Oh boy…this is one of the big ones! Charlie Chan represents, by my calculations, the sixth most prolific film series in history. There are 47 films in this franchise! I better be careful with how I approach this, lest I bite off more than I can chew.
The Charlie Chan character comes of literary stock, the invention of San Marino novelist Earl Derr Biggers. Chan makes his inauspicious debut in Derr Biggers’ 1926 novel “The House Without a Key,” playing a minor character who doesn’t speak until the 86th page. Yup, there are 47 movies due in that guy’s future.
Who can say what it was about Chan that led to his incredible popularity?...Me. The U.S. of the 1920s was spectacularly racist, so much so that it makes the 30s look good. People then feared the Chinese the same way we now fear zombies or Twilight fans. This cowardly Yellow Peril wasn’t in response to shoddily produced merchandise or underage gymnasts, but because the Chinese were eeeeeeeee-vil. I’m too drunk right now to understand the Wikipedia page on “Yellow Peril,” so I’ll just namedrop Fu Manchu, and toss in this image:
Charlie Chan was created in opposition to that. He was intended to be a positive racist Chinese stereotype. So Chan is an “amiably Chinese” hero, a nationalized Chink living in Honolulu, working on the side of law and order, with his “light dainty step of a woman” and his “very fat” “undistinguished figure.” It’s amazing to think now, but this was actually a progressive attitude to take in 1926. It was controversial – a Chinaman could exhibit basic human decency?! No! And while Chan was but a minor figure in “The House Without a Key,” the mere fact that he was an Asian not obsessed with raping was noteworthy.
Overall, cracker author Derr Biggers quickly squeezed out six tales of Chan. Here they are!
“The House Without a Key” (1926)
“The Chinese Parrot” (1926)
“Behind That Curtain” (1928)
“The Black Camel” (1929)
“Charlie Chan Carries On” (1930)
“Keeper of the Keys” (1932)
These are mystery novels, as was the style at the time. Charlie Chan is a super-intelligent sleuth on a par with Sam Spade, Hercule Poirot, and Nick and Nora Charles, which is why a pastiche version of him appears in Murder By Death (played by Peter Seller – all hail). His shtick is to ladle on the aphorisms, fortune cookie “ancient Chinese” proverbs Mr. Miyagi wouldn’t be caught dead saying (because he’s Japanese). I shall have plenty of opportunity over this series to ponder the once-popular mystery genre, so I won’t do it here.
The first Charlie Chan movie, such as it is, was an adaptation of “The House Without a Key.” It was released later that same year (1926) by Pathé Studio. That’s a really impressive turnaround, considering – When are we getting our Hobbit movie?! This movie is now lost, so nobody can directly comment upon it. I will deduce, in clever Chan, that this was a silent movie, seeing as it was released before sound filmmaking technology existed. Q.E.D. Also, it was a serial in ten parts, meaning audiences saw it in tiny segments before main movies, and later had to pay good money for the latest Charlie Chaplin feature just to get their latest Charlie Chan.
The plot of The House Without a Key almost certainly mimics the novel, which I’ll just sum up as “murder mystery in Hawaii.” A ridiculously in-depth synopsis of this never-seen film can be found here. I didn’t read it. But seeing as the novel was later readapted as Charlie Chan’s Greatest Case in 1933, I’ll be visiting it lat– Hold up, you’re saying that film’s lost too? Geez! Okay, whatever, I’ll sum up the novel’s plot from a far less wordy source: Wikipedia!
“Murder mystery in Hawaii…starring a Bostonian.”
The minor role of Charlie Chan was played by a Japanese man, George Kuwa, because clearly there’s no difference between the Chinese and the Japanese. (Sadly, some people still think this [cough] The Karate Kid remake [cough].) The movie was not a success upon release, apparently because audiences were turned off by the presence of a ninth-billed Asian in the cast. Seriously? These movies are black and white, guys, you can’t even see the yellowness! It’s freakishly astounding to think this was such an important factor back then.
The following year saw the release of The Chinese Parrot, based on Derr Biggers’ second Chan novel. It is also lost. Am I actually going to get to see a Charlie Chan movie? (Actually, yes, around 43 of ‘em.) A different Japanese guy played Chan this time, one Kamiyama Sojin. How did he even get work in Hollywood with a non-Anglicized name like that? Once again, the movie did poorly, again attributed to the presence of an Asian character. Heaven forefend! To paraphrase a negative critical write-up from 1927, “Sojin plays a Chink, and he is a Chink, therefore it’s bad.” No, you ignorant writer, Sojin’s a Jap. Yeesh!
