Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise (1940)

When the famous Chinese detective Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) is approached by a Scotland Yard colleague (C. Montague Shaw) for help in solving the case of a serial strangler, he is more than happy to help. But when the colleague is murdered by the strangler, Chan takes it upon himself to find the killer. Based on CHARLIE CHAN CARRIES ON by Earl Derr Biggers and directed by Eugene Forde. The premise of Charlie Chan traveling on a cruise ship from Honolulu to San Francisco with a host of murder suspects is intriguing. Unfortunately, the result is rather lackluster. The Biggers source material had been filmed previously under its original title in 1931 but is now  considered a lost film. There's an overdose of unnecessary comic relief and while humor has always been part and parcel of the Chan films, here it merely gets in the way of the actual mystery. There's also a sloppiness in the writing that's irritating. For example, with a murderer on board surely Chan would take the simple precaution of locking a door when dealing with a crucial piece of evidence but no, the killer walks in, bops Chan on the head and walks off with the evidence. With Lionel Atwill, Leo G. Carrroll, Victor Sen Yung, Marjorie Weaver, Robert Lowery, Cora Witherspoon, Don Beddoe and Kay Linaker.