Charlie Chan in der Oper

According to my sources, there seems to be a slight disagreement on the singing in this movie. Denis Gifford's Karloff bio says that Karloff did his own singing (and he could have; he was a fair baritone and sang in the Dulwich College chorus). Oscar Levant's autobiography claims that Karloff was dubbed. Oscar Levant, however, seems to have been writing from an unreliable memory, as he gets other details wrong including the movie synopsis. There are three singing voices heard in the movie: soprano, tenor, and baritone. The tenor was never seen, but was heard onstage while Chan and Number One Son were backstage. Both actresses playing sopranos were synching to the same recording. Karloff may also have been synching to a recording, but it could well have been his own, both for the reason given above and because Levant's opera was written for the movie--no previous recordings existed at the time, and why would the studio have spent extra money on a second singer for a B-budget film when they already had someone on the film who could handle the baritone singing? (Even the Faust costume worn by both baritones onstage was secondhand--it was first worn by Lawrence Tibbett in "Metropolitan", filmed earlier in 1936!)

A madman loose in an opera house is the background for Charlie Chan to investigate a double murder of leading singers in Charlie Chan At The Opera. Son Lee Chan played by Keye Luke even gets in the act as a member of the chorus with his fraternity buddies.

Boris Karloff is the madman, but if I had gone through what he had been through I'm sure I would have become unhinged myself. Some years back Karloff was trapped in a burning opera house by his cheating wife and her tenor lover. He was presumed dead and burned up, but in fact has been an amnesiac patient in a mental asylum. A glance at a newspaper story about the opera brought his memory and a resolve to escape the asylum and seek out his tormentors.

This probably was Karloff's way of playing and not playing the Phantom Of The Opera. As he was in the Frankenstein films or playing The Mummy, Karloff is both a frightening yet pitiable figure. He truly steals this film from Warner Oland as Charlie Chan.

As for Oland he has to solve a pair of murders that occur while Karloff is on the loose. In that he has to work with thick as a brick police sergeant William Demarest. In fact Demarest makes a few racial remarks in Oland's direction, but in the end he's a convert to the wisdom of Chinese parables.

This is one of the best Charlie Chan features and one of the best of the Oland Chan films which were given much better production than later when the series moved to Monogram.

This is my favorite of the Warner Oland Chan films and my second favorite of the series. This one is loaded with atmosphere and has Boris Karloff in it,too! It starts off with an escape from an insane asylum during a thunderstorm at night and gets better from there! Most of the action takes place backstage at an opera house. The opera "Carnival" was written especially for this film and I wish it would be performed so I could see the entire work. Karloff in his Mephisto costume is impressive. In this film, Chan is assisted by Number One Son, Lee, played by Keye Luke. Luke is at his best in this one. He and Oland make a great team. This is another Chan film that even when you know the identity of the murderer, you still want to see the film again and again just for the atmospheric fun. A real pleasure.

Fans of Charlie Chan, Boris Karloff or both should find little to dislike about Charlie Chan at the Opera. Count me as someone who likes Karloff a great deal and gets a fair amount of pleasure watching the Charlie Chan film series. The general consensus is that Charlie Chan at the Opera is one of the best of the series, and it is a consensus that I agree with wholeheartedly. If there is anything that didn't work very well, it was that that Boris Karloff's singing was dubbed very obviously with the sloppy lip synch and the singing voice sounds very little like Karloff when he speaks(Karloff probably did have some singing talent, but there is a lot of truth in what has been said already that he probably wouldn't have been an actor if he was THAT good). Tudor Williams does dub him brilliantly though, the dark velvety quality(that is fairly reminiscent of the great baritone Lawrence Tibbett) of his voice makes him captivating and thrilling to listen to. That aside, the film is very pleasing to look at, well shot with effectively used settings. The Mephistopheles costume was really striking and Karloff looks very imposing(he always did though) in it. The music is grandiose, playful and beautiful, the opera Carnival was composed especially and it is well-utilised and is one that you wish made appearances on the opera stage. Apart from the lip-synch, Karloff is still very good here, he is charismatic and formidable but clearly knows how to have a good time. Warner Oland is spot-on as a character that suits him to a tee, in particular he really relishes his hilariously droll lines and it shows in his sly delivery of them. The dialogue is laugh-out-loud funny, Charlie Chan's lines are like little bon bons and you have to love the nod to Karloff and one of his most iconic roles. All the acting is very good though. The scenes with William Demarest are every bit as fun as those with Karloff and Oland. The mystery parts of the story are well-paced, have good amounts of suspense- not too obvious or predictable- and keeps your "little grey cells"(in the words of Agatha Christie and her immortal creation Hercule Poirot) working, complete with some great atmosphere. Overall, non-stop entertainment from start to finish. 9/10 Bethany Cox

This was my first-ever look at Charlie Chan. It wasn't one of his better adventures but I've seen worse, too. It sports a famous guest actor, Boris Karloff, and a semi-famous, if you will, actor in William Demarest.

Demarest plays a cop and his lingo and his prejudices are very early '30s. He couldn't say those lines (cracks about Asians) on film in this day-and-age.

The usual witty and profound Chan proverbs are in here and the usual loyal son (Keye Luke, number one son) is there to help. The ending left me a bit confused. Granted, I was tired when I watched this but Charlie's last-minute explanation and conclusions came so fast they confused me. I'd have to see this at least one more time to understand it. I think this is coming out on DVD soon and I'll get that and watch it again.

I'll always have a fond memory for this since it introduced me to this extremely entertaining film series. I've seen around 20 of them since this one and enjoyed them all.