Charlie Chan in Reno

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Charlie Chan in Reno
Directed by Norman Foster
Screenplay by Frances Hyland
Robert E. Kent
Albert Ray
Based on"Death Makes a Decree" by Philip Wylie
Produced by John Stone
Starring Sidney Toler
Cinematography Virgil Miller
Edited by Fred Allen
Music by Samuel Kaylin
Production
company
Distributed by20th Century Fox
Release date
  • June 16, 1939 (1939-06-16)
Running time
71 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Charlie Chan in Reno is a 1939 American mystery film directed by Norman Foster, starring Sidney Toler as the fictional Chinese-American detective Charlie Chan, based on an original story "Death Makes a Decree" by Philip Wylie.

Contents

Plot

Mary Whitman has arrived in Reno to obtain a divorce. While there, she is arrested on suspicion of murdering a fellow guest at her hotel (which specializes in divorcees).

There are many others at the hotel who wanted the victim out of the way. Charlie Chan travels from his home in Honolulu to Reno to solve the murder at the request of Mary's soon-to-be ex-husband. On arrival in Reno, Chan spars pleasantly with Sheriff Tombstone Fletcher, an old-timer who isn't up-to-date on modern police methods.

No. 2 Son Jimmy Chan's part in the case gets off to a rocky start. Driving to Reno to meet his father, he picks up some "friendly" hitch-hikers who steal his car, strip him to his underwear, and abandon him in the middle of nowhere. He is picked up for vagrancy, and his father first encounters him in a police lineup.

But Jimmy's friendship with a Chinese maid at the hotel later proves invaluable. Choy Wong had hidden a carpet burn in the murder room, fearing she would be discharged for carelessness. But it develops the burn is an unusual one caused by acid. Charlie exposes the murderer by revealing an acid burn on the arm that had been hidden by unfashionably long sleeves.

Chan also exposes the "respectable" Dr. Ainsley as a fortune hunter who had sought to poison one of his female patients for inheritance money.

Cast

Critical reception

Describing the Charlie Chan films as a "seemingly endless series" with "a certain monotony about [the] final tableaux," film critic Frank Nugent wrote in The New York Times that although "the divorce colony provides a new backdrop, the props are unchanged and the routine is the same," and reported that the film is "a passable little who-dunnit which you can [...] solve by dismissing all the folks who look guilty and selecting the one you're sure is innocent." [1]

References

  1. ↑ Nugent, Frank (1939-05-31). "THE SCREEN; Aided by His No. 2 Son, Charlie Chan Solves Another Murder in the Passable Who-Dunnit at the Globe". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Retrieved 2025-11-11.


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