Customer Reviews

Charlie Chan Collection, Vol. 1 (Charlie Chan in London / Charlie Chan in Paris / Charlie Chan in Egypt / Charlie Chan in Shanghai / Eran Trece)

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It's been 3 years since Charlie Chan films were knocked off the Fox Movie channel thanks to the meddling of the P.C. special interest groups. Well, the wait has paid off as these films are coming to dvd. This first collection will not only consist of four great films: Charlie Chan In London (1934), Charlie Chan In Paris (1935), Charlie Chan In Egypt(1935) and Charlie Chan in Shanghai (1935). But among the bonuses, we get Eran Trece, a Spanish Language Charlie Chan film made in (1931) Here's a list of all the extras in this set:

The Legacy of Charlie Chan Featurette - 15mins
In Search of Charlie Chan Featurette - 20 mins
The Real Charlie Chan Featurette - 20 mins
Eran Trece Fullscreen Feature (1931) - 79 mins
Charlie Chan In London Theatrical Trailer
Eran Trece Theatrical Trailer

Kudos to Fox Home Video for having the backbone to finally release these films to us mystery lovers. Hopefully, Mr. Moto will soon follow.

The Charlie Chan series was one of the most successful in Hollywood history and remains very popular today.

Several years ago, Fox spent over $2 million restoring all of their Chan and Mr. Moto films. Based on the limited TV airings they received, these films look and sound the best they have in years. Given Fox's stellar reputation for high quality transfers and their recent conversion to using original poster art for covers, these DVDs will be a wonderful addition to a classic film library.

Although all the Fox Chans benefited from strong writing and high production values, these early films were clearly "A" level productions with elaborate sets and strong supporting casts including Ray Milland and (in an early role) Rita Hayworth.

Kudos to Fox to recognizing the high demand for these films. Let's hope the remaining Chans and Motos will be fast tracked.

Urgent plea to Amazon - please remove the numerous listings of bootleg Chans. If this set is to succeed, consumers can't be confused by illegal wannabees.

AMEN THE GREAT CHARLIE CHAN IN A DVD BOX SET

Charlie Chan has always been a mystery hero of mine. This box set has four of the best Charlie Chan in a box. Included in the collection is Charlie Chan In London (1934), Charlie Chan In Paris (1935), Charlie Chan In Egypt(1935) and Charlie Chan in Shanghai (1935). Eran Trece, a only Spanish Language Charlie Chan film made (1931) is a bonus to this collection.

I bought some of the loose Chans that MGM released a few years ago. Films titles like Meeting at Midnight, Jade Mask, and Chinese Cat were good, but the masters transfers to DVD didn't seen clean enough copies.


My history with Charlie Chan began about thirty years ago. I remember seeing all the Chan in late 1970's on WDCA channel 20 on sundays. They would run an marathon afternoon of entertainment which started with a Chan film , then a Blondie movie (which are not a DVD yet), and then finally either a Ma and Pa Kettle or a Francis the Talking Mule or a Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes.

From those sundays, I was hooked on the Hawaii detective with his children-especially his number one or two sons. The mysteries were classic whodunits, the audience were playing along with the Amazing Chan

So Charlie, welcome to DVD-so when is the other 38 films to be released on DVD in a box sets

