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12 out of 13 people found the following review useful: A treasured artifact from the age of the ancient Americans, 13 May 2007 Author: Gary170459 from Derby, UK
This has always been one of my favourite Warner Oland Chan's, made even more suitably murky and mysterious by the passage of time and the way it's been handled since it was made.Charlie's in Egypt to track down the person responsible for leaking valuable ancient artifacts into European collections, finding murder as well. With some fantastic atmospheric sets as backdrop and a great cast he and the ever dependable Thomas Beck act as a team to get to the bottom of the mystery and nab the culprit. Every other post has highlighted the main problem with it: Stepin Fetchit. It's a shame they put him in but it's not a problem to me as I don't watch it for him shuffling and mumbling along but for the main story unfolding around the rest of the cast. His major scenes could easily be cut out or altered to save everyone's black and white blushes today - but where would you stop? Airbrush cigarettes, smoke and alcohol, cgi over carbon non-neutral cars or low efficiency lightbulbs, even change Oland to a white Swede and superimpose a black superhero in goodie Beck's place to engage a more proactive and socially inclusive demographic, erase mention of Egypt to try to disguise the colonial connotations etc? And of course if we went that far also add plenty of mindless graphic sex and violence because that's OK in todays crazy world; the Nazis would have simply burned all the prints of this and everything considered similar and revised the history books.With all its faults I'm grateful for what we've got – some of the early Chan's are lost forever – at the very least for an insight into the human mental condition as it existed in Hollywood in 1935 but more for as it exists around the world today. If you really don't like it you could campaign for its destruction, but if you like watching pre WW2 b&w middle brow detective movies containing innumerable dead people like this like me watch it without angst as a good film.
14 out of 20 people found the following review useful: The Good & Bad Of 'Charlie Chan In Egypt', 24 August 2006 Author: ccthemovieman-1 from Lockport, NY, United States
I did not like this one on the first viewing, but I had a very bad tape which didn't help. With the DVD (part of recent Chan Collection that came out in 2006) I enjoyed this more, thanks, in part to have the option of English subtitles.I still think this is a slightly sub-par Warner Oland-edition Charlie Chan, but only because I think so highly of the other films. It did have some excellent suspense and strange characters and is known because of the appearance of young Rita Cansino who would go on to star status as Rita Hayworth.THE BAD - None of Charlie's kids are here to help him out, and that's a loss. Instead, for humor, we have Stepin Fetchit with his mumbling drawl and unfunny character (unlike Mantan Moreland in later Chans, even though both are horrible black stereotypes of the day.) Worse than the above, we have a shrill, hysterical female lead character , "Carol Arnold" (Pat Paterson) who got on my nerves, big-time! That's almost another stereotype of the period: women who fall apart easily and act like overemotional cripples. After a few of these outbursts, I just hit the mute button when she went into her act. She had a brother in here who was almost as bad except he had far fewer lines. Also in here was the typical thing you saw more of in the '30s than in modern films: stories that dealt with the occult and a lot of superstitions. THE GOOD - The action was pretty good and this story gave us more of the weird suspects than what is normally provided. Not only weird people but strange scenes. Combine those with the usual Chan witticism's, profound statements and uncommon courtesy he gives everyone, and it's an entertaining film. I would never have recognized Hayworth if I hadn't been informed it was her. She played a dark-haired Egyptian woman. If you froze some frames and looked carefully enough, you could be convinced it was her, but it wasn't easy. She certainly wasn't the incredible beauty she would be in the next decade.
