China’s Charlie Chan – A Chinese imitating a Swede imitating a Chinese
Posted: September 21st, 2015 | 1 Comment »A lot has been written about Charlie Chan and the movies spawned from the books by Earl Derr Biggers. The movies played in the cinemas of the International Settlement of Shanghai and did not recieve any protests or censorship problems from the Nationalist government, as a number of movies deemed anti-Chinese did. In general in Shanghai Chan was seen as a positive character. When Warner Oland, the Swedish actor who played Chan in the majority of the Hollywood adaptations, visited China there was great interest in his visit, despite the issue of Yellowface.
America it seems was also interested in the fact that there were a series of Charlie Chan movies made in Shanghai starring Chinese actors (see advert below) – in these films (made initially in Shanghai and then, during the 1940s, Hong Kong) the detective has a daughter assisting him rather than a son. the actor Xu Xinyuan played Chan.
Anyway, here, from the American papers in 1937, is a cartoon of Xin noting the oddity of a Chinese imitating a Swede imitating a Chinese!!
Aloha from Cleveland Ohio. Great post, thank you. I was wondering if you knew if any of the movies that starred Xu Xinyuan are still available for purchase? There is a group of people at The Charlie Chan Family Home page: http://charliechanfamily.tripod.com/, who watch a Chan movie every Monday night. It would be pretty exciting if we were to one day watch one in Chinese. I know of 5 films he starred in, but I believe theirs one or two more. TXS Lou