Mae West said in one of her films: 'Keep a diary, and one day it'll keep you...' And that most CERTAINLY goes for the diary of a young lady, Billie Bronson, who's just arrived on the same steamer with Charlie and Lee Chan back in New York after a year - because she had to go in hiding when it was found out then that Billie, who's acquainted with almost all of Manhattan's big-time mob, had kept a very detailed diary about all the ongoings in New York's underworld, which of course, if revealed to the public, would mean the ruin of most of the city's gangsters...
No need to say that she's got to hide the extremely explosive - and valuable - little book in a safe place; and since she'd been followed even back on the steamer by a guy who was obviously after it, and since she happened to get acquainted with famous Charlie Chan there as well... what better place could there be than Charlie's hotel room in New York? She manages to place it there - but she doesn't manage to escape her own fate: while obviously bargaining with some of the people mentioned in her diary for a very high price for the evidence, she herself pays the highest price: she is shot in the office of the manager of one of Broadway's famous-infamous nightclubs, the 'Hottentot Club'.
Very soon, of course, we get to know a whole bunch of suspects: except for 'Hottentot Club' manager Johnny Burke and his girlfriend Marie, who, as it turns out, had taken Johnny away from Billie, and in addition is the wife of the mysterious guy on the ship, who also keeps on searching for the diary, but is soon murdered as well - in Charlie's hotel room! Then there's newspaper editor Murdock, who also had his reasons for bargaining for the dangerous diary, and his ever-present employees, reporter 'Speed' Patten and photo reporter Joan, and shady Buzz Moran...
And this time, after LOTS of dangerous adventures in the 'asphalt jungle', Charlie arranges a real 'classic' gathering of all the suspects in order to reveal the killer...
Absolutely PERFECT in every aspect, from the formidable cast to the direction that catches marvelously the atmosphere of old Manhattan 'where the underworld can meet the elite' (like it says in "42nd Street") to the classic, ingenious 'whodunit' story, this is one of Charlie Chan's VERY best, and MOST entertaining cases!
No need to say that she's got to hide the extremely explosive - and valuable - little book in a safe place; and since she'd been followed even back on the steamer by a guy who was obviously after it, and since she happened to get acquainted with famous Charlie Chan there as well... what better place could there be than Charlie's hotel room in New York? She manages to place it there - but she doesn't manage to escape her own fate: while obviously bargaining with some of the people mentioned in her diary for a very high price for the evidence, she herself pays the highest price: she is shot in the office of the manager of one of Broadway's famous-infamous nightclubs, the 'Hottentot Club'.
Very soon, of course, we get to know a whole bunch of suspects: except for 'Hottentot Club' manager Johnny Burke and his girlfriend Marie, who, as it turns out, had taken Johnny away from Billie, and in addition is the wife of the mysterious guy on the ship, who also keeps on searching for the diary, but is soon murdered as well - in Charlie's hotel room! Then there's newspaper editor Murdock, who also had his reasons for bargaining for the dangerous diary, and his ever-present employees, reporter 'Speed' Patten and photo reporter Joan, and shady Buzz Moran...
And this time, after LOTS of dangerous adventures in the 'asphalt jungle', Charlie arranges a real 'classic' gathering of all the suspects in order to reveal the killer...
Absolutely PERFECT in every aspect, from the formidable cast to the direction that catches marvelously the atmosphere of old Manhattan 'where the underworld can meet the elite' (like it says in "42nd Street") to the classic, ingenious 'whodunit' story, this is one of Charlie Chan's VERY best, and MOST entertaining cases!