The whiplash has started! After criticizing Charlie Chan at the Race Track for being a backwards slide in terms of franchise quality, along comes Charlie Chan at the Opera (by the same director even – H. Bruce Humberstone, whomever that is). And once again the Charlie Chan movies have outdone themselves, attaining in this, their sixteenth entry, the best movie to date!
What makes it the best? Well, most obviously, it’s corrected the mistakes made in At the Race Track, mistakes they shouldn’t be making at this late stage – interchangeable nonentities and racism that is regressive even for a Charlie Chan picture. All the specific things At the Opera does right are non-repeatable, as they almost entirely have to do specifically with the opera setting. Though even that suggests what the Charlie Chan films can do, for the opera is utilized here, something I cannot really say for the cheap race track antics in At the Race Track.
At the Opera’s greatest strength becomes apparent right off the bat. We open, surprisingly, at the insane asylum, where one of the nuts is inside at the piano a-singin’ himself some opera. And just who would this nut be?
Boris Karloff!
Just as The Black Camel saw fit to highlight hilarious Hungarian hambone Bela Lugosi shortly after his vampiric Dracula triumph, so does At the Opera direct its focus on the superior star of Frankenstein – Karloff the Uncanny. Unlike Lugosi, we have a true actor here, and not simply an accumulation of bad accents and hair grease. Also unlike prima donna Bela, Karloff embraced his monstrous celebrity, and utilized it well in non-monstrous roles.
Non-monstrous roles like the part of Gravelle, a former opera star who has (piling together later movie info) been locked away and unknown in the loony bin for seven long years, his memory turned to mush following a tragic opera house fire in Chicago. (A fire in Chicago? No!) But as per the eternally iffy psychological understanding of all movies, Gravelle’s memories are instantly triggered upon reading the right article in the newspaper – concerning opera diva Lilly Rochelle (Margaret Irving). Thus Gravelle, suddenly “sane,” pulls a Michael Myers and escapes, affording some nice, scary footage of Karloff as he overpowers a guard with his Karloffness.
The newspapers crow! “MADMAN IN LOS ANGELES!” (Well, obviously there is…Oh, they mean Gravelle.) And indeed, Gravelle has tracked down the San Marco Opera Company to the L.A. opera house (pre-Gehry, an opera house I’ve been to), plotting some sort of nebulous scheme against Lilly. I know, I haven’t mentioned Charlie Chan yet, but I haven’t had to, because in all honesty this is Gravelle’s movie, with Chan a mere supporting character. Usually I’d take great offense to this, but Karloff is a magnetic presence – and pegging this escaped, operatic madman into a Charlie Chan story is a good way to spice up the traditional “Phantom of the Opera” storyline a bit. All hail Karloff!
The cops of Los Angeles are unable to track down Gravelle, since the nuthouse never took any photos of him (yeah, suuuuuuure, and Karloff’s just impossible to describe) – presumably, they’re overcompensating for this inability by just beating minorities instead. Finally, grotesquely bigoted Sergeant Kelly (the generally crusty William Demarest) begrudgingly accepts Charlie Chan onto the case, even while he insists on calling him things like “Chop Suey” and “Egg Foo Young” and presumably “Beef and Broccoli With Fried Rice.” At least this time the racism is a character’s fault, and not the innate position of the film itself. Of course Warner Oland does his damnedest to make Chan just a little demeaned, as he actually utters the classic “Confucius say.” Yes, seriously.
Chan’s only clue to cut off Karloff is the torn up newspaper from the booby hatch. This ain’t much to go on, but just then one of the news items wanders into the police station to simplify matters. This is Lilly Rochelle in all her pampered, ditzy diva glory, accompanied by her lover and decidedly not husband Enrico Borelli (Gregory Gaye). And no, these people are not the designated lovebirds; they’re meant to be hateful, so it’s a good thing they are. Lilly has been receiving threatening letters (“You will die tonight!”), and so Chan decides to attend this evening’s performance of the fictional opera “Carnival” to follow up on this lead.
This movie is eminently skilled at presenting us with the designated suspects slowly and clearly; none of that awful cast dumping as in At the Race Track this time! There is Lilly’s jealous husband, Mr. Whitely (Frank Conroy), and Enrico’s jealous wife Anita (Nedda Harrigan). Both of these people have genuinely good motives for a potential murder (which is decidedly not happening any time soon), so it’s a testament to Karloff’s skill that I was totally mislead into discounting them. I’ll admit it: This movie’s mystery absolutely had me fooled, as I thought Karloff was simply being set up as another obvious adversary for Chan much like the goony gangsters of At the Race Track or the terrible triads of Charlie Chan in Shanghai. Well done, Charlie Chan at the Opera House!
