The Sky Dragon

The Charlie Chan series at Monogram comes to an end with this picture. The plot sees Charlie (Roland Winters) and "Number One Son" Lee (Keye Luke) on an airplane where all the passengers are drugged. While they're out, a man is murdered and a quarter-million dollars stolen. Also appearing in this one is bug-eyed comic sidekick Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland). The rest of the cast includes Milburn Stone (Doc from Gunsmoke), Noel Neill (Lois Lane from Adventures of Superman), and Lyle Talbot (movie star extraordinaire). Winters is weak as usual but the plot is surprisingly fresh for Monogram. Keye Luke is fun and the supporting cast is decent. It's ironic that the Winters series ended after its two strongest films. But it was a case of too little too late, I think.