CHARLIE CHAN AT THE OPERA
US, 1937, 68 minutes, Black-and-white.
Warner Oland, Boris Karloff, Keye Luke, Charlotte Henry, Thomas Beck, Margaret Irving, Frank Conroy, Guy Usher, William Demarest.
Directed by H.Bruce Humberstone.
There is an evocative tone in the immediate credits card, Warner Oland versus Boris Karloff. And, indeed there is, with Charlie Chan engaging in his usual manner and Boris Karloff doing madness, obsession, threats and violence, touches of pathos – and his not emerging as the villain at the end!
Newspaper headlines were rather blunt in those days with continual reference to Boris Karloff’s character escaping from an institution as “maniac on the loose�. He is seen singing and piano playing at the institution where he has amnesia, seeing a newspaper which stirs his memories and leads to vengeance, his going to the Opera House to see his nemesis, the star diva. She, in the meantime, has gone to visit the local police for protection having received a death threat in a bouquet of flowers. She is accompanied by her co-singer, with whom she has been having an affair. There is a focus on her businessman husband and his wanting to expose the affair as well as the singer’s wife who has been humiliated.
The main local police are very good and put surveillance at the Opera House. However, the main focus is on William Demarest in an early role as a very old-style policeman, touch of racist, touch of superiority, a bit thick and slow in his making decisions, also involved in a number of slapstick pratfalls.
There is also a verbal joke remarking about the killer at the theatre – as likely as Frankenstein turning up!
There is opera, performance, Karloff sinister and taking the place of the singer. Both the singer and the diva are stabbed to death. One of the suspects is a young man who has accompanied a young woman to the Opera House – actually the diva’s daughter whom she has kept in the shadows, their wanting to ask for permission to marry.
It emerges that Karloff is the girl’s father and there is a certain tenderness as he plays the piano for her to try to get her to remember him.
Once again, an assembly of suspects, this time on the stage after a performance, the vindication of Karloff, the suspicions on the husband, and the finger pointing at the frustrated wife who is the actual murderer.
Entertaining, Chan at his most suave and polite, Lee get into all kinds of trouble disguised as a soldier in the supporting cast of the Opera, getting clues, some of which are effective, but ultimately way behind the solution of his father.
CHARLIE CHAN FILMS
Charlie Chan was the creation of novelist Earl Deer Biggers, creator of the popular novel Seven Keys to Baldpate (adapted for the stage in the early 20th century and the plot of many films of the same name and variations). Biggers saw the beginning of the popularity of the films of Charlie Chan in the silent era but died at the age of 48 in 1933, just as the series with Warner Land was becoming more popular.
20th Century Fox was responsible for the early Charlie Chan films with Warner Oland and gave them more prestigious production values than many of the short supporting features of the time. After Oland’s death, Fox sold the franchise to Monogram Pictures with Sidney Toler in the central role. They were less impactful than the early films. There were some films later in the 1940s with Roland Winters in the central role.
The films generally ran for about 71 minutes, and similarities in plots, often a warning to Charlie Chan to leave a location, his staying when murders are committed, displaying his expertise in thinking through situations and clues. He generally collaborates with the local police who, sometimes seem, characters, but ultimately are on side.
Warner Oland was a Swedish actor who came with his family to the United States when he was a child. Some have commented that for his Chinese appearance he merely had to adjust his eyebrows and moustache to pass for Chinese – even in China where he was spoken to in Chinese. And the name, Charlie Chan, became a common place for reference to a Chinese. In retrospect there may have been some racial stereotype in his presentation but he is always respectful, honouring Chinese ancestors and traditions. Charlie Chan came from Honolulu.
Quite a number of the film is Keye Luke appeared as his son, very American, brash in intervening, make mistakes, full of American slang (and in Charlie Chan in Paris mangling French). Luke had an extensive career in Hollywood, his last film was in 1990 been Woody Allen’s Alice and the second Gremlins film.
Quite a number of character actors in Hollywood had roles in the Charlie Chan films, and there was a range of directors.
Oland had a portly figure and the screenplay makes reference to this. His diction is precise and much of the screenplay is in wise sayings, aphorisms, which are especially enhanced by the omission of “the� and “a� in delivery which makes them sound more telling and exotic.
There was a Charlie Chan film the late 1970s, Charlie Chan and the Dragon Queen with Peter Ustinov in the central role.
