Charlie Chan Collection, Vol. 2 (Charlie Chan at the Circus / Charlie Chan at the Olympics / Charlie Chan at the Opera / Charlie Chan at the Race Track)
by H. Bruce Humberstone, Harry Lachman
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Actor: Boris Karloff, Guy Usher, Keye Luke, Warner Oland, William DemarestDirector: H. Bruce Humberstone, Harry Lachman
Brand: FOX Home Entertainment
Writer: Bess Meredyth
Writer: Charles Belden
Writer: Earl Derr Biggers
Writer: Edward T. Lowe Jr.
Writer: Helen Logan
Writer: Lou Breslow
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Black & White, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 281 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-12-05
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: 20th Century Fox
DVD Reviews of Charlie Chan Collection, Vol. 2 (Charlie Chan at the Circus / Charlie Chan at the Olympics / Charlie Chan at the Opera / Charlie Chan at the Race Track)
DVD Review: Four Charlie Chan Films: Two Superb, One Good, and One Disappointing
Summary: 4 Stars
Great Atmosphere, Lots of Mystery, and Intriguing Detection
Charlie Chan at the Circus is one of my favorite Charlie Chan movies. Even though I remembered the story very well (which I hadn't seen in at least 40 years), I found myself admiring the mystery and the plotting. The acting is even more entertaining than I remembered.
You have a real treat ahead of you if you haven't seen this movie before (or saw it so long ago that you cannot remember much about it).
As the film opens, Charlie Chan is present with his wife and 12 children enjoying the side show at a circus. The children are lined up in reverse height which is a good play on the photographs of Charlie's family in earlier movies in the series. They are on vacation. The ticket taker is thrilled by the chance to collect $3.50 for such a large family, but he's disappointed when Charlie offers a free pass instead in his hat band.
One of the circus's owners, Joe Kinney, read that Charlie is in town and wants to consult Charlie about some threatening letters he's been receiving. They agree to meet at 9 p.m. in the business office. When Charlie arrives there's no one there, but there is a light inside. Upon closer inspection, it turns out that the co-owner has been strangled and his neck broken. But how? The office was locked and bolted on the inside.
With that locked room mystery to whet his appetite, Charlie reluctantly plans to continue on to the Grand Canyon with his family until one of the circus performers pleads for him to help so that the circus people won't lose their jobs. With the encouragement of his children and agreement of his wife, Charlie and number one son, Lee, join the investigation.
Soon, there are enough motives to lead to a dozen killings. No one liked Kinney, who was brutal to both people and animals. The only person who liked him was a woman who stands to collect on a $50,000 insurance policy.
But death's threats aren't limited to Kinney. The killer seems determined to take out Charlie and anyone else who can provide a threat.
This is an old-fashioned circus which travels by train. Many of the scenes are set on the train or during performances. You get an authentic feel for the old big top days by small circuses. An elephant pushes another animal's cage. A hippopotamus is fed with a shovel. There are some excellent high-wire acts. I could practically smell the sawdust.
Like all early Charlie Chan films, this one features some excellent dancing. The dancers will surprise you: They are midgets (George and Olive Brasno) doing the tango.
There's lots of humor as Lee falls for the Chinese contortionist and later dresses up as a mother pushing a child in a pram to track one of the suspects.
The story moves fast and contains some excellent photography to match the acting. In this restored version, the film probably looks almost as good as it did when it was first released.
Intriguing International Suspense Film Filled with Memorable Scenes of a Past Age
In Charlie Chan at the Olympics you see the future of modern warfare as it is fought in the 21st century through planes piloted by remote control while also getting a look at aviation's dated past in the form of the dirigible Hindenburg soon before it came to a flaming end. Just those two aspects of the movie would be enough to keep many musing for months.
There's also a story of international espionage. During a test of the new remote navigation system in Hawaii, the test plane is hijacked and the key technology is stolen. As those with an interest in the technology quickly leave town, Charlie Chan is dispatched to find and recover the device. By employing the Pan Am clipper to Oakland and then the cross-country nonstop plane to the East, Charlie is able to snag a ride on the Hindenburg and arrive in Germany before the ship containing the suspects does.
Once in Berlin, the device plays hide-and-seek with those who want it so much that you never seem to know where it is. The danger rises when the spies kidnap Lee Chan (Keye Luke) and hold him in hopes of gaining the device. Charlie is clearly sweating bullets at that point but draws on another advanced technology to save the day.
In the background is the story of the Olympics that were held in Berlin in 1936. The American team cheers for Jesse Owens and you see the opening ceremonies. Lee is on the American team and hopes to earn a gold medal in swimming. One of the suspects is also on team as a pole vaulter. You'll be astonished at how the techniques, equipment, and clothing have changed for athletes since 1936. The athletic performances also aren't too impressive, more like what a high school kid would do today.
