AllMovie

This final entry in 20th Century-Fox's "Charlie Chan" series is set in a huge mansion, smack-dab in the middle of the Mojave desert. When snoopy weekend guest Professor Gleason (Lucien Littlefield) is murdered, every member of the household falls under suspicion-none more so than Mr. Manderly (Douglass Dumbrille), the surly and highly secretive master of the household. Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) and number two son Jimmy (Sen Yung) stumble into this nest of vipers and quickly get to work trying to unravel the mystery, which involves a collection of priceless artifacts and an old-fashioned torture chamber. An excellent series entry, Castle in the Desert would have been a worthy screen finale for the inscrutable Mr. Chan; alas, the character would be revived two years later in a much inferior series at Monogram.