Of course there are also the requisite lovebirds, for as randomly minimal as their role in the opera house is (everyone else I’ve mentioned is a singer – well, Whitely’s the owner). Meet Lilly’s daughter Kitty (Charlotte Henry) – okay, that’s kinda connected to the opera – and her indistinct reporter paramour Phil Childers (Thomas Beck, boring me with his uselessness for like the fourth time in a Charlie Chan movie). I’ve been vocally opposed to the formulaic lovebirds in consideration of this series, though with this setting I am forced to consider the Marx Brother’s A Night at the Opera. For as much as that is a stone cold classic, it is far more intrusive with its functionless romantic subplot, meant as a sop to the wishy-washy audiences who cannot root for a trio of vaudevillian anarchists. Compared to that, Charlie Chan at the Opera House is practically minimalist in its deployment of these awful ciphers. (There also proves to be a unique use of the female lovebird in this entry. Thomas Beck remains the LVP of the Charlie Chan films, and possibly Hollywood in general.)
Here’s one really good thing about this entry – it is chronologically condensed. The entire thing takes place over a single opera performance, rather than the freaking weeks leading up to a horse race. It’s the tightest plot of any Chan yet! And furthermore, for a B-movie (from Fox, no less), this movie is ambitious. They don’t just slap in some valueless stock footage of the opera, as they’ve “justified” their race tracks and foreign capitals in the past. No, they go right ahead and stage an entire opera, with all the extras and production values that go with it. And not only that, but this “Carnival” opera was specifically written for this movie! Can you believe that? Even while the monetarily privileged Marx Brothers leeched off of “Il Trovatore,” Charlie Chan makes its own opera. I can hardly fathom this! Reportedly, “Carnival” was commissioned by songwriter Oscar Levant, who said he’d write it if the opera included the lyrics “Silencio!” Okay, fine, that’s a pretty random reason to write an entire opera.
So this opera goes on as our cast shuffles about backstage. Chan questions all the suspects about the complete lack of a murder so far (thirty minutes into this 68 minute movie, and I’m completely not missing it). Gravelle is omnipresent in the shadows, his Karloffian presence casting a pall over everything. Lee Chan (the invaluable Keye Luke) makes his customary appearance, and manages some real comic relief, as he spearheads a bunch of his Chinese buddies to create Marxian chaos backstage and onstage for no particular reason.
The setup in place, Gravelle then makes his move, barging into Enrico’s dressing room in a Mephisto costume exactly like Enrico’s. We don’t see precisely what Gravelle does to Enrico, but we do know that he is to take the man’s place onstage for a duet with Lilly. And we learn that Enrico and Lilly are the ones responsible for Gravelle’s 7-year incarceration. Ah, motives!
Lilly performs an aria. Then Gravelle appears for the duet, as those backstage are informed that it ends with Mephisto stabbing Lilly’s character. Ooh! And here again I must single out Karloff’s performance, for he really carries his own as an operatic genius, carrying all the grace and threat needed. And possibly with lessened resources; I cannot speak for Karloff’s own singing voice, so it is entirely likely he was dubbed. On top of that, he has a mask on, so Karloff is reduced to a silent film-style physical performance – and he carries it off remarkably. And per Karloff’s noted acting strengths, I find myself undoubtedly siding with the ostensible villain – no one creates more sympathetic monsters than William Henry Pratt!
The duet ends with the expected stabbing. Lilly collapses motionless, though her condition is unclear. Then everyone chases “Mephisto” into Enrico’s dressing room, where they discover the ghoul vanished, and Enrico dead on the floor. Okay, this is our first verifiable murder, though it presumably occurred long before the duet. And now, movie half over, Chan is on the case! See, it’s been Karloff’s journey up until now; Chan really is a minor figure in his own movie.
As if compensating for this delayed mystery, the opera crew then rushes into Lilly’s dressing room, where she is now verifiably dead as well – also stabbed. Huh? I’d thought they’d abandoned the “double murder” angle a few entries back – though with these victims, I say let ‘em die! These two were slasher movie reprehensible. Oh, and here is the murder weapon, a knife just like the one formerly in Gravelle’s possession. Further complicating matters, Chan points out how Lilly was murdered after reaching her dressing room, not onstage as we might have initially assumed. Oh, and there’s a bunch of the expected secret tunnels all underneath the opera house, so that’s how that worked.
With Lee’s help, Chan’s investigation finally reveals a little more about Gravelle, now positively IDed as the escaped cuckoo. By utilizing a series of telephones, telegraphs, and photograph development (a sort of 30s equivalent of a fax machine), they are able to get a newspaper article sent over from Chicago about the fire that presumably claimed Gravelle’s life. I can only imagine this sort of thing took a long time to do back then, and yet that opera is still going on (of course some operas are ridiculously lengthy – consider Wagner).
