Black Magic (1944)

Director:

Phil Rosen

Writers:

Earl Derr Biggers (characters)
George Callahan (original screenplay)

Release Date:

19 August 1944 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Crime | Horror | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

Chan stalks a fiendish murderer!

Plot:

Charlie searches for a murderer amidst numerous ghosts conjured up by a strange variety of spiritualists and occultists.

Plot Keywords:

Butler | Charlie Chan | Psychic | Murderer | Occult

Cast

Sidney Toler	...	Charlie Chan
Mantan Moreland	...	Birmingham Brown
Frances Chan	...	Frances Chan
Joseph Crehan	...	Police Sgt. Matthews
Helen Beverly	...	Norma Duncan / Nancy Wood (as Helen Beverley)
Jacqueline deWit	...	Justine Bonner
Geraldine Wall	...	Harriet Green
Ralph Peters	...	Officer Rafferty
Frank Jaquet	...	Paul Hamlin
Edward Earle	...	Dawson, Police Lab
Claudia Dell	...	Vera Starkey
Harry Depp	...	Charles Edwards
Charles Jordan	...	Tom Starkey
Dick Gordon	...	William Bonner (as Richard Gordon)

Also Known As:

Meeting at Midnight (USA) (TV title)

Runtime:

67 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

USA:Approved | UK:A (original rating) | UK:PG (video rating) (2004)

Company:

Monogram Pictures

Trivia:

Actress Frances Chan didn't have to stretch too far in this role. She played a character named . . . Frances Chan!

Quotes:

Birmingham Brown: You know, after being here I could have an elegant time in a cemetary reading tombstones at midnight.

Movie Connections:

Follows Charlie Chan's Courage (1934)

Lowest of the Low

How do you shoot someone with no gun and no bullets? That's the mystery Charlie Chan has to solve in Black Magic (a.k.a. Meeting at Midnight). Helping him (sort of) are his assistant Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland), and for a change, his number one daughter (played by Frances Chan?). William and Justine Bonner make a living holding seances, where people can "contact" their recently departed loved ones. During one of these seances, William Bonner (Dick Gordon) is shot. Yet there is no gunshot and no bullet, only a bloodstain on his shirt. But our killer has more than one way of disposing of his victims. When Charlie finds one of the woman at the seance, Norma Duncan (Helen Beverly) in a deep trance, he suspects foul play. Consulting with police lab chemist Dawson (Edward Erle), he finds she was given a drug which will make a victim do anything her killer suggests. However, there is an antidote, which Dawson gives Charlie. All of this comes too late to save Justine Bonner (Jacqueline DeWit), however, who, under the influence of the drug, jumps off the roof of a building when told to do so by the killer. Charlie himself is kidnapped and forced to take the drug, but tricks the killer and takes the antidote as well. He comes to his senses standing on the ledge of the same building.

This is the best Chan movie I have seen among the Monograms. It has a strong storyline which rivals anything that Fox ever did. The acting is poor, but Monogram didn't have the money to hire great character actors.

Of course, it's also got something to offend everyone. Mantan Moreland was a talented comedian, but his performance will not endear himself to many black people. If they appeared in movies at all, black actors could only play butlers and porters, and the actresses were maids. An unwritten rule of the 30's and 40's was that black men all had to be afraid of their own shadow. Mantan is no exception, fearful of being attacked by spooks, and snapping his fingers to try and disappear.

Charlie Chan is perhaps the ultimate Asian stereotype, the inscrutable but always-polite Chinaman. But even in the Fox films there is racism. In Charlie Chan At the Opera, Charlie receives a message in Chinese. Dumb detective William Demerest: "What's that? A laundry list?" The fact that Charlie is bilingual in English and Chinese has no value. But Chan gets the last laugh in the end, solving the crime while the other detectives remain clueless.

Monogram was considered "the lowest of the low" among Hollywood studios. A director could put fear into many an actor's heart by threatening to sell his or her contract to Monogram. (When it happened to Lauren Bacall at Warner's, the story goes, she ran to Humphrey Bogart in tears.) Along with bad acting, you're going to see some extremely cheap sets. But if you can ignore all this and watch it for what it is, a 40's B-picture, you will enjoy it.