Castle in the Desert (1942)
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Private Detective Philip Marlowe is hired by a rich family. Before the complex case is over, he's seen murder, blackmail, and what might be love.
Charlie visits a wealthy country home in England. Suspects in the murder range from a housekeeper to a stableman to a lawyer.
Allen Colby, heir to a huge fortune, is presumed drowned after an ocean liner sinks off the coast of Honolulu. Mysteriously, Colby reappears at his mansion only to be murdered soon after. When his body is discovered during a seance, everyone in attendance becomes a suspect, and it's up to Chan to find the murderer before he or she strikes again.
When a prominent official is murdered at a banquet honoring Charle Chan, the detective and son Lee team up to expose an opium-smuggling ring.
While visiting the circus with his family, Charlie is recruited by the big top's co-owner to investigate threatening letters that he's received.
Charlie's visit to Paris, ostensibly a vacation, is really a mission to investigate a bond-forgery racket. But his agent, apache dancer Nardi is killed before she can tell him much. The case, complicated by a false murder accusation for banker's daughter Yvette, climaxes with a strange journey through the Paris sewers.
Robert Mitchum's first take as Raymond Chandler's detective Philip Marlowe.
A pair of murders in Rio de Janiero leads the local police to call the famed detective. Charlie is puzzled, at first, when it appears that one of the murderers is killed by the first victim's widow.
A retired ex-cop and private detective gets mixed up in murder when he is asked to deliver blackmail money and walks into a 20 year old case involving the mysterious disappearance of an actress' former husband.
Sir George hires Hillary Gatt to find out more about Eric who wants to marry Lois. Gatt is murdered and the couple, married, run off to India. Old friend John Beetham sympathizes with the bride who sees that her hubby is a liar and drunk. John and Lois fly to San Francisco. Eric shows up and tries to kill John, but Scotland Yard's Lt. Charlie Chan intervenes. Chan fans may be disappointed in this globe-trotting mystery, however, as the detective (played by Korean actor E.L. Park) only appears in a few scenes.The film is more noteworthy for its introduction of Boris Karloff to sound features, in a small role as a servant from Sudan who mutters inscrutable nonsense about the whims of the desert.
Two members of a show troupe are murdered, and Charlie Chan is called in to solve the case.
A wax museum run by a demented doctor contains statues of such crime figures as Jack the Ripper and Bluebeard. In addition to making wax statues the doctor performs plastic surgery. It is here that an arch fiend takes refuge. The museum also houses a statue of Charlie. Frustrated number-two son kicks statue in rear; oops, number-two son wrong in his assumption
Returning from European exile where she avoided testifying against her criminal associates, a former singer with a tell-all diary is murdered to insure her silence.
Although Charlie and Lee are in Monaco for an art exhibit, they become caught up in a feud between rival financiers which involves the Chans in a web of blackmail and murder.
A gold mine in Arizona, that was formerly losing a lot of money, suddenly turns into a veritable money-making machine. However, the owner, instead of being happy about his now profitable business, insists to Charlie that something is fishy and that someone is out to murder him. Charlie and his "crew" travel to the mine, pretending to be tourists staying at a nearby dude ranch so as not to arouse suspicion, and discover that the owner may well be right--it looks like the mine is being used as a cover for criminal activities, and that someone is indeed out to murder him.
On a cruise ship from Honolulu to San Francisco, the famous Chinese detective encounters four more murders while trying to figure out the murder of a Scotland Yard friend.
After three men are convicted of bank robberies, Charlie becomes suspicious. After some investigation Charlie finds the men are innocent and that the fingerprint evidence used to convict them had been forged. Charlie then proceeds to find the true bank robbers.
Lionel Twain has invited the five greatest detectives to a "dinner and murder." How can they resist? Included are a blind butler, a deaf-mute maid, screams, spinning rooms, secret passages, false identities, and more plot turns and twists than are decently allowed.
While Charlie is distracted with the birth of his first grandchild, son Jimmy impersonates his father in order to investigate a murder aboard a freighter in the harbor.
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A treasure map in four pieces, the ghost of a hanged pirate, a talking parrot, and a shipful of red herrings complicate Charlie's search for a murderer on board a treasure cruise.
A dangerous amnesiac escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the opera house to wreak revenge on those who tried to murder him seven years earlier.
Movie star Sheila Fayne is seeing wealthy Alan Jaynes while filming in Honolulu, Hawaii, but won't marry him without consulting famed psychic Tanaverro first. Tanaverro confronts her about the unsolved murder of fellow film star Denny Mayo three years earlier, and she decides to reject Jaynes' proposal. When Sheila is found shot to death in her beach-front pavilion, Charlie Chan of the Honolulu Police investigates.
The LaFontanne Chemical Company is shipping out a load of we're not sure what, disguised as something entirely different. Mr. Pereaux and Mr. Grock don't want that shipment to ever arrive anywhere, and they and a man named Aquirre mean to stop it at any cost. The ship's owner, Mr. Fontanne, smells a large rat and calls Chan in on the case
Ford "Mr. Rock n' Roll Detective" Fairlane is experiencing problems, and it's not with the opposite sex. One of them is that all the rock stars pay him with drum sticks, koala bears, food processors and bicycle shorts. Another one of them is that all his employers that want him to find a girl named Zuzu Petals get killed. Why didn't he become a fisherman's detective instead?
Spoofing the entire 1940s detective genre, and his own performances as a bumbling private detective, Peter Falk plays Lou Pekinpaugh, a San Francisco private detective accused of murdering his partner at the instigation of his mistress, the partner's wife, Georgia Merkle.
A small, seemingly innocuous plastic reel of film leads surveillance specialist Tom Welles down an increasingly dark and frightening path. With the help of the streetwise Max, he relentlessly follows a bizarre trail of evidence to determine the fate of a complete stranger. As his work turns into obsession, he drifts farther and farther away from his wife, family and simple life as a small-town PI.
