Monogram Monday: Dark Alibi (1946)

An ex-con who has been convicted of murder and bank robbery has just nine days left before his execution, but fortunately for him, Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) volunteers to help prove his innocence before time runs out. The man had been convicted largely based on the fact that his fingerprints were found at the scene …

Monogram Monday: The Shadow Returns (1946)

Kane Richmond stars as Lamont Cranston in the first entry in a short Monogram series about the Shadow, with Barbara Read co-starring as Margo Lane (here explicitly Cranston’s fiancée,). A moderately interesting situation — jewels smuggled inside a casket and fatal falls — is squandered by weak writing. Fans of magazine and radio show alike …

Monogram Monday: The Shanghai Cobra (1945)

Charlie Chan investigates when bank employees are inexplicably murdered by cobra venom, and the sleuth (Sidney Toler) suspects a connection to a pre-war case that involved the same means. Adding interest to the setting is a “jukebox” which allows the patron to place a request to a live disc jockey — and this device forms …

Monogram Monday: The Scarlet Clue (1945)

A building housing an experimental radio-television station and a nearby research laboratory is the central location for this Charlie Chan mystery. As the detective (Sidney Toler) investigates a murder tied in with the station’s staff and performers, he suspects that someone may be targeting the improved radar being developed in the lab. There are a …