Seeing Keye Luke in "The Bamboo Prison" prompted a search for any Charlie Chan flicks we hadn't seen, and we found one, "Charlie Chan at the Olympics"(1937), with Warner Oland in the starring role. We've always had a preference for Sidney Toler as Chan, but now I think it's a tie. Oland is so good at articulating Charlie's Confucianisms, and has a drier take on the character than the smiling Toler, whose Oriental humor is more overt. Anyhow, you can't go wrong with either actor. The plot concerns an automatic pilot being developed for the military at a test facility in Hawaii. The device is radio controlled from the ground. The final test, which takes place as the movie opens, is sabotaged when a stowaway kills the test pilot in midair, lands the plane on a beach, removes the autopilot from the plane and disappears. Charlie Chan is called in to investigate, with #2 son "Charlie Jr." (Layne Tom Jr.) trailing him, wondering when they're gonna go fishing.
The plane's mechanic is found dead in the ocean. At first, the local police investigator thinks he killed the pilot, but Charlie thinks it has something to do with the pilot being a substitute. The actual test pilot who was scheduled for that run was out with an injured shoulder. His girlfriend is "Betty Adams" (Pauline Moore), an Olympic athlete, headed for Berlin and the 1936 Olympics.
The plot gets extremely convoluted after this, so you have to pay very close attention, or you can just sit back and enjoy the atmosphere. The deal is that this autopilot, now stolen, will be coveted by many nations at a time of political instability. Watching the movie now is historically interesting, in that it was released in 1937 and likely filmed in '36, when the world was still waking up to the ambitions of Hitler, who famously walked out of the '36 Games when Jesse Owens showed up his track stars. This movie is happening in real time, historically, and when Chan starts investigating the theft of the autopilot, he suspects a conspiracy to bring it to the ideal international marketplace, the Olympic Games, at which officials from all over the world will be present. Any one of them could be a potential buyer for what will be a formidable tactical advantage. He needs to get to Berlin quickly, so he takes a Led Zeppelin across the Atlantic, and would you believe it? It's the one and only Hindenburg, the real thing, just months before it crashed. Wow! Charlie was already going to go to Berlin to watch #1 son "Lee Chan" (Keye Luke) swim for the US team, but Lee is more interested in helping Dad solving the case, as usual. and - as usual - he wants to solve it before Charlie does, leading to a lot of well-articulated proverbs.
In Berlin, we get to see Olympic stock footage, including the real Jesse Owens running the 400 relay. So many characters are trying to get hold of the autopilot that it's better, in my opinion, to enjoy the movie from the Charlie Chan Formula perspective, and the context of the 1936 Olympics. A Berlin police official, "Captain Strasser" (Frank Vogeding) insists on helping Charlie, and does an admirable job, in his Kaiser Wilhelm helmet. It's telling that he feels the need to protect Germany's image, saying, of the autopilot conspiracy, "Such a thing could never happen in Berlin!" They're making light fun of The Reich before things got truly evil two years later. As for Captain Strasser, he reminds one of Kenneth Mars' "Inspector Kemp" in "Young Frankenstein".
Two Big Thumbs Up for "Charlie Chan at the Olympics". If you've never seen a Chan movie, this is a good place to start. It's one of the best we've seen. Once you watch it, you'll wanna see 'em all. The picture is very good. ////
The previous night's movie was "Never Too Late"(1935), a 52 minute crime quickie notable for the physical talents of it's star, Richard Talmadge, whom I hadn't heard of prior to viewing. Talmadge (real name Sylvester Metz), came to Hollywood from Germany as a stuntman, having been an acrobat in the Mazetti Troupe, who performed with Barnum & Bailey. He shows his abilities early on, when, after an opening scene jewel stickup involving other characters, we see him driving down Hollywood Boogalord. He gets into an accident involving a paddy wagon and is hauled off to jail, but on the way he escapes, Houdini-like, by turning a skin-the-cat somersault out the wagon's rear windum.
