CHARLIE CHAN AT THE RACE TRACK
US, 1936, 70 minutes, Black-and-white.
Warner Oland, Keye Luke, Helen Wood, Thomas Beck, Alan Dinehart, Gavin Muir, Jonathan Hale, Frankie Darro.
Directed by H. Bruce Humberstone.
Quite some open-air action in this episode of Charlie Chan’s mystery solving. It opens in Honolulu, the Chan home, with Charlie demonstrating to the local police how blood drops vary and can help solve crimes (which he uses, of course, in this mystery). However, Lee interrupts and gives information about a sure thing for bets, even persuading his father to risk his shirt tail.
The race they are listening to is the Melbourne Cup, an interesting choice of race venue, but not filmed in Australia at all. However, it brings Australia into the action although the accents of all the cast are either British or American. There is a gambling syndicate involved, racefixing, especially with the Jockey, Frankie Darro, who is in league with a local boss, Gavin Muir. The owner of the horse is a friend of Charlie Chan who is invited by his friend to investigate.
On the voyage to the United States via Honolulu, the owner of the horse is killed, the horse being blamed. Needless to say, Charlie Chan is able to indicate that this is not the case and he is involved with dealing with threatening letters to withdraw the horse from the Handicap in Los Angeles. Charlie and Lee actually try to trick the criminals by creating and delivering false letters. And there is some comedy with Lee dressed as part of the ship’s staff and getting into trouble.
There is a variety of suspects – but, Charlie Chan realises that two horses have been exchanged in fire trouble on the ship. There is a problem with the owner of the champion, bought from Charlie Chan’s dead friend. There is another owner with a rival horse. There are wives and daughters, fiancés, and a stable hand called Snowshoes, played by John Henry Allen, a variation on the Stepin Fetchit kind of mumbling awkward African- American character.
There is some excitement at the races, Charlie and Lee being abducted by the syndicate, the syndicate’s plan in the running of the horses, Charlie learning how the photo finish is done… And, the result is unexpected, the buyer of the champion revealed as the murderer, in debt. However, the owner of the rival horse knew of the exchange, did not reveal it so as to gain financially – and then offers to withdraw his stable from the racecourse.
Not bad at all.
CHARLIE CHAN FILMS
Charlie Chan was the creation of novelist Earl Deer Biggers, creator of the popular novel Seven Keys to Baldpate (adapted for the stage in the early 20th century and the plot of many films of the same name and variations). Biggers saw the beginning of the popularity of the films of Charlie Chan in the silent era but died at the age of 48 in 1933, just as the series with Warner Land was becoming more popular.
20th Century Fox was responsible for the early Charlie Chan films with Warner Oland and gave them more prestigious production values than many of the short supporting features of the time. After Oland’s death, Fox sold the franchise to Monogram Pictures with Sidney Toler in the central role. They were less impactful than the early films. There were some films later in the 1940s with Roland Winters in the central role.
The films generally ran for about 71 minutes, and similarities in plots, often a warning to Charlie Chan to leave a location, his staying when murders are committed, displaying his expertise in thinking through situations and clues. He generally collaborates with the local police who, sometimes seem, characters, but ultimately are on side.
Warner Oland was a Swedish actor who came with his family to the United States when he was a child. Some have commented that for his Chinese appearance he merely had to adjust his eyebrows and moustache to pass for Chinese – even in China where he was spoken to in Chinese. And the name, Charlie Chan, became a common place for reference to a Chinese. In retrospect there may have been some racial stereotype in his presentation but he is always respectful, honouring Chinese ancestors and traditions. Charlie Chan came from Honolulu.
Quite a number of the film is Keye Luke appeared as his son, very American, brash in intervening, make mistakes, full of American slang (and in Charlie Chan in Paris mangling French). Luke had an extensive career in Hollywood, his last film was in 1990 been Woody Allen’s Alice and the second Gremlins film.
Quite a number of character actors in Hollywood had roles in the Charlie Chan films, and there was a range of directors.
Oland had a portly figure and the screenplay makes reference to this. His diction is precise and much of the screenplay is in wise sayings, aphorisms, which are especially enhanced by the omission of “the� and “a� in delivery which makes them sound more telling and exotic.
There was a Charlie Chan film the late 1970s, Charlie Chan and the Dragon Queen with Peter Ustinov in the central role.