Bennet Pomerantz, AUDIOWORLD

Confucius Meets Sherlock Holmes
One of the cultural icons of the 1930s, in print and on screen, was Charlie Chan. As is well known, Chan's creator, Earl Derr Biggers, based the figure upon a real Hawaiian detective,Chang Apana. But underneath the disguise we have no difficulty in detecting the features of Sherlock Holmes. At a moment when Asian characters frequently appeared in Western novels or stage plays as kowtowing houseboys or opium smoking fiends, Biggers showed real audacity in coming up with his sleuth.
But he was tapping into another stereotype, that of China as a land of ancient wisdom populated by oracular mandarins, from whose golden tongues aphorisms from Confucius or Lao Tzu flew like plum blossoms in the spring wind. Charlie Chan is Sherlock Holmes as an Eastern sage. Chan is a man of impeccable dignity and aplomb, who has no bottles hidden in his desk drawers and no blondes lurking in his closet, and who solves crimes by superior skull skills, in the words of Churchy La Femme.
There had been a couple of attempts at transferring Chan to celluloid in the 1920s, but the series really geared up when Fox cast Warner Oland in the role in 1931. Oland, who had previously played Jackie Robin's father in The Jazz Singer and the sinister Dr. Fu Manchu in some early sound pictures at Paramount, was no great actor, but he made the role of Chan incontestably his own. It is just as impossible for anyone who has ever seen Oland as Chan to imagine another actor in the role as it is to imagine anyone other than Basil Rathbone playing Sherlock Holmes.
A number of the Oland-Chan pictures have been previously available in VHS format, but this DVD set is an absolute treat, indispensable for Chan fans and for devotees of studio filmmaking in the heyday of Hollywood. The set consists of four pictures starring Oland made from 1934-35, along with Eran Trece (They Were Thirteen), the 1931 Spanish language version of the no longer extant Charlie Chan Carries On. In addition, there are three quite informative and well-made short documentaries dealing with the origin of the Chan figure and its development, the production of the films, etc.
One mystery that might have baffled Chan himself is the omission of The Black Camel (1931) from the set. Photographed partly on location at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and its environs, the movie boasts a cast that includes Bela Lugosi, Robert Young--in his first screen appearance--and Dwight Frye, albeit uncredited. I appreciate the inclusion of EranTrece, but it is mainly a curiosity, and inferior to The Black Camel. Fortunately, the latter film is not lost, and converts to the Chan cult can obtain an acceptable DVD copy of it from Sinister Cinema, which they will want to add to their collections.
All of the pictures in the set are quite entertaining if conventional thrillers set in foreign locales, Eran Trece being the weakest of the lot, mainly owing to Oland's absence. Eran Trece uses a global cruise as background for a murder mystery, while Charlie Chan in London--with a very young Ray Milland--recounts Chan's efforts to free an innocent man facing execution. In Charlie Chan in Paris, the detective visits the City of Lights to clear up a bank fraud, and supplies one of the series' more memorable lines, when he says to a companion, "Many strange crimes committed in the sewers of Paris," while gazing into some impenetrably murky subterranean waters.
Charlie Chan in Egypt centers upon the theft of relics from an Egyptian tomb, and Charlie Chan in Shanghai shows Chan breaking up a ring of opium dealers. Although these are all B productions, usually lacking well-known performers apart from Oland, Fox was a major studio, and the cinematography--honor to your memory, Joseph August, Ernest Palmer, Daniel Clark, and Barney McGill!--and set design are generally outstanding. The opening of the tomb at the beginning of Charlie Chan in Egypt, to cite one example, utterly puts to shame a comparable scene in The Mummy, when archaeologists unearth the tomb of Princess Anck-es-en-Amon.
Serious critics at the time would have dismissed the Chan movies as escapism; present day partisans of political correctness would have far harsher things to say. More than anything else, they are relics of a pre-World War II, pre-Cold War America that viewed the outside world with suspicion, if not necessarily hostility. They are not racist but outdated, so outdated that they have acquired the etiolated charm of a once stylish table lamp found moldering in the shadows of an antique store. To use a felicitous phrase of James Joyce's from Finnegan's Wake, they are "Only the fadograph of a yestern scene,"
Most importantly, one of the motives that first brought paying customers into movie theaters burns brightly in all of these films: to transport viewers to hitherto unrevealed lands of excitement and mystery. In the old days, the dimming of the house lights and the opening of the curtains was always the promise of a revelation. For this reason, my favorite of the set is Charlie Chan in Egypt which plunged me into an Egypt of the 1930s hardly less fabulous than that of the pharaohs, mesmerized me with its luminous procession of black and white images, and entrapped me in a silver nitrate labyrinth cleverly fabricated by the Fox studio. On the veranda, I sipped a gin and tonic, while an overpowering odor of ancient incense filled my nostrils. Could it be the same incense Ardath Bey burns for Helen Grosvenor in The Mummy?

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment present "CHARLIE CHAN COLLECTION VOL.1", featuring Warner Oland as Honolulu detective Charlie Chan the popular Earl Derr Biggers character who took the country by storm in 1925...fighting for the underdog and on the side of good over evil, setting things right from wrong...Biggers penned the first Chan Book "The House Without A Key" while residing at the famous Halekulani Hotel...this role for Mr. Oland catapulted him to stardom and made the Charlie Chan series a cult favorite.

