A Masterpiece!

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

A lunatic escapes from a mental asylum after seeing a newspaper article about an opera production at a nearby theater. The police fail to find him, and Charlie Chan happens to be nearby. The maniac is believed to be a former opera singer supposedly killed in a Chicago opera house fire years ago, with intentions of taking revenge on the opera stars who had locked him in the opera house. But there are feuds and intrigues among the opera cast and crew as well.But the story is not so simple after all. The maniac is at the opera house, but why is he there? For revenge, or for some other reason? The story takes on very unexpected turns before it concludes.Good performances by all, especially by Boris Karloff who plays the maniac without overdoing it, and it is not merely Number One Son who provides comic relief.

This entry in the long-running and hugely popular 'Charlie Chan' series takes us into the distinguished - and a bit decadent - world of grand opera: famous soprano singer Lilli Rochelle, eccentric and somewhat conceited, is on the brink of hysteria because she's received a death threat for the very same day - her opening night in Los Angeles, after being away for seven years. And on exactly the same day, an amnesiac breaks out of a mental asylum after seven years; because, as soon as he sees her picture in the papers, he seems to remember something...Meanwhile, we learn that second soprano Anita Barelli is madly jealous of Lilli - not only because she's the star, but mainly because she's got an affair with her husband! And then there's a young couple hanging around backstage all the time, for some reason trying by all means to get to Lilli - but then the opera performance starts, and very soon a murderous drama REALLY worthy of any opera libretto begins to take its course...Except for the comic relief provided by Lee Chan and the cops, this film is pretty earnest, at times dramatic, if not even melodramatic; but we must undoubtedly admit that Boris Karloff probably plays one of the BEST roles of his life here: mad, full of hatred, and then again pitiful and sympathetic... While in other movies he usually only showed parts of his full acting range at a time - here he demonstrates them all in one!

Given that Boris Karloff is one of my favorite actors, it's no surprise this is my favorite Charlie Chan movie. Now, of course since Karloff is here, we have to start the movie with an atmosphere akin to that of a horror film. Karloff plays an amnesiac opera singer named Gravelle. He regains his memory and escapes from a sanitarium on a stormy night to go find his daughter, whom he hasn't seen since she was a child. The police are desperate to catch Gravelle, so they call in Charlie Chan (Warner Oland).Oland is pitch-perfect as always. Keye Luke as "Number One Son" Lee gets to have lots of fun running around in costume backstage at the opera, trying to help his father on the case. William Demarest plays a police sergeant jealous of Charlie who makes several bigoted remarks throughout the movie but comes to respect the superior detective by the end. Boris Karloff gives a terrific performance, which should come as a surprise to no one familiar with his work. He's the only actor in the entire series to be able to match Warner Oland's screen presence.Fast pace, interesting setting, great performances, and a particularly nice atmosphere make this an exceptional entry in the always delightful Charlie Chan series. I'm not big on opera but the music written by Oscar Levant for this film is pretty good and adds to an overall excellent production. As I said before, this is my favorite Charlie Chan film and I see by many reviews here I'm not alone. It's definitely a highlight of the series, with a top-notch guest star (Karloff) and an exciting story, helped greatly by the opera backdrop and music.

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.