gridoon2018 A very late entry in the long-running Charlie Chan series, "The Feathered Serpent" is cheap, dull and instantly forgettable. For some reason, it shows you who the bad guy is somewhere in the middle, thereby removing the element of mystery from a mystery movie! (although they do throw in a - literally - last minute surprise, for those who stick with the movie until the end, who I suspect are always fewer than those who start watching it). Another problem, which I have had with a couple of other Chan films I've watched, is that the supporting characters (outside of Chan's family and Birmingham) are not distinct enough for the viewer to tell them apart; and yet another is that the sound recording quality is poor and sometimes the lines sound garbled. When you can hear them clearly, admittedly there are a couple of great ones, my favorite being "Number One Son very clever now and then. Must be then!" *1/2 out of 4.

Hitchcoc This is a somewhat entertaining little venture. Charlie's eldest sons accompany him into the Mexican jungle to try to find an archaeologist who has disappeared while searching for an ancient ruin. As it turns out, there are other guys who would like to accomplish the same thing and they are holding him prisoner. He has knowledge they want. An expedition set up by the guy's sister heads into the jungle. Once again, the old "light- goes-out-and-someone-gets murdered" bit is used. This time an oil lamp gets put out. Anyway, the bad guy are knuckleheads. People's lives are simply a part of the landscape. Killing doesn't seem to bother anyone. Two other things. In this one, Birmingham (Mantan Moreland) is really tiresome. His whole fear thing really gets tiresome. Secondly, has anyone ever wondered why Charlie Chan is wearing a three piece suit and tie in the jungles of Mexico. At one point he mops his brow. My goodness, he should be on the point of passing out. Just a thought.

Michael O'Keefe Oriental detective Charlie Chan(Roland Winters)with chauffeur Birmingham Brown(Mantan Moreland)and both #1 son Lee(Keye Luke)and #2 son Tommy(Victor Sen Yung)is on vacation headed to Mexico City when a struggling man collapses in their view. The man is Prof. Farnsworth(Leslie Denison), who has been missing since his search for fabled Aztec treasures. Before being stabbed to death he reveals his son is held hostage and his daughter Joan(Beverly Jons)hires Chan to now find him. Since Winters signed on as the revered Chan the franchise has rapidly lost enthusiasm and popularity. You would think that the one positive thing being the first movie with Luke and Yung together would save face; but the predictable script only have the brothers providing some comic relief with Brown. Other players: Robert Livingston, Carol Forman and George J. Lewis.

classicsoncall "The Feathered Serpent" is unique among Charlie Chan films for a number of reasons. For one, we learn the identity of the master criminal well before the movie's end. Professor John Stanley (Robert Livingston) has kidnapped colleague Henry Farnsworth to learn the location of an ancient Aztec treasure. Only Farnsworth can decipher the Aztec hieroglyphics that may reveal the location of the riches. Perhaps even more meaningful for fans of the Chan series, Keye Luke has returned after an eleven year absence to reprise his role as Number #1 Son Lee. The last time Luke appeared in a Chan film was in 1937's "Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo", then with Warner Oland in the title role; he had never appeared in a Sidney Toler Chan film. On top of that, this is the only pairing of Keye Luke with Victor Sen Yung, who again appears as Number #2 Son Tommy (although he was Number #2 Son Jimmy in all the Sidney Toler Chan films in which he worked). The movie takes it's name from the ancient Aztec practice of worshiping a feathered snake or serpent. It's a bit difficult getting used to Roland Winters' speech pattern as the Chinese detective in this film, it seems a bit more exaggerated than in his earlier pictures. And I can't imagine why the film makers chose to have Chan run around the Mexican wilderness in his trademark white suit and hat, when a safari suit would have made a lot more sense. The end of the movie plays a lot more like an Abbott and Costello film than a Charlie Chan picture. There's a lot of animated fighting and the Chan brothers actually get a bit violent in pummeling the bad guys, particularly Tommy who repeatedly pounds his opponents' head against a stone step inside the discovered temple; it's actually quite gruesome if you analyze what's going on. But probably the most off kilter moment comes when Charlie himself warns his party to be careful in handling a weapon intended for himself - "Poison dart probably dipped in poison".