Warner Oland as Charlie Chan in "The Black Camel" (1931) - feat.Béla Lugosi & Robert Young

Description:

Shelah Fane (Dorothy Revier), a motion picture star filming in Honolulu, consults the mystic Tarneverro (Béla Lugosi), to decide if she should marry Alan Jaynes (William Post Jr.), a wealthy globetrotter she met on the boat to Hawaii. During a crystal ball session, Shelah confesses that three years earlier she fell in love with her co-star, Denny Mayo, and that she was in his house the night he was murdered. Agitated after the consultation, Shelah tells Julie O'Neill (Sally Eilers), her protégé, that she cannot marry Alan. Anna (Violet Dunn), Shelah's maid, is greatly upset when, as she brings Shelah some orchids from stage actor Robert Fyfe (Victor Varconi), who is appearing in town, she sees Shelah tearing a photograph of Denny Mayo. Julie and Jimmy Bradshaw (Robert Young), a tourist bureau employee who wants to marry Julie, find Shelah stabbed to death in her pavilion. Julie removes Shelah's emerald ring. Inspector Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) of the Honolulu police gathers the guests, who were all in Hollywood at the time of Mayo's murder. Chan's blundering assistant Kashimo (Otto Yamaoka) finds the ripped photograph of Mayo. Kashimo brings in a beach bum (Melvin Paoa) whose shoes match the footprints found outside the pavillion. Fyfe, Shelah's ex-husband, confesses that he killed her, but Chan deduces that Fyfe could not have done it, and warns the guests not to leave the island. An unseen assailant shoots Smith on the beach. Chan learns from an Australian couple (J.M. Kerrigan and Mary Gordon) that Tarneverro is really Denny Mayo's brother, Arthur. Fyfe says that after Shelah had found out that Mayo had a wife in England, she shot him during a quarrel. Fyfe says he confessed to her murder because he loved her and wanted to protect her memory. As Chan deduces that Shelah's murderer must have sat in the chair nearest the scratch, a knife is thrown at him. Julie accepts Jimmy's proposal and agrees to remain with him in Hawaii. Chan has the suspects sit where they sat the previous night. The maid Anna reveals that she is really Mrs. Denny Mayo and admits killing Shelah. Tarneverro confesses he came to Hollywood to find his brother's murderer, and says that when Shelah confessed to him, he told Anna. He asks to share Anna's fate. As Chan goes to arrest Anna, Jessop (Dwight Frye), the butler, who loves her, pulls a gun, but after a struggle, Chan disarms him. Jessop admits he shot Smith because he knew too much and that he threw the knife at Chan. A 1931 American Black & White pre-Code mystery film produced & directed by Hamilton MacFadden, screenplay by Barry Conners and Philip Klein, adaptation by Hugh Stanislaus Stange, based on the 1929 novel of the same name by Earl Derr Biggers, cinematography by Joseph August and Daniel B. Clark, starring Warner Oland, Sally Eilers, Béla Lugosi, Dorothy Revier, Victor Varconi, Murray Kinnell, Violet Dunn, J.M. Kerrigan, Mary Gordon, Rita Rozelle, Dwight Frye, and Otto Yamaoka. Screen debut appearance of Robert Young. Released by Fox Film Corporation. Sidney Toler, appears uncredited as Huntley Van Horn. Shot on location in Honolulu, with several scenes filmed at the renowned Royal Hawaiian Hotel. The opening beach scene was filmed at Kailua Beach. Made in what was still the early years of sound films, shot in the 1:20:1 aspect ratio in which the width of the image area on the film was reduced to accommodate the optical soundtrack, before the "standard academy" (1.33:1) format was established as the industry standard. The second film to star Oland as detective Charlie Chan, and the only entry shot on location in Honolulu. Of the five Warner Oland Charlie Chan films based on the original Earl Derr Biggers novels, only this one survives. The other four are believed to have been lost in one of two fires, one in the 1930s and the other in the 1960s. The fifth of 47 Charlie Chan movies starring Warner Oland and others. The film further reunited Lugosi with Dwight Frye (playing Jessop, the butler), who had appeared in the role of Renfield with him in "Dracula" (1931) in the same year this was released. The success of this film benefited from the casting of co-star Béla Lugosi, who had become a star sensation as a result of "Dracula" (1931) at Universal which was released only months earlier that year. The second of three Chans directed by Hamilton MacFadden, who also appeared in three. McFadden also began directing a fourth, "Charlie Chan in Paris" (1935) but was terminated after a week on set. The unsolved murder of the Hollywood actor, which is an important plot point, was inspired by the unsolved murder of director William Desmond Taylor in 1922. One of the very best of the Chans. Warner Oland, as always, is outstanding in a role he was born to play. This early Chan is a very human Chan in an old-fashioned mystery, rather than the more restrained Chan in the later films. Beautifully filmed on loaction in Hawaii. A surprise and delight on every level.