Disc One:
"CHARLIE CHAN IN LONDON" (1934) (79 mins/B&W) ...under director Eugene Forde, produced by John Stone, screenplay by Stuart Anthony, Lester Cole and Philip MacDonald, musical direction by Samuel Kaylin. . . . .cast includes Warner Oland (Charlie Chan), Drue Leyton (Pamela Gray), Douglas Walton (Paul Gray), Alan Mowbray (Geoffrey Richmond), Mona Barrie (Lady Mary Bristol), Ray Milland (Neil Howard), Murray Kinnell (Phillips), Walter Johnson (Jerry Garton), E.E. Clive (Detective Sgt. Thacker), Madge Bellamy (Becky Fothergill), David Torrence (Sir Lionel Bashford, Home Secretary), John Rogers (Lake), Paul England (Bunny Fothergill), Elsa Buchanan (Alice Rooney), Perry Ivins (Kemp),George Barraud (Maj. Jardine), Phyllis Coughlan (Nurse), Claude King (RAF Commandant), Helena Grant (Secretary), Reginald Sheffield (Flight Cmdr. King), Margaret Mann (Housemaid), C. Montague Shaw (Doctor). . . . .our story opens at a country estate Ray Milland has been accused of murder...suspects in the murder range from a housekeeper to a stableman to a lawyer...the weapons this time include a set of poison...watch for the fox hunt which will leave clues...this film is the longest of Fox's Chan series...see if you can pick out the killer before our famous Honolulu detective does. . . . . . special bonus feature: exclusive "The Legacy of Charlie Chan" features.

SPECIAL CHARLIE CHAN IN LONDON QUOTE: "If you want wild bird to sing do not put him in cage."

Disc Two:
"CHARLIE CHAN IN PARIS" (1935) (71 mins/B&W)...under director Lewis Seiler, produced by John Stone, story by Philip MacDonald, screenplay by Edward T. Lowe Jr. and Stuart Anthony, based on the character by Earl Derr Biggers, Musical Direction/Supervision by Samuel Kaylin. . . . . cast includes Warner Oland (Charlie Chan), Mary Brian (Yvette Lamartine), Thomas Beck (Victor), Erik Rhodes (Max Corday), John Miljan(Dufresno), Murray Kinnell (Henri Latouche),Minor Watson (Renaud), John Qualen (Concierge), Keye Luke (Lee Chan), Henry Kolker (M. Lamartine), Dorothy Appleby (Nardi ), Ruth Peterson (Renee),Perry Ivins (Bedell), Harry Cording (Gendarme). . . . . . Keye Luke is "Number One Son" of Charlie Chan who is visiting in Paris for a vacation...our Honolulu detective is really on the trail of bond forgery racket...is there murder, mystery and suspense afoot, of course this a top notch Chan case...check out the strange journey through the sewers of Paris...could it be an international counterfeiting ring is operating on the back lot of the Fox Studio, stayed tuned and find out who the mystery guest is. . . . . . special bonus feature: exclusive "In Search of Charlie Chan" featurette.

SPECIAL CHARLIE CHAN IN PARIS QUOTE: "Joy in heart more desirable than bullet".

Disc Three:
"CHARLIE CHAN IN EGYPT" (1935) (72 mins/B&W)....under director Louis King, produced by Edward T. Lowe, screenplay by Robert Ellis and Helen Logan, musical direction/supervision by Samuel Kaylin...cast includes Warner Oland (Charlie Chan), Pat Paterson (Carol Arnold), Thomas Beck (Tom Evans), Rita Hayworth (Nayda), Stepin Fetchit (Snowshoes),James C. Eagles (Barry Arnold),Jameson Thomas (Dr. Anton Racine), Frank Conroy (Prof. John Thurston), Nigel de Brulier (Edfu Ahmad), Paul Porcasi (Fouad Soueida), Arthur Stone (Dragoman), John Davidson (Daoud Atrash, the Chemist), Anita Brown (Snowshoes'Friend), John George (Dwarf Egyptian Helper), Gloria Roy (Bit),George Irving (Prof. Arnold), Frank Reicher (Dr. Jaipur). . . . . our story is one of the best of the Chan series, with a very young Rita Hayworth (Rita Cansino)...a corpse of an Egyptian sarcophagus is revealed by an x-ray apparatus...blends of horror in an old egyptian tomb filled with death gas and of course many old artifacts, but is the body an ancient pharaoh or a recently deceased person who has just been recently murdered...one of my favorite actors is Stepin Fetchit who when on the screen steals every frame with his stereotyped style, slow moving never a care but in real life he was anything but a smart actor and businessman...Chan must uncover this pyramid mystery before another murder shows up on the Fox lot. . . . .special bonus feature: exclusive "The Real Charlie Chan" featurettes.

