Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936)

Charlie Chan at the Opera is a 1936 entry in 20th Century-Fox’s Charlie Chan B-movie series. At this point Chan was still being played by Warner Oland. The big selling point for this one was having Boris Karloff (a huge star in 1936) heading the guest cast.

Charlie Chan is supposed to be a Honolulu cop but in the many Chan movies he spends almost no time in Hawaii. He investigates cases in a wide variety of exotic locales (all created in the studio of course) and for a while in the mid-30s his cases had extremely interesting settings (circuses, race tracks, etc). In this film it’s murder at the opera, in San Francisco.

Personally I just adore murder mysterious in theatrical or similar settings (such as film studios). Murder in an opera house - that’s right up my alley.

We start with a maniac (you won’t be surprised to know he’s played by Karloff) escaping from a lunatic asylum. He’s suffering from amnesia and nobody has ever figured out his identity. He spends most of his time singing and he’s obviously a trained singer, and obviously operatically trained.

Charlie Chan’s assistance is requested when a threat is made on the life of a famed soprano, Lilli Rochelle (Margaret Irving).

No murder has yet been committed but it soon becomes clear that there are romantic triangles and professional jealousies in the opera company that could very easily lead to murder.

Of course they do lead to murder. Two murders in fact.

Several suspicious characters have been hanging around the opera house and one of them is suspected of being the escaped maniac. Naturally the police make the perfectly logical assumption that the maniac is the murderer, and the evidence points that way.

Chan’s son Lee (Keye Luke) goes undercover as an extra in the latest opera production. As usual he does dig up some clues, and as usual he fails to draw the right conclusions.

The plot is pretty solid with several plausible suspects, all with convincing motives. Charlie eventually comes up with a risky plan to bring the murderer into the open.

Warner Oland is his usual self but it’s no surprise that Karloff totally and effortlessly steals the picture. This role allows Karloff to play to his strengths as an actor, particularly his ability to switch seamlessly from being kindly and sympathetic to being menacing and obsessed. It’s actually a pretty decent somewhat ambiguous role.

The opera house setting is used skilfully and director H. Bruce Humberstone does a competent job.

This movie does have some very slight hints of horror, with horror icon Karloff playing a madman. And the opera house setting gives it a slight Phantom of the Opera vibe.

So this is a Charlie Chan movie with a subtly different flavour. It’s a B-movie with no pretensions to being anything more than that but it’s pretty enjoyable. The Chan movies varied widely in quality but this one is quite satisfying. Karloff’s presence bumps this one up into the highly recommended category.

Charlie Chan at the Opera is included in Fox’s Charlie Chan volume 2 DVD boxed set and it gets a very nice transfer with a few extras thrown in.

I’ve reviewed lots of other Charlie Chan movies including Charlie Chan at the Circus (1936), Charlie Chan in Shanghai (1935), Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (1939) and Charlie Chan in Reno (1939).