The movie is filled with much good humor as Charlie interacts with his two sons, Lee and Charlie Chan, Jr. Both want to exercise their investigative powers while Junior also wants to learn fishing. It seems like they both need a detective to find fish. That rare instance of less than perfect performance makes Charlie all the more appealing.
Rich in Acting, Weak on Mystery
In Charlie Chan at the Opera, you'll see a combination of Phantom of the Opera and the Hunchback of Notre Dame displayed as a Charlie Chan mystery steeped in fine acting and good atmosphere. As the movie opens, an unidentified amnesia patient (Boris Karloff) is compulsively playing the piano while singing opera at a sanitarium. An attendant annoys him by interrupting, but offers the evening newspaper as solace. The photograph of an opera singer, Lilli Rochelle (Margaret Irving), enrages the patient who knocks the attendant out and takes off wearing the attendant's uniform.
Later, Charlie Chan stops by to say good-bye to Inspector Regan before leaving on the night boat to Honolulu. While there, Charlie ruffles Sergeant Kelly's feathers with deductions about the problems the police are having in finding the amnesia patient. They are interrupted by Lilli Rochelle who drops in to report a death threat tied to that night's performance. Charlie and the police agree to attend that performance to keep her safe.
At the opera, it becomes clear that Lilli has been seeing her baritone, Enrico Barelli, much to the annoyance of Madame Barelli and Lilli's husband, Mr. Whitely. All of that turmoil is interrupted when the amnesia patient shows up in Madame Barelli's dressing room, and she identifies him as Gravelle, a baritone who had "died" in an opera house fire. Gravelle claims that someone locked in his dressing room, but he escaped anyway and is just recovering his memory.
As the plot goes on, dead bodies begin to pile up and the police are at a loss to track down the unauthorized people who are wandering through the opera house.
A lot of the appeal of this film comes from the fine acting performances by Boris Karloff and Warner Oland who are supported well with some very funny scenes and gags by William Demarest as Sergeant Kelly and Keye Luke as Charlie's oldest son. Charlie also shows himself to be advanced scientifically as he brings up finger prints with acid and arranges for a newspaper to send a photograph by the equivalent of a fax in the 1930s.
The film is fast moving. It has to be. Charlie wants to make that night boat back to Honolulu so he can see the rest of his family again.
The "Chinese" sayings of Charlie Chan also provide lots of humor. Here is my favorite from the film: "Luck -- happy combination of small accidents" which is offered by Charlie as a face-saving explanation why Sergeant Kelly wasn't able to figure out what was going on.
Little Mystery in This Investigation, But Lots of Poor Cultural Stereotypes
Most of the Charlie Chan films are notable for the dignity and respect that are shown to the Chinese-American ancestry of Charlie Chan. Only the missing articles in front of nouns, missing verbs, and tense slips mark the fictional Charlie as someone who isn't a native speaker of English. The accent is itself is not noticeably Chinese. Although Warner Oland was not of Chinese ancestry, his appearance is sufficiently oriental not to seem like "black face" makeup.
Those circumstances change, however, for the worse in Charlie Chan at the Race Track. Charlie doesn't change, but his son Lee (played by Keye Luke, who is a Chinese-American in reality) plays negative stereotype "just off the boat" roles (including Pidgin English) in undercover assignments for Charlie in this film. The story didn't need him to do this, so I felt it was gratuitous stereotyping.
That perception is reinforced by one of the most servile, cringing African-American stereotype Stepin-Fetchit roles I've ever seen by John H. Allen playing "Streamline" Jones. I felt disgusted to see this exploitation of an actor into reinforcing racial prejudices about laziness, drinking too much, and being a coward.
The story itself isn't much. A great race horse, Avalanche, has been born, bred, and trained in Australia. An American buys Avalanche to bring him to the U.S. to race at Santa Juanita (think Santa Anita). An international gang of crooked gamblers is involved in sabotaging Avalanche so that they can collect on long shots.
Aboard a ship going to Honolulu, the horse's trainer is killed and mysterious notes float around making threats. It's obvious that Avalanche is switched with another horse, and Charlie sets out to reverse the switch while staying out of the gang's deadly clutches.
If you pay attention to the clues, you won't have any trouble identifying the murderer. The rest is mostly Keystone Kops imitations involving Lee Chan.
As usual, the best parts of the movie come in Charlie's aphorisms: "Record indicate most murder result from violence, and murder without bloodstain like Amos without Andy -- most unusual." That little ditty leads into a lesson in how to interpret blood stains which turns out to be relevant to solving this mystery.
Unless you feel compelled to watch all the old Charlie Chan movies featuring Warner Oland, you can skip this one.
More Charlie Chan Collection, Vol. 2 (Charlie Chan at the Circus / Charlie Chan at the Olympics / Charlie Chan at the Opera / Charlie Chan at the Race Track) reviews:
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Description of Charlie Chan Collection, Vol. 2 (Charlie Chan at the Circus / Charlie Chan at the Olympics / Charlie Chan at the Opera / Charlie Chan at the Race Track)
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