6 out of 6 people found the following review useful: Fairly good, uneven, some loose ends., 9 August 2006 Author: gazzo-2 from United States
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
I enjoyed watching this. Had no idea that Rita Hayworth(!) was the young Egyptian girl(she was all of 17 at most there), thought the 'real killer' wasn't as believable as perhaps Red Herring #1-Ahmadi or Dr. Kenosha Racine, and like the rest here, had some real problems with Stepin Fetchit.Mantan Moreland, 'Feets Don't Fail Me Now', whether you like him or not, was at least funny and not so grating. Fetchit's just hard to take, listen to, watch. And that's a shame, you can tell the guy was a decent comic and physical comedian. Anyways, others have already beat this one to death here.I liked the donkey-riding scene, the Scooby Doo business inside the tomb is eerie, and there's some fine atmospheric setpieces here and there. Parts of the movie just don't hang together well w/ it-and you wonder(besides the obvious cheesecake shots) just why they spent so much time on the Hayworth character watching Chan and the Violin test. Seems like they cut some scenes out or just never got around to tying up the loose ends.It's still worth watching of course. Just be ready to wince whenever they bring in 'Snowshoes'.**1/2 outta ****
6 out of 7 people found the following review useful: Great horror-mystery!, 16 April 2000 Author: admjtk1701 from New York, NY
Warner Oland does it again with a great performance as Chan. This one also has a great setting and creepy atmosphere. It is set at a newly excavated Egyptian tomb with all the trappings. There are some genuinely scary sequences creeping around the tomb at night. A young Rita Hayworth (billed as Rita Cansino) has a small part. The only drawback for me is the stereotyped portrayal by Stephin Fechit. He is hard to understand and very annoying at times. The performances by Mantan Moreland and Willie Best in the much later Monogram Chans serve the same niche as Fechit's "Snowshoes" character, but come off much better and are funny in the same way Lou Costello or Curly Howard are funny. But this does not harm the picture. Another one to see over and over again just for the atmosphere if nothing else.
4 out of 4 people found the following review useful: Spooky fun, as Chan investigates strange goings on at archaeological site, 31 December 2007 Author: mlraymond from Durham NC
Watching this film recently, after not seeing it for many years, I couldn't help but be struck by the opening scene of the scientists exploring a mysterious tomb and think that this must have been a big influence on Woody Allen's Purple Rose of Cairo.It's a bit slow, but the location shots of Egyptian backgrounds are fun, and the whole horror movie atmosphere of curses and dreadful secrets, obviously borrowing from Universal's 1932 The Mummy, is great.The movie has plenty of atmosphere, with some genuine suspense and a clever mystery that provides some real surprises.The controversial element of Stepin Fetchit's character Snowshoes has been written about by nearly every poster. Though very politically incorrect by today's standards, I have to admit laughing at some of his lines and actions, as the fact is simply that he is often very funny, even if we're not supposed to find him so today. I cringed often at the demeaning way he is treated by most of the other characters except Charlie Chan, and at times he is down right embarrassing, but like it or not, he does add something to the entertainment value of the picture, even if only for historical reasons.This is a pretty entertaining movie, if you can manage to keep an open mind about the various ethnic stereotypes involved. When you get right down to it, most of the white characters in it don't come off looking too good, either, especially the neurotic heroine, played shrilly by Pat Paterson.
6 out of 8 people found the following review useful: Under the influence of mapuchari - or drugs in the desert!, 11 May 2002 Author: Jim Tritten from Corrales, NM
Warner Oland works on behalf of French Archaeological Society concerning Egyptian antiquities being sold to private collectors and rival museums. Before the case is solved, Chan will uncover and solve a murder and avoid being done in. Mystery is pretty straight forward with fewer misleading clues than most of this series. "Theory like mist on eyeglasses -- obscures facts." Chan still (as usual) does not reveal all until the end although this time with the paucity of suspects it is more likely that you can guess the guilty party. Story relies more on travelog-type shots, similarity to real-life and contemporary film mysteries about mummies and tombs, and basic lectures on how X-rays work and archaeology to keep interest. It works. Pat Paterson (Charles Boyer's real life wife) does a credible job as the damsel in distress and under the influence of cannabis. Stepin Fetchit's role as a bug-eyed dim-witted servant will upset modern viewers and probably served as comic relief to contemporary audiences. Although an unrecognizable Rita Cansino (Rita Hayworth's real last name) is given a credit at the beginning of the film, she hardly has any lines. Not as good as Charlie Chan in London or Paris, but one that dedicated fans will not want to miss. Recommended.
6 out of 8 people found the following review useful: The real Charlie Chan, 2 October 1999 Author: lousvr from NYC
This, one of the early films, has charm, naivete, and atmosphere that the later ones lack. The King Tut discovery still had long reaching effects and people's interest. Of course, the other quality it possesses is Warner Oland, the first(well known) and best actor to portray Charlie Chan. The reference 'inscrutable' truly applies. Where the later portrayals, for many reasons, had become caricatures, and eventually cheap B-movie(2nd film) matinee 'fill-ins'.