The movie opens with the aforementioned stickup, carried out by "Helen Lloyd" (Thelma White), a no-nonsense blonde who wants her pearl necklace back. She's come up a fire escape to surprise "Lavelle" (Paul Ellis) in his apartment. Lavelle, a Don Juan who romances, then blackmails, wealthy married women, has taken Helen's necklace as his latest valuable souvenir. Also after him are the cops, who converge on the scene just as Helen is sticking him up. "Gimme back my pearls!" she shouts. Then, hearing the cops banging on the door, she bails out, going back down the fire escape. After Lavelle is shot and killed by the police, his chest of drawers, filled with blackmailed jewelry, is sold off at a police auction. Helen is there to bid on it, but so are a group of older men, an organized gang of jewel thieves.
Richard Talmadge then reenters the picture, and we learn that he's an undercover cop. He interviews a second woman, "Marie Hartley" (Mildred Harris), whose pearl necklace was also taken by the now dead Lavelle, but the problem is that she's married to a police commissioner! She cheated on him in a moment of boredom, got blackmailed, and has been using the excuse that her necklace is at the jeweler for repair. The commissioner's nosy mother (Vera Lewis) doesn't believe her. "Mother Hartley" micromanages her son's marriage, so Marie needs to get her necklace back as soon as possible. Talmadge infiltrates the jewel gang, who've won the chest of drawers at the auction, to try and recover the necklace. What he doesn't know is that Commissioner Hartley put him on the case deliberately, knowing all along that his wife cheated. He's forgiven her, but just wants to catch the thieves. The blackmailer is already dead.
It's a lot of plot, but it comes through by osmosis. You have to kind of soak it up, because, as in all short films, it's laid out in brief sentences in expository dialogue, and in this case, the plot is overshadowed by the incredible stunts of Richard Talmadge, who - it certainly appears - defied death over Downtown Los Angeles, or Hollywood, by hanging onto ledges of buildings, jumping from scaffolding, etcetera. The guy was one heck of an acrobat. Looking at his IMDB, he was mostly a stuntman but appeared as an actor as well. I kept noticing his unique voice, and thought, "Where's he from? Brooklyn?" I couldn't place it. Turns out he was German, as noted, and was a star in the Soviet Union, where his movies were very popular. "Never Too Late" is a ton of fun for his stunts and comedic ability. It has the static soundtrack common to mid-30s low budget cinema, which we've mentioned in other blogs; there's no music (though there are many car chase and punchout sound effects), and the dialogue, as always in those days, is punctuated by pauses, which I believe are related to the recording equipment, and possibly how it synced with the frame rate. I could be wrong, but there's certainly a reason for the "paused" dialogue of that era. Two Big Thumbs Up. Talmadge manages to foil the jewel thieves. He recovers Marie Hartley's necklace and gives it back to her just in time for an important party, at which her husband the Commissioner will be entertaining political guests. Highly recommended, the picture is very good. ////
And that's all for tonight. My blogging music was "Fireball" by Deep Purple, and "It's a Beautiful Day" by the band of the same name, whose founder, violinist/vocalist David LaFlamme, passed away earlier this week. Besides having one of the greatest album covers ever, that record features the classic song "White Bird", and another song, "Bombay Calling", that is notable for being the basis of Deep Purple's classic "Child in Time". DP made it their own, but never gave IABD or LaFlamme credit. I guess that was the custom at the time, to take a riff you liked, steal it, and turn it into "your own" song. And on that note, in thinking about "Child in Time", I noticed a similarity in style to Uriah Heep's classic "July Morning", in which David Byron contributes ultra-high-pitched screams ala Ian Gillan. I actually like "July Morning" better than "Child in Time", though both are great songs. Anyhow, a little "music musing" for you. My late night is Wagner's Lohengrin, by Von Karajan. I hope you had a nice Summer Saturday, and I send you Tons of Love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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