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(More customer reviews)Volume 2 in Fox's Charlie Chan DVD Collection seems not to have been released as much as it escaped. Volume 1 was widely heralded but this installment, which contains the best of the films when the series reached its peak, sort of snuck up on us. Frankly, I can't believe I'm the first one here to review it.
Full disclosure: I own Volume 1 and just purchased Volume 2 through Amazon. So my review at this point is based on my (repeated) TV viewings dating back to the mid 1960s through just a few years ago before the Fox Movie Channel banned the CC films. I noticed that Fox skipped one film in this set, CHARLIE CHAN'S SECRET (1936) that preceeded the four films in Volume 2. Why? I can only guess except that SECRET is a real letdown compared to the quality of the films before it - CHARLIE CHAN IN... LONDON, PARIS, EGYPT, and SHANGHAI. And the films that followed that are represented in Volume 2. But still why was it dropped? I guess that's Fox's secret.
As with Volume 1, Warner Oland simply IS Charlie Chan. Oland continues to play Chan with his usual quiet authority and stunning charisma. Although he was not Asian (athough he believed his mother was part Mongolian), his winning characterization of Chan forever changed the way Asians would be portrayed in Hollywood films.
As for the Fab Four in this set: CC AT THE CIRCUS is the closest Charlie came to film noir, thanks to German director Harry Lachman. His films tended to be dark and moody and CIRCUS is no exception. Much of the film takes place at night and even indoor scenes have a sombre edge to them. Lachman would direct a few more Chans in the Sidney Toler era during the early 40s when the series changed direction and became compact little murder mysteries such as DEAD MEN TELL (1941). These later Chans are enjoyable on their own terms but totally different in style from the Olands of the mid-30s. CIRCUS features the entire CHAN clan including his wife. Mystery-wise, if you can't spot the real killer in CIRCUS, you should resign your membership in the Charlie Chan club! I think even Charlie knows early on but has nothing to pin on the culprit.
CHARLIE CHAN AT THE RACE TRACK marks a real jazzing up of the series stylistically. Director Bruce Humberstone, who was ambitious for more important projects at Fox, wanted to show Zanuck what he could do and pulled out all the stops in RACE TRACK. Right from the opening music behind the main credits, you know this one is different. The pacing is faster and optical wipes give each scene a sense of urgency. Charlie's relationship with son Lee also progresses with Lee being given increasingly important assignments by his Pop.
Unlike the earlier drawing room style of the films, in RACE TRACK Charlie takes on a whole gambling syndicate in addition to the murders in a wide ranging series of locales from Honolulu, to Melbourne, to Los Angeles, plus an ocean voyage in between. He's shot too! High tech is employed here as Chan learns about the "new" way of timing the races with photo-electric cells and photographing the photo finish. What I particularly like in RACE TRACK is that the film "language" gives an alert viewer a big clue at one point to put you on the track of the killer. Even at the climax, the killer slips up but nobody notices (momentarily), giving the viewer another chance to solve this one.
AT THE OPERA is generally considered to be the best of the Chans and its reputation is well deserved. Oland for once is co-starred, with Boris Karloff, and the two work well together although they only share one scene. The film might more accurately be titled CHARLIE CHAN MEETS THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA because that really describes the storyline. Since Karloff is so obviously the killer you just know somebody else has to be doing the dirty work and making it look like Karloff's to blame. But Charlie ain't fooled (nor are we because this is supposed to be a murder MYSTERY). High tech again is used to help solve the mystery as we (and Charlie) are treated to a demonstration of the process involved in wire photos.
Son Lee again proves indispensible and Director Humberstone delivers the goods once again. A special faux-opera was written for the film by Oscar Levant called "Carnival" and I hate to admit it but I wish Levant had turned it into a real full length work - the music is that good. I don't know who sang for Karloff but in case viewers wonder how his character could manage to sing so well after being a patient in an insane asylum for ten years, the opening scene shows him practicing every night. A bigoted detective comically played by William Demerest finally has to admit that "Charlie is OK" at the end. A real gem of a film.
The last one in this set, 1937's CHARLIE CHAN AT THE OLYMPICS (just love that title!), is the most globe-trotting of all the Chans and the most ambitious production-wise. The film starts with Oland in his undershirt jogging in place! The, uh, partial nudity shows that Oland had lost weight around his mid-section when compared with his appearance circa 1934-35. The film starts in Honolulu and has a scene eirily prophetic of the Pacific sea search for Amelia Earhart's lost plane that took place a few months after the film's release. Then Chan is off to intercept the ocean liner Manhattan that is in mid-Atlantic on its way to the Olympic games in Germany (son Lee is on the U.S. swimming team in case you're wondering how he gets worked into the story). Being 1936, the only way Charlie can catch the ship is to fly from Hawaii to L.A., then grab a transcontinental plane to New York, then grab the ill-fated German zepplin Hindenburg from Lake Hurst, NJ. And travelers today think they have it rough!
The plot actually has nothing to do with the Olympics but the film is so engaging, who really cares? The games are used as a backdrop for meetings by the spies with Chan, and there is some footage of the events including Jesse Owens's spectacular run for a gold medal. High tech is employed once more as Charlie pulls a real switcheroo by substituting a radio transmitter in the aircraft device the spies are after. Son Lee is kidnapped from outside the Olympic Stadium, and even Charlie thinks he has met his match.
Actor C. Henry Gordon, an alumnus from earlier Chans, almost steals the film as a most dapper villian. Things are so dangerous for Charlie that Mr. Gordon, one of the silver screen's silkiest villians, actually saves Chan from death TWICE, and Gordon is one of the bad guys! As in OPERA, the killer is well hidden although the series of clues that Chan puts together to unmask the culprit at the finale is less than convincing. It doesn't matter because the killer can't explain away a simple clue: spilt ink on his shoe and that seals his fate (no, not a spoiler - by the time the ink-on-shoe comes up, the killer is already unmasked - I just think it's the best clue!).
By the time OLYMPICS was made, Warner Oland was really "into" the Chan character so much so that he continued speaking like Chan offscreen and even signed his name, "Charlie Chan." As one interviewrer wrote in mid-1937, "I came to interview Warner Oland about Charlie Chan but ended up interviewing Charlie Chan about Warner Oland." So what was going on? I'm afraid that's a story to be told in Volume 3. I only hope that the Fox people take this DVD project seriously enough to scour their vaults for ANY materials - film footage but most likely photos - from Oland's final and uncompleted film, CHARLIE CHAN AT THE RINGSIDE, that he worked on during the first week of January 1938.
Click Here to see more reviews about: 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) (1936)
Disc 1: CHARLIE CHAN AT THE OPERA Full Screen Feature (Black & White) Charlie Chan's Lucky Director: H. Bruce HumberstoneRestoration ComparisonTrailerDisc 2: CHARLIE CHAN AT THE OLYMPICS Full Screen Feature (Black & White) Layne Tom,Jr: The Adventures of Charlie Chan, Jr.Restoration ComparisonTrailerDisc 3: CHARLIE CHAN AT THE RACE TRACK Full Screen Feature (Black & White) Number One Son: The Life of Keye LukeRestoration Comparison Trailer Disc 4: CHARLIE CHAN AT THE CIRCUS Full Screen Feature (Black & White) Charlie Chan At The MoviesRestoration ComparisonTrailer
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