SPECIAL CHARLIE CHAN IN EGYPT QUOTE: "Hasty conclusion like hole in water, easy to make."

Disc Four:
"CHARLIE CHAN IN SHANGHAI" (1935) (71 mins/B&W)....under director James Tinling, produced by John Stone, screenplay by Gerald Fairlie and Edward T. Lowe, musical director Samuel Kaylin...cast includes Warner Oland (Charlie Chan), Irene Hervey (Diana Woodland), Charles Locher (Philip Nash), Jon Hall (Philip Nash), Russell Hicks (James Andrews), Keye Luke (Lee Chan), Halliwell Hobbes (Chief of Police), Fredrik Vogeding (Burke), Neil Fitzgerald (Dakin), Max Wagner (Taxi Driver), Pat O'Malley (Belden), Harry Strang (Chauffeur). . . . . our story has an international opium ring with each chapter more exciting than the previous...appearing as the romantic lead is Jon Hall who gained fame as "Ramar of the Jungle" in a hit TV series...will this ring succeed in capturing Charlie Chan, what can Number One Son do to help his father before Charlie is killed off...when will we find out who is the mastermind behind this well scripted Fox film...all this and more await you in one of Chan's most exciting and suspenseful whodunits. . . . . .special bonus feature: includes full frame feature "Eran Trece" (1931) (79 mins/B&W), featuring Manuel Arbo as Charlie Chan in the Spanish language version of the lost film "Charlie Chan Carries On".

SPECIAL CHARLIE CHAN IN SHANGHAI QUOTE: "Motive like end of string, tied in many knots,
end may be in sight but hard to unravel.

SPECIAL FEATURES BIOS:
1. Warner Oland (aka: Johan Verner Ölund)
Birth Date: 3 October 1879 - Nyby, Västerbottens län, Sweden
Died: 6 August 1938 - Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden.
2. Keye Luke
Birth Date: 18 June 1904 - Guangzhou, China (Canton, China)
Died: 12 January 1991 - Whittier, California

Special footnote, actor Warner Oland was not the first actor to portray Charlie Chan on the silver screen. The Oriental detective was originally played by George Kuwa in "The House Without a Key" (1925) and Kamiyama Sojin in "The Chinese Parrot" (1927), both silent Pathe serials, and later by E.L. Park in a Fox Pictures talking feature, "Behind That Curtain"(1929)...but for the fans of Charlie Chan it was Warner Oland who first brought to life the fictional character whose exploits have now thrilled several generations....it was in 1931 that Charlie Chan portrayed by Swedish stage actor Warner Oland with the Fox Pictures release of "Charlie Chan Carries On"....Oland went on to make a total of 17 Chan films over a period of seven years for Fox studios.

Want to thank 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment for taking us back to those classic murder, mystery, mayhem with our ace detective...watching this legendary actor and his professional team of directors, writers as creator Earl Derr Biggers served up the best of the best during those early films of our favorite detective...wonderful character actors of the cinema brought back so many wonderful memories of the times when film makers cared about you who purchased a ticket and came back for more.

Total Time: 4-DVD-Set ~ 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment #223449 ~ (6/20/2006)

As the author of two Charlie Chan books and one of the many persons interviewed for the documentary features, I want to thank Fox Home Entertainment for listening to the fans and going ahead to produce what I hope will be the first of their complete set of known Charlie Chan films to be released on DVD.

From some of those who have already gotten their copies, the comments so far have been excellent and Fox should be commendend for doing a great job, spending good money on the restorations, new art work, liner notes, hiring John Cork) and his production company (who did most of the James Bond documentaries on DVD) to do the documentaries for the Charlie Chan DVD Vol 1.

Because there is a Volume "1", I strongly hope that Volumes 2, 3, etc., will follow in quick order to round out Fox's archive of Chan films that will be eagerly awaited by all his fans.

