle, (and it's creepy accoutrements) are all about the coolest things you'll ever view in a black and white old-timey mystery film.