CHARLIE CHAN IN MONTE CARLO (1936)

CAST:

Warner Oland:  Charlie Chan

Keye Luke:  Lee Chan

Virginia Field:  Evelyn Grey

Sidney Blackmer:  Victor Karnoff

Harold Huber:  [Inspector] Jules [Etienne] Joubert

Kay Linaker:  Jean Karnoff

Robert Kent:  Gordon Chase

Edward Raquello:  Paul Savarin

George Lynn:  Al Rogers (also called Albert Rogers)

Louis Mercier:  Taxi Driver

George Davis:  Pepite (First Gendarme)

John Bleifer: Ludwig [Krauss]

George Renavent:  Renault

Constant Franke, Andre Cheron:  Croupiers (neither credited)

Joseph Romantini, Albert Pollet:  Attaches (neither credited)

Victor Delinsky, Alphonse Martell, Louis Lubitch, Robert Graves,

            George Sorel, Jean Perry:  Gendarmes (none credited)

Jean De Briac, Manuel Paris:  Doormen (neither credited)

Eugene Borden:  Hotel Clerk (not credited)

Gennaro Curci, Antonio Filauri, John Picorri:  Waiters (none credited)

Sherry Hall:  Bartender (not credited)

Marcelle Corday:  Concierge (not credited)

Leo White: French Butler  (not credited)

Emile Bistagne (not credited)

Art Dupuis (not credited)

Harold Huber’s line:   “He collapsed with death!” 

Lee’s “French” lands the two of them in the Monte Carlo jail while Harold Huber’s French shows his French forebears.  (Huber may have been at least partially schooled in a boarding school in that country.)

Karnoff and Savaran played Chemin de Fer.[1]

Where does Evelyn Gray (Virginia Field) get off asking Karnoff for some of his money because she “just feels lucky?”  Out of the blue like that?

[Since she was between Kanroff and Savaran, maybe she was playing the two men against her middle?!?!]

Harold Huber’s accent isn’t as irritating here as in City in Darkness and his French sounds at least passable.

Savaran is staying at the Hotel Imperial and where Harold Huber puts up the Chans.

Their hotel number in Nice was 125.  It was Ausust 25.  Lee was 25.  This was his sure “hunch” that his winning number at the craps table would be 25.

That’s also where Joan Karnoff goes to get the bonds she gave to Al Rogers—He blackmailed her because they were married 7 years before and he hadn’t divorced her like she’d heard.

She needs to get them back since their supposed to be a part of a bond shipment her husband is sending to Paris by way of a Nice airport.

Joan Karnoff orders a Benedictine at the bar the first time she tries to get the bonds back from Al Rogers.  The couple next to her ordered a “cocktail de Bonx.”

A “cocktail de Bronx” was made with red and white vermouth, 2 shots of gin, orange juice, and shaken.

Lee orders strawberries and cream and ham and eggs for breakfast in French while Charlie struggles to ask the waiter for “Waffels!”  He ends up with a circular crossword puzzle!

Pepito was the 1^st gendarme that the Chans meet on the road to Nice, who was he and the taxi driver?

They were the two burglars, with the girl, in City of Darkness. 

What are the figures on Joan Karnoff’s sweater?

[Mother wants to know if Kay Linaker got to save any of her clothes from this—or any other!—Chans?!?!]

What did Lee do between this movie and the Feathered Serpent?

BACKGROUND:  Warner Oland’s “drug” addiction (probable alcoholism) required that his work be recorded in one, no more then two, shots before he passed out before lunch.  He probably needed what would now be prompt cards.  Doubles may have also been used for him in the long shots.  Courtesy of Sen Yung and Kay Linaker

TECHNICAL BLOOPER:  The phone on Huber’s desk rings for a second after he picks it up.

TECHNICAL BLOOPER:  The scene at the end when Gordon Chase runs away—You watch it in slow motion and his figure just disappears immediately after the car hits him.

BONUS QUESTION (COURTESY OF RUSH GLICK):  Which has more of a French feel in the Chan movies: Paris, Monte Carlo, or City in Darkness?

MURDER RATE: 

Renault, the bank messenger

Ludwig, the Karnoff chauffeur

Al Rogers, the Hotel Imperial bartender—by Gordon Chase.

RUSH’S NOTE:  This was Warner Oland’s last film.  Oland began “Charlie Chan at the Ringside” in January of 1938, but production was halted when the actor walked off the set on the 17^th of that month.  According to news items, there was a dispute between Oland and the studio.