It’s time for Kitty, one half of the listless lovebird duo, to prove useful. In a sequence that recalls Frankenstein without outright parroting it, Gravelle sneaks up on Kitty in whatever dressing room they’re in. We fear more craziness from our beloved nut, but instead Gravelle plays Phantom for Kitty by playing the piano. He asks if she recalls this song from her childhood and – I just got it! Gravelle is Kitty’s father! Man, I feel stupid by this movie. Karloff plays the madman quite nicely, monologuing about how those who did him wrong are now themselves dead. Kitty balks at reconciliation, and all of a sudden Chan is here – entirely due to luck, as per Chan’s admission. And in a strange turn of events, Chan strikes a deal with our obvious murder Gravelle rather than just arresting him outright.
Gravelle shall have an encore performance of the Mephisto duet!
Alice, Enrico’s mourning widow, is press ganged into performing onstage with Gravelle. The hoi polloi in the audience are all still there, keen on witnessing another potential murder for their own spectacle, as the rich are wont to do. The stage is set and Gravelle sings – a reprise of his former performance. And here, again, Karloff’s semi-official uncanniness becomes apparent, as somehow he’s able to play the entire same scene as before, again dubbed and in a mask, and yet create new character interpretations this time. This man was brilliant.
The duet seems primed to end with another stabbing – another non-fatal stabbing, natch, if we’re following all this correctly. At this Alice prematurely screams and faints, affecting her rescue. The cops shoot Gravelle down (in the shoulder). Sergeant Kelly, buttheaded bigot that he is, thinks this proves even more Gravelle’s guilt, and he is incensed at Chan’s insouciance for staging such an event. But Chan says he now knows who the real killer is.
All are assembled in Whitely’s office as Chan prattles on about real and prop knives, and a series of flower-based clues I didn’t bother to talk about. Suspicions are cast this way and that, meant to throw the audience off more so than for any in-film reason. Then Chan reveals Keyser Soze, er, I mean, the killer – Alice herself! Astoundingly, this is our first female killer in the series, showing they can still create little franchise twists. Using Gravelle’s insane presence as a cover, Alice managed to kill off her husband and his mistress (ah, motives!) immediately after we all thought Gravelle had done so. This is a bit of misdirection that works for the movie audience as well as the characters. And to signal the end, as if we needed it, here is Lee.
Many of the quality elements in place here, such as Karloff and an original opera, obviously cannot be repeated in later entries. Still, the surprise murder mystery element which closes the movie out can be repeated, and should, seeing as it satisfies the very base genre elements of a Charlie Chan picture. And it’s amazing, how a strong guest star brings new emotional elements to the table. I wanted Gravelle to succeed, even when I genuinely thought him the killer – of course the Hays killjoys would oppose such a sentiment. That he proves not to be the killer is eminently satisfying, far more so than when Generic Attractive Female Lovebird isn’t the killer. Keeping things well within series formula, it’s amazing how much more dramatically satisfying things are this time around.
Yes, this is the best movie so far in the franchise.
Related posts:
• No. 3 Behind That Curtain (1929)
• No. 4 Charlie Chan Carries On (1931)
• No. 5 The Black Camel (1931)
• No. 9 Charlie Chan in London (1934)
• No. 10 Charlie Chan in Paris (1935)
• No. 11 Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935)
• No. 12 Charlie Chan in Shanghai (1935)
• No. 13 Charlie Chan’s Secret (1936)
• No. 14 Charlie Chan at the Circus (1936)
• No. 15 Charlie Chan at the Race Track (1936)
• No. 17 Charlie Chan at the Olympics (1937)
• No. 18 Charlie Chan on Broadway (1937)
• No. 19 Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo (1938)
• No. 20 Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938)
• No. 21 Charlie Chan in Reno (1939)
• No. 22 Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (1939)
• No. 23 City in Darkness (1939)
• No. 24 Charlie Chan in Panama (1940)
• No. 25 Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum (1940)
• No. 26 Charlie Chan’s Murder Cruise (1940)
• No. 27 Murder Over New York (1940)
• No. 28 Dead Men tell (1941)
• No. 29 Charlie Chan in Rio (1941)
• No. 30 Castle in the Desert (1942)
• No. 31 Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944)
• No. 32 The Chinese Cat (1944)
• No. 33 Meeting at Midnight (1944)
• No. 34 The Shanghai Cobra (1945)
• No. 35 The Red Dragon (1945)
• No. 36 The Scarlet Clue (1945)
• No. 37 The Jade Mask (1945)
• No. 38 Dark Alibi (1946)
• No. 40 Dangerous Money (1946)
• No. 41 The Trap (1946)
• No. 42 The Chinese Ring (1947)
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