"Dangerous Money" is an aptly named Charlie Chan film in which Sidney Toler's character investigates a pair of murders relating to illegal trading in "hot money" and stolen art. The action takes place aboard the S.S. Newcastle heading to Australia via Samoa. Along for the ride are Number #2 Son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) and assistant Chattanooga Brown (Willie Best). Charlie doesn't have much time to solve the case as he's committed to another investigation on arrival in Sydney. Be prepared for more uncomfortable racial insinuations, as Jimmy converses with Chattanooga via walkie talkie using the code names "Chop Suey 108" and "Pork Chop 711". Once again Chan/Toler demonstrates his dancing skill in a film; in "Red Dragon", he cut a mean rumba, here he slows it down a bit, but still quite smoothly with a shipboard waltz.
Passenger Rona Simmonds (Gloria Warren) and ship's pursar George Brace (Joseph Allen) are hiding a secret for which she is being blackmailed. She is traveling with false papers, smuggled on board in an attempt to identify art stolen from her banker father. International businessman P.T. Burke (Dick Elliott) uses his position to extort a valuable necklace from Simmonds, but as we've seen before, there is another villain masterminding the action from a loftier height. He is flushed out by Charlie in a convenient "lights out" scene intended to add to the confusion.
I have to admit, it's difficult to follow most Charlie Chan films without keeping a personal scorecard, and even so, the revelation of the killer almost always comes as a surprise. Chan himself best expresses this in a line from the film - "Kangaroo reaches destination also by leaps and bounds".
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