The classic Raymond Chandler tale retold with Mitchum taking over the Bogart role.
While investigating the theft of antiquities from an ancient tomb excavation , Charlie discovers that the body of the expedition's leader concealed inside the mummy's wrappings.
Charlie impersonates an employee of the U.S. government to foil an espionage plot which would destroy part of the Panama Canal, trapping a Navy fleet on its way to the Pacific after maneuvers in the Atlantic.
Chan goes to Paris for a reunion with friends from World War I. There he investigates the murder of a munitions manufacturer who was supplying arms to the enemy. At the end Charlie preaches to us about the dangers of peace conferences.
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Damien Thorn is dead, but his prophecy is reborn in a girl named Delia, who is adopted by two attorneys, Gene & Karen York. When Karen realises her baby was born under suspicious circumstances, she hires a private investigator to find Delia's real parents. A series of bizarre accidents occur, and Karen begins to suspect everyone of conspiring her as she unravels the truth about her baby.
Charlie Chan is an agent of the U.S. government working in Washington DC and he is assigned to investigate the murder of the inventor of a highly advanced torpedo. Aiding Chan is his overeager but dull-witted Number Three son Tommy (Benson Fong) and his Number Two Daughter Iris Chan (Marianne Quon).
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A treasury agent on the trail of counterfeit money confides to fellow ocean liner passenger, Charlie Chan, that there have been two attempts on his life.
Johnnie Hill plays Velvet Smooth in this soft-core crime meller. The slinky Ms. Smooth is head of a private detective agency, specializing in protecting the unprotectable. Her current client is in deep with a murderous numbers racket. So Velvet Smooth goes undercover (and occasionally under covers) to smash the ring. An "R" rating hardly covers it.
A lovely dame with dangerous lies employs the services of a private detective, who is quickly caught up in the mystery and intrigue of a statuette known as the Maltese Falcon.
Los Angeles private-eye Philip Marlowe is trying to locate the brother of his new client, a woman named Orfamay Quest. The trail leads to two men who deny any knowledge of the brother's existence. Both are soon killed by an ice pick, so Marlowe deduces that there's much more to this than a simple missing-person case. Marlowe's path crosses that of a blackmailed movie star, Mavis Wald, and her friend, exotic dancer Delores. A mobster sends karate expert Winslow Wong to bust up Marlowe's office and warn him off the case, while Lieutenant French also cautions the detective to stay out of the police's way.
In order to learn the location of a fabled Aztec treasure, a professor kidnaps his colleague, the only man able to read the ancient Aztec script that is supposed to reveal the location of the treasure. Charlie Chan and his #1 and #2 sons journey to the jungles of Mexico to find the victim and bring the kidnapper and his gang to justice.
Charlie attempts to solve a triple murder in which a dead man's finger prints show up at all three murder sites.
On their way to Monte Carlo, Monaco, Marilyn and her husband, Neil, meet several other married couples, including Julian and Phoebe, who are traveling with a lost dog they plan to return to its wealthy owner for a large reward. But, when the dog's mistress is murdered, the travelers become the prime suspects, and Inspector Bonnard is determined to track them all down.
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Charlie's investigation of a phony psychic during the 1939 World Exposition on San Francisco's Treasure Island leads him to expose a suicide as murder.
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Mary Whitman has gone to Reno to obtain a divorce. While there she is arrested on suspicion of murdering a fellow guest at her hotel (which specializes in divorcers). There are many others at the hotel who wanted the victim out of the way. Charlie comes from his home in Honolulu to solve the murder.
Chinese sleuth Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) discovers a scheme for the theft of government radar plans while investigating several murders.
Someone is attempting to steal radium stored in a bank. Death by cobra venom connects a number of murders. Charlie Chan investigates.
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Celebrated as supersleuth, Mr. Moto comes out fighting when a brutal boxing match turns into cold-blooded murder! Assisted by detective-in-training Lee Chan, Moto sets out to track down the killer based on a single ominous clue: a poisoned boxing glove! But when Moto's hunch points to a corrupt gambling syndicate, he's forced to wager his very life to unmask the culpritâor go down for the count...permanently!
Emily Watson stars as Trixie, an eccentric woman who aspires to quit her job as a security guard and become a private detective. However, comedy intervenes and the mess begins...
In a contemporary interpretation of war torn Calcutta during the 1940's, the film follows the first adventure of Byomkesh (Sushant Singh Rajput), fresh out of college, as he pits himself against an evil genius who is out to destroy the world. It's his wits against the most villainous arch criminal the world has seen, in a world of murder, international political intrigue and seduction.
A Los Angeles private eye (Gene Hackman) finds a runaway girl (Melanie Griffith) and murder in the Florida Keys.
Victoria "V.I" Warshawski is a Chicago based private detective who agrees to babysit for her new boyfriend; then he is murdered. Being the detective type, she makes the murder her next case. In doing so she befriends the victim's daughter, Kat, and together they set out to crack the case.
Dan Merrick comes out from a shattering car accident with amnesia. He finds that he is married to Judith who is trying to help him start his life again. He keeps getting flashbacks about events and places that he can't remember. He meets pet shop owner and part time private detective Gus Klein who is supposedly done some work for him prior to the accident. Klein helps Merrick to find out more...
Private detective Philip Marlowe is asked by a publishing executive, Adrienne Fromsett, to locate the wife of her boss, publisher Derace Kingsby. Earlier she had sent her husband a telegram saying she was heading to Mexico to marry Chris Lavery. However Kingsby had recently seen Lavery in the neighbouring Bay City. Marlowe pursues his investigation at the Kingsby's lakeside cottage.
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