DVD Reviews

Charlie Chan Chanthology

The Chanthology is a complicated set of films to review from a twenty-first century perspective. These six movies released in 1944 and 1945 are definitely products of their time focusing on wartime paranoia and relying heavily on racial stereotypes. Each film follows Singapore-born detective Charlie Chan as he solves elaborate murder cases, often involving stolen government secrets, with one of his children.

The back of the box claims, “Created in a time when casting Caucasians in minority roles was considered acceptable, the Charlie Chan films continue to spark debate to this day”.  It’s easy to see why these debates occur considering the main actor Sydney Toler is positively robotic in his portrayal of the lead detective.  His line delivery is painfully monotonous and he brings little humanity to the role of Charlie Chan.  Also, as each film runs just slightly over one hour there is very little time to get to know any of the suspects in these movies.  The only character to make much of an impact is the Chan family’s black servant Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland), who is, unfortunately, at the mercy of some rather disparaging stereotypes.  It’s a testament to Moreland’s ability that he rises above the material and allows Birmingham to become a stronger character throughout the series (there’s an especially wonderful scene in The Scarlet Clue where he does his vaudeville act with partner Ben Carter).  The biggest pleasure in watching these films is trying to follow the delightfully loopy cases themselves, usually involving high tech equipment.  Each case seems to try and top the previous film by finding more outrageous and preposterous methods of killing a human being.  My favourite death trap happens to be the bullets made of frozen blood that were shot out of a cigarette case spring gun.  As a window into the past, these films are illuminating and it’s fun to watch these characters be fascinated by the potentials of technological achievements. As movies though they are less successful as there are few characters to engage with and a rather convoluted idea of logic.

The box set does not include any special features but does have a fairly decent video transfer.  The image is scratchy in parts, but that’s to be expected for such an old series of films.  For the most part though the movies look sharp.  The mono soundtrack is adequate if nothing more.  The sound effects come through and the dialogue is distinguishable.

Review By Corey Brown