Charlie Chan At The Race Track opens with Charlie giving some policemen a demonstration on how blood drops look when they fall in different ways. Warner Oland plays Charlie Chan in his 12th film as the Chinese detective from Honalulu. The movie was released on August 14 1936 and it's set in the world of horse racing. While Charlie is giving the other policmen their lesson his son Lee (Keye Luke) comes busting in with a tip on Avalance. That's a horse in the Melborne Derby that is owned by a man Charlie and Lee know. There's only a short time to go before the race and Lee collects bets. The cops tune in the radio when he gets back. The jockey fouls another horse and even though he says he didn't do it intentionally he's barred from working for 2 years and the horse is disqualified. Turns out he did it for cash. The guy who pays him off only gives him $2 grand instead of the $5 G's he was expecting. The horse owner is killed by his horse while he was sailing to Honalulu. On the ship Charlie discovers it's murder. Remember the blood demo? That was what tipped Charlie off. The blood was faked. Charlie sails with the ship and Lee Chan signs up as a crew member so he can help his dad. There's the usual chatter as Charlie moves amongst the suspects and usual clue finding. Charlie gets shot and is laid up until the ship lands in Los Angeles. Threats have been made against Avalance and the new owners. Charlie and Lee get kidnapped and escape. Of course they uncover the gang that's behind the murders. They were making money by betting on races they fixed. A pretty good one.
Charlie Chan At The Opera came out December 5 1936 and now Charlie is gettin' his detecting on in the Opera world. Warner Oland is Charlie and Keye Luke is his #1 son Lee. Boris Karloff is an opera singer who has been living in an insame asylum for the last 7 years. He doesn't know who he is and neither does anyone at the asylum. A newspaper picture brings back his memory. He remembers his unfaithful wife and her lover trying to kill him by leaving him in a burning theater. Now he's out for vengence, opera style. Boris slinks around the opera house. He scares a seamstress and that's fun. He makes himself known to his ex-wife. There's a fair bit of of opera, written by Oscar Levant, but not enough to be too annoying. It's so obvious that Boris is dubbed. There's a pretty girl with nice legs who dances. We get a fingerprint lesson from Charlie. Boris substitutes himself for the singer of the opera and sings with his ex-wife. She faints at the end of the act when he stabs her in the play. Everyone thinks she's been stabbed but she will be killed while she's in her dressing room. A man tells Charlie how wire photo's work. I like the little informative techno pieces they put in the series. Gives you a chance to see how the things you have heard about actually work. Boris introduces himself to his daughter and she faints. There's a nice scene with Boris and Charlie. He asks Boris to sing again and he does. When Boris pulls his knife at the end of the act a cop shoots him. He'll be ok and after Charlie catches the real killer he helps reunite the two. It's a good entry in the series and an interesting setting. Boris is always fun to watch.
C
harlie Chan At The Olympics has Charlie's son Lee (Keye Luke) going off to the Olympics. A special plane with a robot pilot is stolen while on a test run. Charlie and Charlie Jr (Layne Tom Jr) are going on a fishing trip and they find the special plane. The robot pilot is gone. Charlie gets involved and chases the suspect Miss Roland. We get a bit of a geopraphy lesson as Charlie plots a course on a map from Honalulu to Hamburg. The amount of time to get there is slow compared to today. A ship takes 9 - 10 days and while a plane is faster it's still pretty slow. From the Islands to LA is 18 hours, 13 more across the USA, 61 hours in the Hindenberg to Germany. What? Yep, the Hindenberg of Oh, The Humanity fame. While floating across the ocean Charlie passes a ship and it's the same one Roland is on. Charlie's son Lee is also on the ship which is hosting a lot of Olympic atheletes. Charlie and the German police come to interview Roland and she's gone. She'd hidden the stolen robot pilot in one of the athelete's luggage. Charlie beats the crooks to the girl and gets back the device. There's more running around and a fight. Charlie hides the device and the crooks kidnap Lee. He brings the device to the crooks and it's got a transmitter in it. They are about to kill them when another party comes for the device. They figure out it's fake. It's touch and go but you know Charlie is going to get out of that. Sure enough the German police arrive just in the nick of time. Charlie catches the murder, the case is solved, and Lee wins his swim event. Another happy ending with the case solved and the crooks in the can.
That was the fourth disc in the 14 disc set. The movies are all about 70 minutes long. Typical of the era. The story keeps moving, there isn't much by way of wasted time on screen, most everything advances the plot. Even though there is a sameness to the films but I've always like series fiction and I'm still enjoying them. I'll try to watch another one soon.
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