Charlie Chan in Egypt - 1935

Chan (Warner Oland) hits town (ancient city of Luxor) with a mission to investigate the activities of a group of archeologists sponsored by the French Archeological Society. Travelling by biplane, with some pretty amazing overflight footage of Cairo, Chan intends to research why ancient artifacts from the dig at the tomb of the High Priest Ameti are being trafficked in the black market of the art world.

After arriving, he soon finds that the leader of the project has been missing for nearly a month. After some conjecture work from talking to the many people in the area, Chan locates the missing man, except now the man is dead and mummified, hidden inside an ancient casket and for the last month he was mistaken for just another ancient corpse until, using an X-ray machine, a very modern metal bullet is detected in his heart.

The distraught daughter (Pat Paterson as Carol Arnold) and son (James Eaglesas Barry Arnold) of the man are in a panic about the death, and worry about who might be next. There had already been other mysterious deaths that proceeded their father's demise, all linked to the opening up of the ancient tomb and the "curse" from the ancient world on anyone disturbing the place.

Rita Cansino, better known as Rita Hayworth, appears in the tale as an Egyptian servant girl who seems to always be eves-dropping on conversations around the large home and workspace of the dead archeologist, and a whole cast of other characters are interacting and mentioning bits of clues to Chan as he tries to get a clear picture of what happened, how it happened, and why new bodies are starting to turn up.

Stepin Fetchit appears in the film as a servant named "Snowshoes" and his style of a semi-comatose line delivery and performance is a grating reminder of how far away 21st century culture has moved from old Hollywood stereotypes, and in fact one might say nearly the whole of this film is just one stereotype character stood up next to another. There's a few ways to examine this, but one constant in that era of comedy characterization was exaggeration, and boy, is there a lot of it on the screen across the whole cast in Charlie Chan in Egypt.

The mystery Chan is trying to solve develops into a pretty good knot of possibilities, and Warner Oland does a good job of portraying a mind of intellect that wants to steadily deduce truth from facts, circumstances, and the behaviours of the people around him.

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Original Page September 3, 2025