Charlie Chan is a fictional detective created by Earl Derr Biggers which was introduced to the people in the year 1925. Charlie has been portrayed as an asexual, non-aggressive and a compassionate detective who solves the mysteries by deeply analyzing all the details.
However, Chan has been depicted as asexual, but actually he had ten children and was also quite poor.
In the year 1925, the novel written by Earl Derr was published and was appreciated a lot by the readers. With the increasing popularity of the novel as well as the character Charlie Chan, over four dozen movies were created starting initially from the year 1926.
Out of the several movies released till 1931, the first ever movie that became a success was “Charlie Chan Carries On” starring Swedish actor, Warner Oland as Charlie Chan.
After a couple of years, Oland died and Sidney Toner started playing the character of Charlie Chan, which was later on played by Roland Winters, after Toner’s death. The popularity of the show was greatly increasing in China and due to this reason two television shows, radio series and even comics were released.
The character of Charlie Chan also faced some controversies, but still managed to entertain people by adding more twists and turns in the series.
Charlie Chan Movie Appearances
The first movie that was released featuring Charlie Chan was “The House Without a Key” starring a Japanese actor George Kuwa and later in the second movie “The Chinese Parrot” Kamiyama Sojin played the role of Charlie Chan. In the year 1929, “Behind That Curtain” was released Starring E. L. Park who was originally a Korean actor.
The actual success to both the character and the movie came up with the 1931 movie “Charlie Chan Carries On” starring Warner Oland. Not the just the English version, but the Charlie Chan movies were also released in Spanish and Chinese language.
Radio and Television Series
From the year 1932 to 1948, several radio series were also initiated featuring Charlie Chan where he solves different cases and even helps law enforcement officers in solving various cases. The radio series was also appreciated a lot by the listeners making it a chartbuster. Then in the year 1956, a television series named “The New Adventures of Charlie Chan” was started starring J. Carrol Naish as Chan.
The television series was not appreciated much and got very less rating leading to a quick cancellation from the television. Then again in 1970’s, animated series of Charlie Chan were launched which became popular amongst children. Some games and comic books were also released so as to make the fictional character quite trendy among people.
Controversies and Movies
Charlie Chan has been a part of the controversy, as well like some people felt that Charlie plays a positive role while some took him as an offensive label.
Several movies were released featuring Charlie like “The Black Camel”, “Charlie Chan in London”, “The Disappearing Corpse”, “Charlie Chan in Reno”, “The Pearl Tunic”, “City in Darkness”, “Dead Men Tell”, “Castle in The Desert”, “The Chinese Cat”, “Black Magic”, “Dangerous Monkey”, “The Feathered Serpent” and “Sky Dragon” to name a few.
