Charlie
Chan - Hawaiian Super Cop Part II
by Alan C. Elliott
Continued from part I
Thirty years later, a Swedish actor who played a Chinese Honolulu detective in American Hollywood movies was received in Shanghai in a great series of celebrations and events. The actor was Warner Orland and the character he played was Charlie Chan. At that time in American history, people of Chinese descent were banned by law from becoming American citizens, and a series of other state and national racially discriminatory laws forbid immigration and association of Chinese people with the majority white population. In movies of the era, Asian characters were almost always depicted as evil and degenerate. The fact that a Chinese detective (even one played by an actor who was only of partial-Asian descent) was portrayed on the screen as being an “equal” to other white police officers was remarkable. Because of this, Charlie Chan became a movie hero in China, and the actor who portrayed Chan was welcomed with excitement and enthusiasm. The Chinese government, which banned many American movies for demeaning portrayals of the Chinese, approved all of the American Charlie Chan movies. The Chinese movie industry even produced its own Charlie Chan films using an actor that looked and spoke like Orland (in Chinese.)
The
last of the classic Chan movies and novels are now more than fifty
years old. However, recent books, articles and websites about the
Chan character have engendered renewed interest in the character.
Some historians suggest that even with our more modern racially
sensitive views, we should continue to celebrate the courage of
author Biggers who broke through the racial bigotry of the time to
create a positive image for this Chinese character. Chinese Actor
Keye Luke (who appeared in several of the Chan movies as the “Number
One Son”) said, “They think it (the Chan character) demeans the
race… Demeans! My God, you’ve got a Chinese hero!” As Charlie
Chan might observe, “Mind like parachute – only work when open.”
The
story behind the creation of Charlie Chan by author Earl Derr
Biggers, and the subsequent bestselling novels and 40+ films, is also
remarkable. In 1919, Biggers had already established himself as a
popular author when he decided to take a trip to Honolulu to
celebrate his success. Biggers took a room at a small Halekulani
cottage (at that time called “Gray’s-by-the-Beach”) near
Waikiki Beach. When he arrived to check in, he asked for the key to
the cottage and was told there were no keys. At that time, Waikiki
was so laid-back that few people bothered with locks. During his stay
in the shadow of Diamond Head, the plot of a murder mystery formed in
his mind one night as he observed a cruise ship sitting in the ocean
waiting to dock the next morning. He named the novel House
Without a Key.
(I won’t spoil the plot for you.) Today, at the luxury Halekulani
Hotel, on the site of that same cottage (and where the murder took
place in the novel), is a delightful
alfresco
restaurant named for the novel.
It
took Biggers several years to finish his Hawaiian murder mystery, and
late in the writing process (back in New York), he found an article
in a Hawaiian newspaper about a Chinese detective named Chang Apana
who served with the Honolulu police force and had been responsible
for remarkable detective work. The name “Chang” reminded Biggers
of a Chinese merchant in his hometown named “Charlie Chan,” and
he combined the two to create his own Chinese Honolulu detective to
appear in his House
Without a Key
novel. He originally intended the Chan character to add a little
local flavor to the novel, but when Charlie appeared in the novel
(more than half-way through the story), his character took center
stage. The story, which originally appeared in serial-style in the
Saturday
Evening Post,
resulted in a swarm of fan mail for the new detective with requests
for more Charlie Chan stories.
In
retrospect, Charlie Chan’s personality is an amalgamation of other
popular fictional detectives. He murders the English language with
witty Confucius-like sayings similar to how Agatha Christie’s
Belgium detective Hercule Poirot uses slightly miss-quoted English
idioms. He deduces the meaning of obscure clues like Sherlock Holmes.
His humble and self-effacing personality is reminiscent of Russian
detective Porfiry
Petrovich in
Fyodor
Dostoyevsky’s Crime
and Punishment as
well as G.
K. Chesterton's
unassuming cleric-detective Father
Brown.
All of these characters would have been familiar to the well-read
Biggers.
The
popularity of the first Chan novel led to other novels and movies.
Several early movies (silent films starting with House
Without a Key in
1926 and featuring several different actors as Chan) are lost to
posterity. In 1931, Warner Orland was selected to portray Chan in the
movie Charlie
Chan Carries On
(no known copies now exist.) Orland was selected because he had
played Asian characters in other movies. Although he was Swedish, he
claimed some Mongolian heritage that gave him a slight Asian look.
(In light of the rampant discrimination against the Chinese in that
era, Hollywood had no Chinese actors to portray Chan.) Although
considered “B” movies, the Chan movies were money-makers for the
studios, and Orland appeared in 16 Chan movies between 1931 and 1937.
When Orland died, like the replacement of James Bond, a new actor was
selected for the role. Sidney Toler appeared in 22 Chan movies from
1937 to 1946. In 1947, the role went to Roland Winters, who appeared
in 6 movies (through 1949). In the 1976 movie Murder
by Death,
Chan is characterized (by Peter Sellers) as one of the five most
memorable (fictional) detectives of all time.
May your days be full of good words.
For information on my latest
story "Takeover" please go to www.alanelliott.com. This short story, Takeover: A Writer’s
Nightmare, is a romp through the messed-up brain of a creative writer
that takes you on a bumpy joy ride with a twisted ending.
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