Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935)

Written by CinemaSerf on June 19, 2022

This time, our eponymous detective gets himself embroiled in a caper involving the mummified remains of a corpse - but not one from Pharaonic times! It turns out to be the erstwhile leader of an expedition to discover the tomb of the famed high priest "Ameti". When other artefacts from this discovery start showing up on the black market, "Chan" (Warner Oland) must evaluate the plentiful supply of suspects who frequent this world of creepy antiquity. No children to assist him, but that doesn't distract from what is quite an eerily presented, quickly paced and engaging adventure thriller with plenty of things going bump in the night, an Anubis that haunts the tomb, and even Rita Hayworth as the sultry ("Nayda"). The comedy is overplayed by the all too verbose, frankly irritating, "Snowshoes" (Stepin Fetchit) but there are still plenty of red herrings to keep this film very much at the top end of these mysteries.