Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

binapiraeus 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.

kapelusznik18 ***SPOILERS*** Chinese/American PI Charlie Chan, Walter Oland, and his #1 son Lee, Keye Luke, are off to the 1936 Berlin Olympics for two different missions. Charlie to find a stolen air guidance system device that can control pilot-less air planes, much like the drones of today, in any future combat missions. As for Lee he's a member of the USA Olympic swimming team looking to win a gold medal for the good o'l USA in the 100 meters dash swimming race. Charlie gets help from Berlin police Captain Strasser, Frederick Vogeding, who's not up to par to Charlie's superior investigation tactics. That leads the very impressed Captain Strasser to admit to Charlie that even though he isn't an Aryan or member of the master race he's a far much better crime investigator then he is. Something that can have Captain Strasser thrown behind bars for disloyalty to his country if his superiors in the Nazi Gestapo ever found out about it.Charlie gets to the bottom to who stole the guidance device back in Honolulu to a foreign agent of an unmanned country as well as international arms dealer named "The Honorable", as Charlie Chan referees to him, Charles Zaraka, Morgan Wallace. It's "The Honorable" Charles Zaraka's goons who end up kidnapping Charlie's son Lee in order to get the device, that Charlie had since lifted from him, back. Charlie putting his life on the line goes into the lion's den, "The Honorable" Charles Zaraka's hideout, with the device to save his son Lee's life. But unknown to "The Honorable" Zaraka Charlie planted a tracking device inside the guidance device to let the Berlin Police know exactly where he is and hunt down and arrest "The Honorable" Charles Zaraka and his gang.***MAJOR SPOILERS*** The big surprise in all this is who really stole the guidance device and tried to sell it to the highest bidder. It was non other then the person who invented it Mr. Cartwright, John Eldredge, who like the super capitalist swine that he is was more then ready to sell out his country and murder a number of innocent people along the way to make the big buck that he felt the US military wasn't giving him for his gadget. There's also the German airship Hindenberg featured prominent in the movie that Charlie Chan is a passenger on. It caught fire and crashed with all on board on May 6, 1937 outside Lakehurst new Jersey. Just three weeks before the movie "Charlie Chan at the Olympics" was released to the movie going public.

bkoganbing The 1936 Olympics in Berlin provide a background for the theft of an aerial guidance system in Charlie Chan At The Olympics. Back in Honolulu the device is stolen from inventors John Eldredge and Jonathan Hale and two people are killed. Clues indicate that the device is on its way to Berlin, not for use by the Nazi government, but to be sold on the Berlin black market. As it turns out number 1 son Lee Chan played by Keye Luke is a member of the US swimming team and is in the relay events. So Warner Oland takes both the China Clipper across country and then the Hindenburg to beat Lee to Berlin. As it turns out such sinister types as C. Henry Gordon and Katharine DeMille are on the boat as well.Oland recovers the device, but then the bad guys kidnap Keye Luke and he has to think as a father as well as a detective to get his son back. During all this time he has the full cooperation of the German police.The German inspector is played by Fredrik Vodaging and while a bit authoritarian you would not believe that this is a totalitarian dictatorship. In fact the politics of Nazi Germany is completely erased from this film. The way Chan and Vodaging work together you would hardly believe that this is a place believing in Aryan supremacy.Newsreel footage of the 1936 Olympics including Jesse Owens broad jump is blended in with the film. But I have to say watching this film now it really threw me for a loop.

susvulo In the scene on board the Hindenburg involving CC and 2 other men, look closely at the title of the article in the magazine that the seated man is reading. It's "Think fast, Mr. Moto"!!!I enjoyed this CC movie for its locations. Opening in Hawaii w/#2 son. On board the ship with #1 son. CC flying in the Hindenburg. And finally the Olympic Stadium. Jonathan Hale, as usual, is just suspicious enough to be a legitimate villain/red herring...(???) The arms dealer, foreign diplomat and the lady w/the white fox fur all add intrigue and deception to the plot. We also get to check out Warner Oland's physical condition as he jogs with his shirt off for his physical at the movie's beginning.