The story this time, going off of the book summary, is that Chan (now a more major figure) is trying to escort a valuable necklace from Hawaii to California. Also, there is another murder…of a parrot. Later on, a lowly Chinese worker is murdered too, but I’m sure most audience members were more concerned about the bird.
So far, none of these Charlie Chan films are gelling into what I’d call a film franchise – They’re merely unrelated adaptations of a literary franchise. Certain online sources (such as that verbose plot summary link above) would agree with this assessment. The rights to the Charlie Chan character would then transfer over to the Fox Film Corporation in 1929, totally destroying any possibility that these first two films are connected. Chan remained with Fox until 1944, so I feel okay in considering the next movie (a Fox film) as part of their fold.
That movie in question is Behind That Curtain, something I actually did see. It is the first Charlie Chan sound film, and it feels desperately a part of that awkward transition. Sound is by far the most notable technical innovation in the history of filmmaking (far outstripping color, widescreen or the recent retarded obsession with 3-D). The very language of films was altered by its arrival, not always for the better, as evidenced by Behind That Curtain. Before sound, movies were an entirely visual medium (I’m discounting the in-theater organists, a phrase that sounds slightly filthy). Ah, but if you’ve seen Singin’ in the Rain, you’ve seen how bulky and problematic recording technology was – in the early years, actors had to stand perfectly still inside a musty, sterile movie set, while the listless camera remained itself equally motionless. Even many of the classic movies from the early sound era offer scant cinematic charms, so what hope does a B-movie serial like this have?
These purgatorial semi-sound movies possess other anachronistic characteristics. The accepted style of acting is the furthest standardized form from our own I’ve seen in film – this discounts intentionally stylized forms like ancient Greek theater or certain Godard movies. Imagine, here you have actors initially trained to act silently, used to emoting through broad, outrageous movements. Now tell them they are not allowed to move, but still expect their (no longer valid) acting method to function. On top of that, microphones were pretty iffy. So you have a bunch of over-enunciating actors, speaking as though they’d learned their lines by rote pho-ne-tic-al-ly, moving around stiffly like myself on a dance floor.
To this uniquely stilted direction and acting, throw in writing that is equally uninspired. Stylistically, the immediate post-silent era looked to stage plays for its major influence in terms of tone, content, style, et cetera. Seemingly, with sound now possible, it was assumed that sound was all audiences were interested in (shaded of the current 3-D mania here). Who needs interesting visuals or exciting plotting? Just get your actors yakking away endlessly, scene after scene – those ignorant, dime-paying audiences will just eat that shit up! I don’t curse here often, which tells you just how I feel about this.
So far I’ve said nothing about the content of Behind That Curtain, even while I’ve succinctly described the entire experience of watching it – this could be the most boring movie I’ve ever seen. Too bad, because a quick peek at the novel summaries suggests this should be an exciting murder mystery concerning a pair of silk Chinese slippers.
This movie ain’t that. The focus is decidedly not upon the murder mystery – seeing as Charlie Chan isn’t the focus. You see, these Chan books were popular enough to warrant adaptation, even if studios were deathly afraid of the whole Chinese. So how’s this for a new plot? There is a minor back-story in Derr Biggers’ novel about three minor characters. Ah, but they’re all whites, so let’s make the movie about them – against all reason or audience interest. Let’s also force in a love triangle that totally wasn’t in the book, because again audiences come to murder mysteries to see the tangentially related suspects go through their lame little love stories…I am having real difficulty sustaining interest in this thing, especially with so many fascinating summertime television reruns to choose from.
I’ll just plow through the broad plot outline and get this over with. Things start off promisingly enough, with the plot-mandated murder. Even more welcome, it’s the murder of a lawyer (one Hilary Galt, played by Ed Norton – a different one, I assume). A disgusting cockney cipher named Portnick (John Rogers) tails the trench coated murderer home, thus learning everything about him (or her).
