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.

Michael O'Keefe Not that much of a mystery. And very little time spent at the Olympics. Renown detective Charlie Chan(Warner Oland)has a fishing trip with young Charlie Jr.(Layne Tom Jr.)interrupted when a U.S. secret weapon that enables aircraft to be flown by remote control is stolen. A band of international spies transport the device to Germany. With vacation on hold Chan boards the dirigible Hindenburg to Berlin's 1936 Olympics; there Charlie is joined on the case by Number One Son Lee(Keye Luke),who happens to be competing in a swimming event at the games. Villains seem to be everywhere; but as usual no problem for Chan to handle theft and espionage. Charlie Jr. is a welcomed delight. A strong supporting cast includes: C. Henry Gordon, Pauline Moore, John Eldredge, Katherine DeMile and Allan Lane.

ccthemovieman-1 Charlie has his youngest helper ever - or at least in any of the 20 Chan films I've seen - as 12-year-old Charlie Jr. joins Number One Son Lee as they both help dad solve a crime.Lee (Keye Luke) plays a member of the United States Olympic swimming team in this adventure. The repartee between Chan (Warner Oland) and his two sons in here is terrific. Layne Tom Jr. plays Charlie Junior.The Chan movie is more of an adventure than the normal whodunit as Charlie and the cops travel to the Olympics in Munich, Germany in search of a missing radar-plane "black box." Lee is kidnapped at the games and his dad does everything he can to get his kidnapped son back while not jeopardizing the United States in the process. This is one of the better Chan films and will be available on DVD in December, 2006, as part of another Charlie Chan DVD package of four movies.

dhkessel One of the best of the 1930s Chan films. It is remarkable how all reference to the Nazis was expunged from the scenes of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. The Police are represented as Kaiser-style people rather than members of the Gestapo. I was more familiar with Sidney Toler, but I can see that Oland was a superior actor and much of the slapstick of the later Chans was omitted in the earlier versions. All in all, a well-done effort. The plot really doesn't concern the Olympics aside from being used as a backdrop for the action, but this isn't a problem. There is the usual complement of Chan aphorisms. The early Chan films are also interesting commentaries on the state of technology in the 1930s. Getting across the US by plane is said to take 13 hours, as Charlie races a boat from Honolulu to Germany.