Being also a Mr. Moto fan (having also writen a Mr. Moto book), I will also be eagerly awaiting the August 1, 2006 release date for the first of two volumes of the Mr. Moto DVDs, all staring Peter Lorre, with his trademarked moon-shaped eyes.

I had fond childhood memories of one or two Charlie Chan movies starring Sidney Toler, particularly a 16mm print of a very scary "Charlie Chan in Black Magic" watched at summer camp in the early 1960's. However, my father always told me the old Warner Oland Charlie Chan movies were the best. And, halfway through this wonderful collection of beautifully restored films, I would have to agree.
Oland's characterization is a joy to behold.
I also, and this is a real inside baseball type of recommendation, particularly enjoyed watching the terrific set decoration, costumes, and period technology in these films.
I also found the accompanying Chan documentary features very enjoyable and quite interesting.
I would very highly recommend this collector set to your attention.

Rather than repeat the previous reviewers' comments, let me point out that Fox has done an inspired job of issuing these films in the original order they were made. The first of this set, IN LONDON, which was actually the sixth film in the series, has the most human interest story with an innocent man condemned to hang in three days - only his sister believing in him. Even Chan hesitates to take on this case! I can't think of a better film in the series to introduce the neophyte to Charlie Chan. Personally, I enjoy the later films where Fox "jazzed up" the proceedings a bit such as AT THE RACE TRACK, AT THE OLYMPICS, ON BROADWAY, and of course the very best of the series, AT THE OPERA that co-stared Boris Karloff. But those are delights presumably to come in future volumes - and I hope Fox throws in THE BLACK CAMEL from 1931, the second film in the series and the earliest surviving Oland Chan.

Like other Chan fans, I first watched them on TV when I was a kid (before they became politically incorrect) - a quiet, insecure, tongue-tied awkward kid. And here was this wonderful character, Charlie Chan, who was also quiet, polite, and spoke slowly. And he had his detractors too but Charlie always showed how they underestimated him badly. I could really identify with that!

Unlike Sherlock Holmes, who has proven to be a great role for many actors through the decades, Charlie Chan seems to be a one-actor role and that actor is Warner Oland (no offense to any Sidney Toler or Roland Winters fans). As Leonard Maltin has noted elsewhere, Mr. Oland seemed to be born to play Chan although the two men could not have been more different. Charlie was a teetotler, non-smoker, and family man with 11 or is it 12 children. Oland was a heavy drinker, a smoker, and childless. Yet Oland is said to have admired Chan and indeed eventually submerged his own personality to literally become Chan in real life.

So the Chan films can be viewed on several different levels and not merely as nostalgic and contrived murder mysteries. Ironically, I have never become a detective or murder mystery fan but I continue to make an exception for Oland's Charlie Chan films. With the current TV "ban" on these films, these dvds will help introduce a new public to Mr. Chan. Also, the bonus documentaries help to place into perspective the issue of a Caucasian actor playing an Asian, and I agree that if the films were made today they should star an Asian or Asian-American actor. But to censor these films from the airwaves in the 21st century is just plain wrong. Thank heaven for dvds!

Finally, there's an extra Bonus that Fox doesn't even seem to know about! At the end of CHARLIE CHAN IN LONDON after the cast repeat, is about two minutes of "exit music." In the past, TV prints invarabily cut this tuneful selection so this may be something of a dvd premiere.

There was much concern that this series would never see the light of day. Fox had restored these films for cable TV with an eye towards video release. However, when the films first ran on cable, there was a storm of protest from Asian groups. They protested the fact that Charlie Chan was not portrayed by a Chinese actor (although other Chan family members were played by Asians)and that some of his mannerisms might be viewed as stereotypical.

In defense of these films, Charlie Chan was always the good guy and he always outsmarted his opponents. The films must be viewed in the context of the era in which they were produced. They were good clean fun. No bloody violence on the screen!

I am happy that Fox had the courage to release these films on DVD. The interest in them has been extraordinary. The first two volumes have moved to the top of the Amazon sales charts within a few days of release. Hopefully, all of the Fox Chans will come to DVD in the near future.

A great movie series from the 30's. Enjoy watching the Chinese Sherlock Holmes as he deduces his way through many inscrutable mysteries. Besides the suspense you will also be treated to some get humor and fun. That is the strong suit to these movies. These are just pure fun to watch. See if you can beat Charlie to the solution, before he calls everyone togetherto announce his findings.