Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Chan's Number One son is a participant in the American swimming team during the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Meanwhile, Chan is in Hawaii with a toddler son, also interested in being a detective, though they are on a fishing trip. But they soon get mixed up when a remote-controlled (full-sized) airplane crashes, its pilot murdered, and its top secret control circuit stolen from it. It winds up being taken to Europe and Chan and company follow it. Members of the Olympics also get involved.There are several subplots involving intrigues among the Olympic team, which involve Number One son and muddy the chase of the stolen robot-who is involved, and who can possibly be guilty. The very efficient German police are involved, but obviously foreign spies are after the device-who to trust?Historical note: In 1937, there was still uncertainty as to who Hitler was and what he intended, not everyone seeing him then as evil-he was even named Time magazine's Man Of The Year shortly before. Also, Chan did ride the Hindenburg zeppelin, and you see a brief shot of it, swastika included, and Jesse Owens and his Olympic victory did get shown in the movie. Even Charles Lindbergh went to Germany to admire how Hitler brought it back to life. It would not be until the 1938 Kristallnacht that the world would unmistakably discover the true nature of Hitler's regime.

An experimental, top secret plane is hijacked and the pilot murdered. When the plane is found, someone has stolen the new remote control device the plane was carrying. Foreign powers would pay a fortune for such a device. Charlie Chan is on the case and tracks the crooks from Honolulu to a ship carrying Olympic athletes to the games in Berlin. Maybe not the absolute best, but Charlie Chan at the Olympics is a fun addition to the series. I'll keep this to a couple of things that stand out to me. First, the movie looks like a million bucks. The Fox B unit made some fine looking films. Cinematography, lighting, sets, and set design are all quite good. And here, they combined newsreel footage from the Berlin Olympics with scenes they shot in as seamless a way I've seen in a movie from the 30s. It's very well done. Next, The acting in Charlie Chan at the Olympics is fantastic. I really enjoy the all too brief scenes Warner Oland and Keye Luke have together in this movie. Just a pleasure to watch. And I get a kick out of the scenes with Johnathan Hale and John Eldridge. Surely, no on actually talks like that. They sound like they're in a race to see who can spit out lines the fastest. I love it.If I have one negative to say about Charlie Chan at the Olympics it's that the movie is more spy/adventure than murder/mystery. Whether it's Chan, Sherlock Holmes, or Hercules Poirot, I prefer the plots that revolve around a murder more than those that get all tied up in a wartime distractions. I love those scenes where the great detective gathers all the suspects together before making the final reveal. I know this is a matter of personal opinion and taste, but I do rate this movie lower because, for me, the entertainment value isn't as great.

If you view the Chan films in order there is actually a weird around the world trip that happens. Its almost as if Chan is moving from place to place in one trip. Its clear from the internal details that time has passed between adventures, but at the same time its as if Chan is taking the long way home to Hawaii. This stop is in Germany where Chan is visiting his son who is on the US Olympic team during the infamous Berlin Games. Chan is sucked into the mystery as a favor to one police organization or another, since at this point in the series he was still a detective with the Honolulu police force. Amazingly watching the film one loses ones self in the mystery (which has to do with the theft of a military guidance system) and completely forgets the darkness that would devour the world. Here the Nazi's are the good guys, almost comedicly so. One of the better Chan films is most certainly worth a bag of popcorn and a glass of soda.

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.