SPOILERS BELOW Everyone who has written about this film here seems right on time, except for the one who doubted Boris Karloff would be voice-dubbed for a B-movie. That person should remember that this was a 20th Century-Fox B-movie and the studio would and probably did bring a dubbing resource in for this key scene. Karloff's voice as Gravelle has to be striking and outstanding, and it is.
For reasons cited by other writers this movie can be watched over and over again and still enjoyed, if you're indulgent of old movie conventions, as I am. It is genuinely, unabashedly and charmingly corny.
Here we seem to have the best take on Charlie Chan (as interpreted by Oland); others have come close, but this one nails it. Of course many of us wonder what it would be like to see the lost Chans from before 1935, and how they would stack up.
The key is that, although Director Humberstone plays the story essentially straight, there is also an intangible element of tongue-in-cheek fun, as if he's sending up the mystery/horror movie conventions a little bit even while he's carefully using them. The use of Karloff is obviously and completely iconic. Humberstone is especially good at getting revealing reaction shots. There's one great example near the beginning, where one of the performers, Madame Borelli (Nedda Harrigan) discovers Gravelle (Karloff) in her dressing room, and instead of screaming for help, slyly hisses, "I thought you were dead"; we can see the wheels turning within her predatory mind. To what end? You'll find out. The looks Madame Rochelle casts when suddenly confronted by Gravelle on stage are priceless, capping off an extraordinary cinematic moment.
One writer said they wished to hear Oscar Levant's opera, "Carnival" in its entirety. I doubt such a work exists. My guess is that it was written as a fragment, as the excerpts we see in the picture make little sense except to set up and advance the plot.
For reasons cited by other writers this movie can be watched over and over again and still enjoyed, if you're indulgent of old movie conventions, as I am. It is genuinely, unabashedly and charmingly corny.
Here we seem to have the best take on Charlie Chan (as interpreted by Oland); others have come close, but this one nails it. Of course many of us wonder what it would be like to see the lost Chans from before 1935, and how they would stack up.
The key is that, although Director Humberstone plays the story essentially straight, there is also an intangible element of tongue-in-cheek fun, as if he's sending up the mystery/horror movie conventions a little bit even while he's carefully using them. The use of Karloff is obviously and completely iconic. Humberstone is especially good at getting revealing reaction shots. There's one great example near the beginning, where one of the performers, Madame Borelli (Nedda Harrigan) discovers Gravelle (Karloff) in her dressing room, and instead of screaming for help, slyly hisses, "I thought you were dead"; we can see the wheels turning within her predatory mind. To what end? You'll find out. The looks Madame Rochelle casts when suddenly confronted by Gravelle on stage are priceless, capping off an extraordinary cinematic moment.
One writer said they wished to hear Oscar Levant's opera, "Carnival" in its entirety. I doubt such a work exists. My guess is that it was written as a fragment, as the excerpts we see in the picture make little sense except to set up and advance the plot.