“CHARLIE CHAN” FILMS

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20464, 2 April 1938, Page 17 (Supplement)

“CHARLIE CHAN” FILMS

WARNER OLAND WALKS OUT WILL SERIES BE CONTINUED? One of the major problems agitating the American film industry at the' moment is the future of the Charlie Chan series, in the protracted, and possibly permanent, absence of Warner Oland from the studios, says a London writer. Mr Oland, as you may have read, disappeared from the set in the middle of the current number, “ Charlie Chan at the Ringside',’’ and has not yet returned to work. Rumour has it that he may never return to work. In any case, “ Charlie Chan at the Ringside ” is still unfinished, and seems likely, at the' moment, to remain so. The matter represents many thousand dollars’ worth of gravity to 20th Century-Fox, Mr Chan's sponsors. These Aims, made at a comparatively low cost and designed frankly as second-feature bookings, have proved a little gold-mine to their producers. Chan, in the eight years of his existence, has become a world favourite. Clients of every age, race, and colour can quote his aphorisms, detail the number of his off-spring, describe his home on Punchbowl Hill, in Honolulu. Every child from here to there is familiar with his bland features, his slow bulk, his soft, ingratiating voice—the features, the bulk, and the voice of Warner Oland. Mr Oland, a Swede, has impersonated the Chinese detective in sixteen of his adventures. He., has taken tlie place of another great Charlie in the affections of to-day. Owners in a Quandary Now the owners of the Charlie Chan pictures are left in a quandary. Assuming the non-return of Mr Oland, who is an elderly man in any case, I and due to his spot of retirement, can they possibly continue the series? The finishing of 44 Charlie Chan at the Ringside ’’ is only a minor consideration. But what about Charlie Chan as a regular bread-winner? That is the question that is agitating them now. Nobody, I expect, will listen to me, hut as a Charlie Chan enthusiast of many years standing, I offer my own solution of the problem. I hereby nominate as a candidate for the vacant or potentially vacant post, our old friend Walter Connolly. Nobody, I grant, can enliven the" cipher of Charlie Chan more richly, more humanly, than Warner Oland. But I should wish the Fox people to have a look, impartially and optimistically, at Mr Connolly. Believe me—and I'm speaking as a Chan expert—lie'll do. Stick to the Spirit The main thing in the piclurisation of a legendary cycle is to stick to the spirit of the legend. The Charlie Chan pictures have a tradition. They are stated in certain clear and well-defined terms of problem and solution. They are clean, honest, what are known as “ family ’’ pictures, with a curious homely simplicity attached to the figure of the detective. There is nothing that delights people more, is more helpful to commerce, than continuity of interest in the affairs of one outstanding, heroic, impossible individual. And so. under any reasonable auspices, vivat Charlie Chan.