It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

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.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

It's a great shame that several of the early Chans featuring Warner Oland are lost. The Black Camel is the only film that survives until 1934's Charlie Chan in London. Maybe somewhere a private collector has copies of these movies. One can only hope that they will someday surface.The Black Camel is graced by the presence of Bela Lugosi AND Dwight Frye! Anyone who thinks Lugosi is a ham actor should watch his calm and relaxed performance here. Oland is an immediately likable presence as Charlie Chan; it's unfortunate that his side kick Kashimo has dated for modern audiences. Continually interrupting scenes by running in and shouting "CLUE!" grows pretty wearisome, and one pines for the presence of Keye Luke, who's comedy schtick has worn much better. No such luck.THe mystery concerns the unsolved murder of an actor three years ago, and when film actress Julie O'Neil (Sally Eilers), confesses to her psychic adviser Tannavero (Lugosi) that she was present in his home when he was killed and knows the identity of his murderer she's soon bumped off with a knife to the heart and Chan, who is already investigating the earlier murder, has to clear things up.This is an agreeable mystery with some pleasant Hawiian local colour, although I wish a little more had been made of this. A good start for the surviving Charlie Chans. If only we had the lost ones...

SYNOPSIS: A film star is murdered whilst making a movie on location in Honolulu. (Of course, there is no black camel anywhere in the plot, but you can't have everything).COMMENT: This, the 5th movie in the Charlie Chan series is one of the best. To begin with, it boasts a great cast. True, Bela Lugosi is often photographed from somewhat unflattering angles, but this, if anything, makes his characterization more interesting. Another point in the movie's favor, of course, is Warner Oland, here giving a more rounded interpretation before Chan became stereotyped. Otto Yamoaka tends to overdo the comedy relief, but his scenes are brief and even, at times, mildly amusing. As the female lead, Sally Eilers is cast in the shadow of Dorothy Revier, who, although she has a much smaller role, is the girl you remember. And although not always photographed to his advantage, Robert Young, also makes a lasting impression despite the fact that the sub-plot in which he is cast is ho-hum conventional. Another character everyone always remembers from this entry is the beach bum so convincingly yet charismatically played by Murray Kinnell. And of course a final point which stays in everyone's memory is the appearance (in both senses of the word) of Hamilton MacFadden as the film-within-the-film's director and Daniel B. Clark as the location cameraman.

For his second appearance as Charlie Chan, Warner Oland is actually working and solving a case as a member of the Honolulu PD homicide squad and not retained as a private detective. The victim here is Dorothy Revier, movie star.Back on the mainland Revier was involved with an actor who was killed in a still unsolved homicide. And as it usually does in these cases a whole load of people that had previous connections with the late actor just happen to be on the scene.Bela Lugosi is in the film as well as a spiritualist who has somehow insinuated himself with Revier. He's got a score to settle with whomever killed the actor. Lugosi is his usual sinister self.Besides the mainland murder before the action and that of Revier there is a third of an itinerant beachcomber artist played by Murray Kinnell.I will say that Charlie Chan has to solve all three cases and does. But the murders are committed by three different people. And in one case an old murder mystery truism proves valid.The title The Black Camel has nothing really to do with plot itself. It is a piece of an old Chinese proverb that Charlie Chan quotes, but not fortune cookie aphorisms.You'll not figure out the three murders, they won't be people you might originally suspect.

A terrific restoration of another atrocious film! To put this review in short, if you can sit through an hour or so of Bela Lugosi portraying a Latin-American dignitary meowing like a cat(!) and El Brendel picking his nose(!) don't call us, we'll call You! Yes, it's That bad!! I'm the world's #1 Marjorie White, the only reason at all I pick out these films, to see her, but what an insult to not only the viewer, but to her memory as well, it's hard to imagine how her spunky talent got stuck in a bowser like this one! Yes, this is another in the "lost and best forgotten" category, several moderately talented actors grossly miscast in this loser, give me a script and a camera, even I can do better than this! End of story!