Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936)

User Rating:

7.6/10   

Director:

H. Bruce Humberstone

Writers:

Charles Belden (writer)
Earl Derr Biggers (character)

Release Date:

21 April 1937 (Denmark)

Genre:

Comedy | Musical | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

A fiendish killer lurks at the opera! Weird! Thrilling! The Master Minds of Crime Match Wits Against Each Other!

Plot:

A dangerous amnesiac escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the opera house to wreak revenge on those who tried to murder him seven years earlier.

Plot Keywords:

Opera | Amnesiac | Opera House | Charlie Chan | Murder

Cast

Warner Oland	...	Charlie Chan
Boris Karloff	...	Gravelle
Keye Luke	...	Lee Chan
William Demarest	...	Sergeant Kelly
Guy Usher	...	Inspector Regan
Margaret Irving	...	Mme. Lilli Rochelle
Gregory Gaye	...	Enrico Borelli
Nedda Harrigan	...	Mme. Lucretia Borelli
Frank Conroy	...	Mr. Whitely
Charlotte Henry	...	Mlle. Kitty
Thomas Beck	...	Phil Childers
Maurice Cass	...	Mr. Arnold
Tom McGuire	...	Pop Morris - Stage Doorman

Runtime:

68 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Noiseless Recording)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | USA:Unrated

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

Filmed on standing sets left over from _Cafe Metropole (1937)_ with 'Tyrone Power (I)' and Loretta Young.

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When they characters are all gathered in the dressing room after the murders and they are questioning Childers, he says he knew Madame Barelli well. What he actually meant to say Madame Rochelle (or Madame Lilli as she was being referred to).

Quotes:

Sanatarium Guard: Say, I worked around sanitariums before. It's not so bad. I like the cuckoos myself. They're the same as anybody else, only they're smart enough to admit they're nuts.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Opera Ghost: A Phantom Unmasked (2000) (V)

Soundtrack:

March Funebre

Mystery and Culture, All in the Same Film

An amnesiac escapes from a Los Angeles sanitarium and later has everyone in the city on edge, due to his homicidal tendencies. Judging from a newspaper with a photo of opera soprano Lilli Rochelle on it, Charlie Chan suspects that she may be the target of his madness. Charlie teams up with Sgt. Kelly (who resents having Charlie on the case with him) to protect Mme. Rochelle (after receiving several threatening notes) at the opening of the new opera season, but Mme. Rochelle has further trouble with her affair with lead baritone Enrico Borelli, which creates tension with Lilli's husband, Whitley and Borelli's wife, Anita. As the opera is in progress, the amnesiac makes his way to Mme. Borelli's dressing room and she recognizes him as Gravelle, a baritone formerly with the opera company and assumed dead after being left in an opera house fire. Thinking that Mme. Rochelle and Borelli are responsible for his attempted death, Gravelle plans his revenge on the two, first by replacing Borelli in the opera, Carnivale, and surprising Mme. Rochelle in the performance, who faints upon recognizing him, and is later found murdered in her locked dressing room, as is Borelli in another. The police search the opera house for Gravelle, but Charlie has other suspicions to check before finding the killer. Probably the most popular film of the Chan series and its no wonder with a terrific script and direction combining the mystery, humor, suspense, and this time the musical spectacle. Karloff makes for a good red herring in this film with the unbalanced mind scaring everyone he comes in contact with, including Irving and Harrington that create the perfect look of fear in Karloff's presence. Demarest provides the comic relief here, even though his opinions of Charlie and son Lee are on the politically incorrect side this day and age. Great job on the opera and musical score throughout the film. Rating, 8.