THE POP CULTURE ARCHIVIST

20th century ephemera and possibly more

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LIBERTY, August 12, 1933

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SATURDAY EVENING POST, August 9, 1932

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SATURDAY EVENING POST, August 9, 1932

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MOTION PICTURE NEWS, August 7, 1926

More hype for one of 1926's lost films.

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MOTION PICTURE NEWS, August 7, 1926. Tunnel would win the heavyweight championship later that year. THE FIGHTING MARINE is a lost film.

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SATURDAY EVENING POST, August 6, 1932

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LIBERTY, August 5, 1933

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LIBERTY, August 5, 1933

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LIBERTY, July 29, 1933

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The Marlboro Baby. SATURDAY EVENING POST, July 28, 1951

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Further notes on Charlie Chan

Here's a curiosity: Earl Deer Biggers wrote only six Charlie Chan novels and Hollywood made Charlie Chan movies for about 16 years after Biggers died, but there has never been a movie version of Keeper of the Keys, the final novel in the series, though its setting and some story elements were used in the 1939 film Charlie Chan in Reno. Maybe it's because Fox would have had to pay more to Biggers or his estate, since Keys appeared after their series began. Maybe Fox didn't think it would adapt well to film -- before Technicolor was in wide use, the plot hinges on color-blindness, which would be hard to illustrate monochromatically. In any event, once Biggers died Fox began filming original Chan stories.

I watched one of the first of these, 1934's Charlie Chan in London. The formula we identify with Chan movies isn't yet in place; Keye Luke wouldn't debut as Lee Chan until the next film. I was mainly interested in how Chan talked. Unfortunately, Warner Oland's dialogue is as formulaically primitive as everyone remembers. There's no sign of the refinement we see by the end of Biggers' run. I'm pretty sure that Chan never says the in the entire picture, compared to his realistically erratic usage in Keeper. Chan may be the smartest man in the room in every scene (especially compared to E.E. Clive's obtuse policeman), but he talks like something out of vaudeville or a comic strip. It's exactly the sort of lazy simplistic dialogue that would inspire mockery, not just of Charlie Chan but of Chinese people generally. When you compare this stuff to late Biggers, you can understand the offense Asians feel.

Here's a coincidence: the two best-known Asian characters in early 20th century English-language pop fiction, Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan, are commonly visualized with moustaches -- Sax Rohmer's villain even has a style named after him -- but are described by the creators or depicted by the original illustrators (recall the images of Chan from earlier posts) as clean-shaven. In both cases, Warner Oland is to blame. Oland or his employers must have thought a bare upper lip would have spoiled his yellowface act. As Biggers receded into history, Oland's became the falsely definitive image of Charlie Chan, while Fu Manchu is less identified with any one actor.

Morbid curiosity led me to the 1950s Chan TV series. The casting of J. Carroll Naish, perhaps the least convincing of classic Hollywood's all-purpose ethnic impersonators, did not inspire confidence. He looks much less like a Chinese man than Oland, who claimed partial Mongolian ancestry, and his slight frame is contrary to Biggers' descriptions of a heavyset but lightfooted man. On the other hand, while Naish's casting remains inexcusable, his English as Chan is letter-perfect. The cynic in me suspects that Naish neither looking nor sounding like Warner Oland (or even Sidney Toler) may explain why the show didn't last long. To my knowledge, a series hasn't been tried since, unless you count the 1970s cartoon that focused on Chan's kids but has Keye Luke voicing the great man.

[thepopculturearchivist]

TIME, July 25, 1932

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MOTION PICTURE NEWS, July 24, 1926. SATAN TOWN reportedly survives, but not intact.

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MOTION PICTURE NEWS, July 24, 1926

Art by John Held Jr. Funny to see this called "The Biggest Comedy Of History" when you know what was up next for Buster....

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LIBERTY, July 22, 1933

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SATURDAY EVENING POST, July 21, 1951

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ESQUIRE, July 1951