CHARLIE CHAN IN RENO
US, 1939, 71 minutes, Black-and-white.
Sidney Toler, Ricardo Cortez, Phyllis Brooks, Slim Summerville, Kane Richmond, Sen Yung, Pauline Moore, Kay Linaker, Robert Lowery.
Directed by Norman Foster.
Sidney Toler assumes much of the presentation of Charlie Chan as established by Warner Oland. In his first film, the 13 children appear – except for Lee who is said to have gone to art school in New York. This enabled Send Yung to appear as the second son, Jimmy, and he was present in over 10 of the Charlie Chan films. Continuity with the Warner Oland films comes with directors Norman Foster and H. Bruce Humberstone.
There is a murder in Reno Nevada where a young woman goes for a divorce, her husband infatuated with a very unpleasant character who is murdered. Because the young woman is from Honolulu, her husband asks Charlie Chan to go to Reno to investigate. Second son Jimmy is studying in California and tries to help his father, waylaid by hitchhikers who threw him out of the car and steal it. He is arrested and is seen in the lineup by his father.
This quite a range of suspects including Ricardo Cortez as a doctor in Reno, the proprietor of the hotel, one of the women working there who welcomes guests, a young man who is infatuated with the murdered woman, the dead woman’s minerals-expert husband. The local police investigate, admiring Charlie Chan, but there is some comedy with Slim Summerville as the local sheriff is not really happy with Charlie Chan coming, is prone to rush into arrests.
Jimmy finds the maid to the murdered woman, Chinese, and together they contribute to the investigation.
At the end, all the characters gather in the room, the killer unmasked but shown to have defended herself against attack – and some revelations about the doctor and he is arrested as well.
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.
