Charlie Chan at the Olympics

"Charlie Chan at the Olympics" starring Warner Oland was made in 1937, with a backdrop of the 1937 Olympics which were held in Berlin, Germany.

Charlie is going to see Lee Chan compete in swimming when a device for airplanes, that allow them to work without a pilot, is stolen during a test run and the pilot is killed. Obviously someone was hiding on the plane and stole the device. Charlie sets out to help recover the device for the U.S. Lee meanwhile is on a ship with other Olympic hopefuls and a couple of suspects in the robbery.

Once in Germany, Charlie works with the Berlin police to help track down the thieves.

Never in your life have you seen more helpful Nazis. There is not one mention of the German political climate - and the footage of the Hindenburg had every single swastika airbrushed out. What is also interesting is the footage of the Olympics, including some of Jesse Owens.

I found this film somewhat distracting - a bunch of suspects, a bit confusing as to plot, probably because I was too busy looking at Olympic footage. However, I enjoyed it particularly because of Warner Oland and Charlie Jr., played by Layne Tom, Jr., who is delightful. Tom is still alive as of this writing, 85 years old, and became a prominent architect. This is one of his favorite films. I love Keye Luke but Lee here is a bit annoying as he kept misquoting his father and adding, "or something like that." Of course that was the script, but it was too much.

America was really trying to stay out of any potential conflict in Europe, as you will be able to tell from this film.

While Charlie's multi-talented son Lee is traveling by ship to Europe as a member of the US Olympics team, his father searches at home for a newly invented remote control device for planes which is probably on its way to be sold to some obscure foreign power (the political tensions all over the world are already perceptible three years before the beginning of WW II, but the movie doesn't show any affiliation or enmity yet) - and happens to be on the same ship with Lee and his friends, guarded by a 'femme fatale' (Cecil B. DeMille's adoptive daughter Katherine in her probably best role) who arouses the dislike of the young athletes only because she keeps flirting with one of them although he's got a steady girlfriend...

Charlie, in the meantime, has found out the 'traveling route' of the device, and 'overtakes' it, first by plane and then aboard the famous zeppelin 'Hindenburg' (which would crash only a year later). But from the moment on that the athletes (one of whom 'smuggled' it into the country without even knowing it), the spies and the police mingle, there is constant confusion, until Charlie seems to have it safely in the hands of the German police authorities - BUT the spies have got Lee...

From this moment, we really FEEL the agony of Charlie as a father, and his dilemma of handing the important invention over to the spies or risking his son's life - certainly a very earnest and dramatic entry in the 'Charlie Chan' movies, but not without its lighter moments; and besides that, we get a glimpse of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin - a real time document.

Charlie discovers the body of a pilot who was missing for days following a test flight using a remote control navigation system, which is missing from the plane. Charlie discovers that the killer, Miller, worked at an airplane factory in Honolulu, but is found murdered in his apartment before he can be questioned. The suspects of being the sinister power behind the theft are headed towards Berlin, not only to watch the Olympics, but to sell the remote control unit. Charlie takes the Hindenburg to Berlin and is joined by son Lee (who is entered in the 100m swimming relay) to track down Yvonne Rowland, who was seen in Miller's apartment, and who has contacted Baron Zaraka, dignitary for a warring nation. Knowing that Chan is on the case, Zaraka has Lee kidnapped and will turn him over to Charlie in exchange for the remote control device. Charlie tries to dupe the spies, even though he knows that his son is at their mercy. Very good Chan film that places the emphasis on foreign intrigue rather than mystery (and is able to succeed). Oland does turn in one of his best performances as the character, due to the character's development from the genial detective to the worried parent. The Olympics angle does give an interesting aspect of the film towards today's audiences giving an idea of the athletes back then (and the subtraction of the Nazi influence over the games). The climax to the mystery (which is suspenseful) and the revelation of the killer's motive seems to suggest that the film was trying to bloat the mystery angle of the film more. Rating, based on B mysteries, 7.

Some unnamed source at IMDb alleges that CHARLIE CHAN AT THE OLYMPICS, a film capitalizing on the then recent 1936 Berlin Olympics (taking place in Germany under Chancellor Hitler) and released on May 21, 1937, in the U.S and in the early fall of that year in Europe, was "pulled from circulation shortly after its release because it takes place in Nazi Germany." Could someone please define "shortly after its release"? The film, while sympathetically portraying the civilian police force in Berlin (interestingly played for irony and possibly surprise or subtext by frequent film villain Frederik Vogeding), pointedly incorporated actual newsreel footage of Jessie Owens' Olympic triumph which was so upsetting to the Herr Hitler. The film plot had considerable hurdles to surmount in avoiding the identification of the foreign power trying to steal the "McGuffin" military device. Most U.S. or British films of the period would have been more blatant in assuming the national guilty party, but Germany was still a major market for U.S. motion pictures (even if the Chan character himself must have been an anathema to Nazi Party leadership).

Even with the unsettling Anschlus in Austria and the Munich Crisis over the dismembering of Czechoslovakia; with the invasion of Poland and the formal start of European hostilities in World War II still a little more than a year away (U.S. entry into the conflict more than four years away!), America and much of the rest of the world was doing its best to ignore distressing realities within the Reich. While CHARLIE CHAN AT THE OLYMPICS had to do a fine dance to play to that desire to turn a blind eye, it largely succeeded. It is difficult to believe that 20th Century Fox would withdraw an entry in the wildly popular Chan series in anything which could be realistically considered "soon" (anything less than six months). A specific DATE of the withdrawal would be appreciated.

While the film over all may be one of the lesser Chan efforts, it has moments (the initial set-up in the U.S., the travelogue race to Berlin, the scenes in the Olympic Stadium and the final confrontation with the killers) which are as good as any in the canon. To be dismissed as "pulled from circulation shortly after its release" if it is demonstrably not true would be unfortunate.

Every four years comes the Olympic Games which is when the leading capitalist corporate brands and countries strive for world supremacy, and the hyped-up media urges the public to admire athletic junkies beating the clean and honest. I wonder if the trillions of dollars spent on it could be better used to try to feed the hungry and cure the diseased? Give me a three-legged race at a junior school any day!

Charlie has no such hang-ups about going to Nazi Germany. He wants to go on fish-hunt but ends up on man-hunt instead as secret government McGuffin that enables war planes fly by remote control is stolen. The trail and chase to recover it leads from Honolulu to San Francisco to New York and Berlin – with swift global communications it was such a small world after all! At first he's helped by little Cheeky Chan, but when he gets to Berlin no.2 son Lee takes over who is participating at the Games as a swimmer. The likely suspect is the dame in the white fox fur but it turns out more complicated involving gangs of spies and a maze of sinister characters, and all in Berlin too. It's intrigue at warp speed, hardly a second is wasted. Favourite bits: the footage of the Hindenburg (and its unperturbed passengers) beating the ocean liner's passengers to Germany; Charlie's touching faltering concern for the kidnapped Lee; the denouement; Lee continually trying to spout killer aphorisms like his Pop - or something like that!

Overall imho a good entry in the series with a slightly different format to those preceding, and I'd rather watch this than the real Olympics - no contest.