CHARLIE CHAN AT THE OLYMPICS (1937)

This is a bit of an oddity in the Charlie Chan series, invoking two timely real-world references: the Berlin Olympics of 1936, at which American runner Jesse Owens won four gold medals, and the German dirigible Hindenburg, which exploded with much loss of life just weeks before this movie was released. Otherwise, it's not a particularly noteworthy entry. The first twenty minutes take place in Honolulu. As Chan's son Lee (Keye Luke) is heading to Berlin to compete in the Olympics as a swimmer, Chan (Warner Oland) gets roped into helping authorities figure out what happened to a plane that vanished during a test flight for an invention that could guide a plane by remote radio control. The pilot was forced by a stowaway to fly the plane to a deserted beach where he was killed and the device taken. The spies, who now have the remote control, are on the ocean liner Manhattan, headed to Berlin where the Olympics will give cover to their attempt to sell the device to a foreign power. Also on board: the U.S. Olympic team, including Lee Chan, his gal pal Betty and her boyfriend Dick, a pole vaulter. Dick gets sidetracked by the attention paid to him by the sophisticated white fox-fur wearing Yvonne, whom we're pretty sure is one of the spies. Chan, along with Hopkins, owner of the device, and Cartwright, inventor of the device, take the Hindenburg to Berlin in order to arrive before the ocean liner. Once there, Chan and the spies play cat-and-mouse games, with Chan getting hold of the device but the spies kidnapping Lee to force Chan to give it up. But, as usual, the villains have underestimated Honolulu's finest policeman.

Though Jesse Owens is not singled out in the narrative, we do see newsreel footage of him running in the relay race for which he won a medal and we hear someone yell, "Come on, Jesse!" Footage of the Hindenburg, with the swastikas blurred out, is shown briefly, though the zeppelin trip is not a major part of the story. What story there is winds up being both convoluted and predictable, and aside from Oland and Luke, the best acting comes from the bad guys: Katherine DeMille (Cecil's adopted daughter) as the exotic Yvonne and C. Henry Gordon as Hughes, an arms dealer trying to get the remote control for himself before it can be sold to a foreign diplomat named Zaraka. Pauline Moore is nicely perky as Betty; Allan Lane is in good physical form as Dick, the pole vaulter. Other familiar faces are John Eldredge as Cartwright and Jonathan Hale as Hopkins, both of whom, despite being the inventor and the owner of the device, act a bit suspicious at times. Nine-year-old Layne Tom Jr. (pictured at left) has a couple of cute scenes as Charlie Jr., a young Chan son (whom Chan misidentifies as Son #2; all Charlie Chan fans know that is actually Tommy) and he has a running joke about his fascination with the phrase "white fox fur." The last part of the film degenerates into people running in and out of rooms, and despite the real-life references, this is about par for the course for the Oland series. I watched this over the weekend to coincide with the current winter games. Pictured at top: Oland, Luke and Gordon. [DVD]