Well, I guess that’d make for a short mystery, so Portnick roundly refuses to offer up any information to Scotland Yard Inspector Sir Frederick Bruce (Gilbert Emery, his name misspelled in the credits). Bruce’s only clue is the aforementioned pair of Chinese slippers placed on Galt’s feet for increasingly confusing reasons. Suffice to say, what little progress Bruce makes in this case for the first nine tenths of the movie will be entirely due to a letter sent to him by an off screen Charlie Chan eight months after the fact explaining the slippers’ significance.
The real focus, as intimated, is between a tiresome, sexless love triangle. Meet Colonel John Beetham (Warner Baxter), the sort of Alan Quartermain-lite adventurer roundly celebrated by the British for effectively plundering the browner parts of the world. Meet his rival Eric Durand (Philip Strange – what a name!), a sniveling ass who is so obviously the murderer from the get go that my cynical modern mind was desperately searching for a plot twist that would never come. Finally, meet the object of their affection, Eve Mannering (Lois Moran, looking like King Kong’s Naomi Watts crossed with a 12-year-old boy) – seemingly, the only things of interest in this wet noodle are her wealth and her vagina. And that’s our cast! Man, these are like the worst characters from “Dracula,” the ones most adaptations usually drop.
If you found those three interesting, and want to hear them talk redundantly about the same thing for an hour (like a phone call from parents)…even then, this movie’s probably too boring for you. There is some minor excitement to be had in the movie’s sudden “Indian” setting, just because it’s weird to see Hollywood’s confused presentation of cultures they’ve done no research on. And oh man!, is the love dialogue here ever awful! It’s all so overly-flowery and pompous, as if the screenwriters were misunderstanding their responsibility and channeling the bad high school poet inside us all.
So at one point Eve is with her baldly villainous husband Eric, and then with the baldly heroic Beetham (meaning I thought he was the killer), and blah blah blah. There is some second unit footage of a camel caravan tossed in, and at least they had the good grace to add sound effects to these scenes, since no acting or dialogue or development or anything can happen. I am starting to seriously question this blog’s whole purpose when – Holy schnikeys, was that Boris Karloff?! Indeed, here is a demeaning walk-on role as an “ethnic” by Hollywood’s premier A-list monster – the man played Frankenstein’s monster and a mummy! And you know, it’s “okay” for him to play a well-meaning darkie here, because at least the actor’s white.
Eventually the movie wends its tiresome way over to San Francisco, which also gets nice second unit footage – man, Chinatown was empty back then. Inspector Bruce is finally able to reinsert himself into this narrative, and with under ten minutes remaining, Charlie Chan (Korean E.L. Park) finally appears. And what is his grand introduction like? Seen from the back shuffling away alongside another Chinese character. They were clearly embarrassed by the need to include this guy. And given his scant lines, limited screen time, and thirteenth billing (seven lower than Karloff), there is little here to interest even Chan enthusiasts – the only people with any reason to watch this movie.
Finally the murder plot is resolved. It just is. But I cannot let that pass without criticizing the 91-year-old plot holes. You see, Bruce eventually learned that the Chinese slippers belonged to Beetham, though this info only comes about through the indirect aid of Chan. The instant he figures this out, it is a simple matter of tracing them back to Eric (the murderer)…Now, the slippers were placed there as an incredibly obvious attempt to frame Beetham, yet…that totally didn’t work! It’s like…the case would have never been solved unless those slippers were there, except they were there to ensure the case would never be solved. Eric, you’re a moron!
But Bruce is equally as moronic. He knows Eric is guilty with a half hour left, yet he opts to leave him be. His reasoning is apparently to save lovers Eve and Beetham any public shame, because love is surely more important to this Scotland Yard detective than catching a murderer. In his delay, Eric then goes and kills again (Portnick) – by my reasoning, Bruce is responsible.
Then finally Bruce devises a scheme along with Chan to catch Eric in a crowded public lecture. He bungles this pretty spectacularly, getting his own dumb ass fatally shot in the process. But as Bruce confesses to tender, idiotic lovebirds Beetham and Eve just prior to his (assured) death, these numerous murders at least ensure them slightly less public scandal. Phew!, I was worried they might have to suffer minor inconvenience at some point! But of course their beautiful love cannot prosper with Eric still alive, so Chan goes right ahead (off screen) and murders Eric in public – it is a detective’s right to do so, apparently. Man, the moral resolution to this movie is so moronically misconceived, I can actually understand why the Hays Code was created.
