Charlie Chan in Reno
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Norman Foster
Sidney Toler
Ricardo Cortez
Phyllis Brooks
Slim Summerville
Kane Richmond
Photos & Videos
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Sparks fly at the Hotel Eldorado in Reno when Mary Whitman arrives to file for divorce from her husband Curtis and meets Curtis' intended, Jeanne Bently. When Jeanne taunts the defenseless Mary and insults Wally Burke, her former suitor, Mrs. Russell, the owner of the hotel, orders her to leave. Before she can finish packing her bags, however, Jeanne is murdered and Mary, arrested for the crime. Mary's arrest prompts her husband Curtis, a resident of Honolulu, to ask his old friend, Charlie Chan, for help. Charlie accompanies Curtis to Reno, where he meets Sheriff Fletcher, the bumbling law man investigating the case. After winning Mary's release on the grounds of lack of evidence, Charlie visits the murder room, where he finds Dr. Ainsley. Ainsley claims that he is looking for the money that Jeanne won on the night of her murder, suggesting that Burke killed her for her winnings. A search of the room by Charlie and his son Jimmy reveals Jeanne's scrapbook with the pages from the years 1935 and 1936 cut out, and Charlie to surmises that a pair of scissors was the murder weapon. Next, Charlie finds dirt particles on the dead woman's boots, which leads him to an abandoned mine shaft in a nearby ghost town. There, he finds an engineering kit and bank book belonging to George Bently, the dead woman's husband. Bently escapes, but is captured and accused of murder by Sheriff Fletcher, although Charlie is unconvinced of his guilt. Becoming intrigued by an acid burn on Mary's sleeve that matches a burn found in the rug in Jeanne's room, Charlie traces the acid to Ainsley. The case against the doctor intensifies when Police Chief King discovers that Jeanne had written checks to Ainsley and reveals that the missing pages in the scrapbook related to Jeanne's previous marriage to Mrs. Russell's late husband, whose death had been attended by Dr. Ainsley. Before the detectives can question Mrs. Russell, however, they find her strangled and Ainsley about to administer a hypodermic needle to her. Charlie pulls the needle from his hand and discovers poison in the syringe. Charlie then assembles all the murder suspects and announces that Jeanne had been paying Ainsley to keep silent about the fact that she murdered Russell. Charlie continues that he found the missing money in Ainsley's room, but before he finishes his explanation, Vivian Wells, the hotel's social director who is in love with Ainsley, protests his innocence. Charlie then traps Vivian into exposing a burn on her arm, proving that she murdered Jeanne during a struggle for the acid bottle.
Director
Norman Foster
Cast
Sidney Toler
Ricardo Cortez
Phyllis Brooks
Slim Summerville
Kane Richmond
Sen Yung
Pauline Moore
Eddie Collins
Kay Linaker
Louise Henry
Robert Lowery
Charles D. Brown
Iris Wong
Morgan Conway
Hamilton Macfadden
Arthur Rankin
Fred Kelsey
Virginia Sale
Harry Hayden
Dick Hogan
Barbara Maclain
Al Kikume
Ed Stanley
Stanley Blystone
Jack Perry
Bob Hale
Jimmy Aubrey
Imboden Parrish
Hank Mann
Crew
Fred Allen
William H. Anderson
Jasper Blystone
Richard Day
Bernard Freericks
David Hall
Herschel
Frances Hyland
Samuel Kaylin
Robert E. Kent
Thomas Little
Virgil Miller
Albert Ray
John Stone
Philip Wylie
Photo Collections
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The working title of this picture was Death Makes a Decree. It was based on the original screen story "Death Makes a Decree" by Philip Wylie and the character Charlie Chan created by Earl Derr Biggers and Robert E. Kent. According to materials contained in the Twentieth Century-Fox Produced Scripts Collection at the UCLA Theater Arts Library, Paul Perez wrote a version of the screenplay in December 1938, but his name does not appear in the final credits. In the Call Bureau Cast Service lists, Sheriff Fletcher's name was originally Foster, Mrs. Russell was named Alice Williamson and Choy Wong was named Sung Li. According to reviews in Hollywood Reporter and Motion Picture Herald, at the time that this picture was produced, this was the most expensive production in the Chan series. For additional information on the series, consult the Series Index and for Charlie Chan Carries On.
