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Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen
USA 1981
produced by Jerry Sherlock, Alan Belkin (executive), Michael Leone (executive) for American Cinema Productions
directed by Clive Donner
starring Peter Ustinov, Lee Grant, Angie Dickinson, Richard Hatch, Brian Keith, Roddy McDowall, Rachel Roberts, Michelle Pfeiffer, Paul Ryan, Johnny Sekka, Bennett Ohta, David Hirokane, Karlene Crockett, Michael Fairman, James Ray, Momo Yashima
story by Jerry Sherlock, screenplay by David Axelrod, Stan Burns, based on characters created by Earl Derr Biggers, music by Patrick Williams
Charlie Chan
review by Mike Haberfelner
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San Francisco: Someone is committing a series of freakish murders, and
famed detectivee Charlie Chan's (Peter Ustinov) klutzy grandson Lee
(Richard Hatch) feels obliged to investigate, much to the dismay of his
grandmother Mrs Lupwitz (Lee Grant), whose husband's murder Charlie solved
decade ago - though not without creating a scandal concerning hubby's
sexual relationship with his later murderer Dragon Queen (Angie
Dickinson). Since Lee's wedding to Cordelia (Michelle Pfeiffer) is only
days away, Charlie Chan comes to San Francisco to attend - and police
inspector Baxter (Brian Keith) asks Chan to work on the freak murder case
pretty much right away. Besides that, the Dragon Queen has been released
from prison and makes attempt after attempt on Charlie's life. This
though is only the set-up, what follows are a few murders and chases and
the like before Lee and Cordelia are kidnapped right before their wedding
but saved by Charlie, who oon enough has the police arrest the Dragon
Queen, but then reveals the person who committed the murders to be Mrs
Lupowitz, who did it to have her revenge on Charlie for creating a scandal
when solving her husband's murder, and she thought it best to commit the
perfect crime to this end. She failed. Roddy McDowall can be seen as Mrs
Lupowitz' wheelchair-bound butler, Rachel Roberts as her paranoid maid. A
trainwreck of a movie. Apparently this was intended to be a spoof of the Charlie
Chan series of old or at least a comedy based on the series'
characters. Unfortunately though, the film fails miserably because it
simply isn't funny: The script tries so hard to cram in bad old joke after
bad old joke it's almost pathetic, and Clive Donner's directorial effort
so sadly lacks comic timing it's surprising he ever was allowed to make
another movie - every Charlie Chan movie of old written by
some hack writers, directed by some third-rate filmaker is funnier,
actually, a lot funnier. On top of that, the slapstick sequences al seem
unnecessarily cheaply made. And how a pretty decent cast did get suckered
into this is beyond my comprehension, above everybody else Peter Ustinov,
back then already a director of quite some repute and respectability - but
his rendition of a Chinaman isn't even good, not living up to Warner
Oland, Sidney Toler or even Roland Winters. Complete waste of time.
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