Having badmouthed a movie from 1929 at length, I must assure you I am not opposed to the era. I mean, my favorite movie of all time (The General) dates from 1926. But this is just bad, the sort of cultural flotsam that does little more than shatter notions of a former golden age. This is the kind of movie The Last Airbender will be in the future.
Entirely as an addendum, the director was Irving Cummings.
...
For the third time in a row, a Charlie Chan movie was a box office bomb. It appears the filmmakers made the egregious mistake to cast an Asian man as an Asian man. I’d dearly love to believe that’s not the reason for audiences shunning Behind That Curtain (I’d like to believe it’s because the movie sucks and is boring). However, the fact is that Charlie Chan movies became popular the instant a cracker portrayed him. But that’s a story for next time…
Before I move on and dive into the rest of this overwhelming franchise, I think it’s best to give you an idea of the task ahead, by simply listing the series. The movies I expect to watch are in bold. You can start praying for me now.
1. The House Without a Key (1926)
2. The Chinese Parrot (1927)
3. Behind That Curtain (1929)
4. Charlie Chan Carries On (1931)
5. The Black Camel (1931)
6. Charlie Chan’s Chance (1932)
7. Charlie Chan’s Greatest Case (1933)
8. Charlie Chan’s Courage (1934)
9. Charlie Chan in London (1934)
10. Charlie Chan in Paris (1935)
11. Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935)
12. Charlie Chan in Shanghai (1935)
13. Charlie Chan’s Secret (1936)
14. Charlie Chan at the Circus (1936)
15. Charlie Chan at the Race Track (1936)
16. Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936)
17. Charlie Chan at the Olympics (1937)
18. Charlie Chan on Broadway (1937)
19. Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo (1938)
20. Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938)
21. Charlie Chan in Reno (1939)
22. Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (1939)
23. City in Darkness (1939)
24. Charlie Chan’s Murder Cruise (1940)
25. Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum (1940)
26. Charlie Chan in Panama (1940)
27. Murder Over New York (1940)
28. Dead Men Tell (1941)
29. Charlie Chan in Rio (1941)
30. Castle in the Desert (1942)
31. Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944)
32. The Chinese Cat (1944)
33. Meeting at Midnight (1944)
34. The Shanghai Cobra (1945)
35. The Red Dragon (1945)
36. The Scarlet Clue (1945)
37. The Jade Mask (1945)
38. Shadows Over Chinatown (1946)
39. Dangerous Money (1946)
40. Dark Alibi (1946)
41. The Trap (1946)
42. The Chinese Ring (1947)
43. Docks of New Orleans (1948)
44. Shanghai Chest (1948)
45. The Golden Eye (1948)
46. The Feathered Serpent (1948)
47. The Sky Dragon (1949)
I’m definitely gonna break this up with some other movies at some point…
Related posts:
• No. 4 Charlie Chan Carries On (1931)
• No. 5 The Black Camel (1931)
• No. 9 Charlie Chan in London (1934)
• No. 10 Charlie Chan in Paris (1935)
• No. 11 Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935)
• No. 12 Charlie Chan in Shanghai (1935)
• No. 13 Charlie Chan’s Secret (1936)
• No. 14 Charlie Chan at the Circus (1936)
• No. 15 Charlie Chan at the Race Track (1936)
• No. 16 Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936)
• No. 17 Charlie Chan at the Olympics (1937)
• No. 18 Charlie Chan on Broadway (1937)
• No. 19 Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo (1938)
• No. 20 Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938)
• No. 21 Charlie Chan in Reno (1939)
• No. 22 Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (1939)
• No. 23 City in Darkness (1939)
• No. 24 Charlie Chan in Panama (1940)
• No. 25 Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum (1940)
• No. 26 Charlie Chan’s Murder Cruise (1940)
• No. 27 Murder Over New York (1940)
• No. 28 Dead Men tell (1941)
• No. 29 Charlie Chan in Rio (1941)
• No. 30 Castle in the Desert (1942)
• No. 31 Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944)
• No. 32 The Chinese Cat (1944)
• No. 33 Meeting at Midnight (1944)
• No. 34 The Shanghai Cobra (1945)
• No. 35 The Red Dragon (1945)
• No. 36 The Scarlet Clue (1945)
• No. 37 The Jade Mask (1945)
• No. 38 Dark Alibi (1946)
• No. 40 Dangerous Money (1946)
• No. 41 The Trap (1946)
• No. 42 The Chinese Ring (1947)
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