5 out of 7 people found the following review useful: Charlie Chan in Egypt: entertaining but uneven, 2 June 2006 Author: Phil Muse from United States
The texture of this movie is as lumpy as the crunchiest peanut butter. The problem lies partly in the conventional 1930's Hollywood wisdom that audiences couldn't be trusted to sit through 60-70 minutes of suspense and sleuthing unless you provided comic relief. Too often, as here, the comic element was totally extraneous to the story. Enough has been said by other commentators about Stepin Fetchit's unwelcome presence. Stupid, lazy, and cowardly, his "coon" stereotype was the answer to a white supremacist's dream. More to the point, he isn't even very funny here. His character fits in with Warner Oland's Charlie Chan like oil and water. One anticipated comic scene in which the bazaar merchant shows SF the long-lost tomb of his "ancestors" fails to materialize. (If it was ever shot, it probably ended up on the cutting room floor.) Paul Porcasi's fastidiously polite Inspector Fouad also seems superfluous. One longs for the presence of Keye Luke in this movie, as the best humor in the Charlie Chan series always came out of Charlie's natural interaction with his sons.The other problem with Charlie Chan in Egypt is thin plotting. Why should Professor Thurston need to kill his nephew Barry and attempt to kill his niece Carol with the mysterious drug "mapuchari" when he has already hidden away the treasures of the 21st Dynasty in a secret room? It seems that Charlie is not given enough clues to go on when he reveals Thurston as the murderer. Actually, the bulk of the evidence, such as it is, seems to point to the major-domo Edfu Ahmad, played by the sinister-looking Nigel de Brulier. As a direct descendant of the High Priest Amete, he has a vested interested in saving his tomb from desecration by foreigners. And what is a teenaged Rita Hayworth doing here as the servant girl Nayda, peeping through the shrubbery as Charlie investigates Barry's murder? Is she is league with Edfu Ahmad, or merely getting some screen exposure while adding her decorative presence to the proceedings? Also, the complicity of the chemist Daoud Atrash is not made clear. He claims ignorance of the drug mapuchari, but is he on the level? If Atrash didn't provide Thurston with the drug, who did? In the last analysis, this is not among the the strongest films in the Chan series due to its unevenness. This in spite of the truly eerie tomb setting, which recalls the chills we got in no less a picture than the original Boris Karloff classic The Mummy.
2 out of 2 people found the following review useful: Almost One of the Best Charlie Chans, 14 July 2008 Author: JohnHowardReid
"Waiting for tomorrow, waste of today!" and other Chan aphorisms account for just a small portion of the delightful entertainment afforded by this eleventh offering in the 47-picture series. But for one distressing lapse, it might even rank as the best. That lapse is Mr Stepin Fetchit, about whom the less said, the better. Fortunately, his role is small, although, alas, it's considerably larger than that enjoyed by the lovely Rita Hayworth who seems to have spent most of her Fox sojourn posing for charming stills. Her role in the actual movie is inconsequential although she does manage to exchange a few lines with Warner Oland. Otherwise, all she does is to hover in the background of a few scenes.Oland, of course, is in top form, but so are the other players, and even more importantly the Robert Ellis-Helen Logan script comes across as a real winner. Although the identity of the killer will fail to stump many viewers, the puzzle is admirably contrived and the plot worked out with commendable pace, precision and power.This is no "B" picture. The sets are stunning. Daniel Clark's noirishly atmospheric photography also deserves special mention and even the normally humdrum director, Louis King (brother of Henry King) has risen to the occasion.
4 out of 6 people found the following review useful: Nice entry in the series, 6 March 2005 Author: bensonmum2 from Tennessee
Charlie Chan arrives in Egypt and, as expected, a murder soon takes place. The murder in Charlie Chan in Egypt is among the most clever than I've seen in a Chan film. And, Chan's method of discovering how the murder was committed is equally clever. The mystery here is fairly straight forward without a lot of red herrings.The sets in Charlie Chan in Egypt are among the best of the entire series. The Pharaoh's tomb is very impressive.Two notes on the cast - first, look for Rita Hayworth (under her real name) playing a servant girl. She doesn't add much to the story, but it's interesting none the less. Second, There is a lot of criticism of the Stepin Fetchit character. While I understand and can see the racist stereotype, that is not as much of a problem with me as the character in general. He seems out of place. I find nothing he does to be funny or enjoyable. It's only annoying to me.
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