Part of my growing up included watching a lot of movies with my parents. My mother, in particular was a huge fan of the detectives. Any time she could, she would watch Sherlock Holmes, Ellery Queen, or Charlie Chan. Of course, her favorites became my favorites so over the years I’ve still found myself watching a lot of the same films. Holmes will always be my favorite, especially as played by the incomparable Basil Rathbone. But Charlie Chan comes in a close second. Watching him solve murders with the help of his #1, #2 or #3 sons is always fun, not to mention you get to learn a lot of great fortune cookie philosophy. The character of Charlie Chan was originally created by author Earl Derr Biggers, and he would end up starring in multiple movies through the 1930’s and 40’s.Chan was originally portrayed by Warner Oland, but when he passed away, the torch was handed over to Sidney Toler. At the time 20th Century Fox was footing the bill for the Chan pictures, but that came to end partway into the 1940’s, and the franchise was picked up by Monogram Pictures.

These are the films available in the new Charlie Chan Chanthology DVD set from MGM. Now, admittedly, these aren’t the best of the lot as far as Charlie Chan mysteries. This isn’t to say that they aren’t any good, it’s just when the reins were taken up by Monogram the budget constraints were many so the overall quality of the films dropped. All of the six films that have been included in this ‘Chanrthology’ are still entertaining, they just don’t have the air ofinternational mystery that many of the earlier movies had.

What’s most interesting about the Charlie Chan mysteries was the casting. Back in the 1940’s and 50’s, no one thought twice about casting a Caucasian actor in the place of an Asian character. In all of the films, Chan was portrayed by a Caucasian, while the secondary roles of his sons were always Asian actors. By today’s standards this would be almost unheard of and is often considered to be a slap in the face to Asian actors.

I always considered this to be rather silly and petty. I still remember when the original London cast of “Miss Saigon” had Jonathan Pryce playing the role of the Engineer. Complete with prosthetics to make him appear Asian, Pryce was by far the best person to ever play that role. Yet, when the production was in the planning stages to come to Broadway, a coalition of Asian actors opted to boycott the show if Pryce played the role. Then, in what I still think was a bold move by producer Cameron Macintosh, he said, “Fine, we just won’t bring the show to America.” The Asian actors backed off, and Pryce continued to wow audiences.

You see, I understand the ideals of the Asian actors, but only to a point. In the past few decades, minority actors have pushed to be able to be cast in any role, despite their ethnicity. They claim that if they are an actor, they should be allowed to tackle any role. The problem is, as with all cases of ‘anti-discrimination’, that right only seems to go one way. Common sense to me dictates that literally any actor should be allowed to tackle any role whether they be White, Black, Asian, Hispanic, or Venusian. But we all know common sense ain’t so common after all.

Getting back to the point of this review, I loved the way this set was packaged. Each film has its own individual case, and these in turn are housed in a sleek black slipcase. The slipcase has a really cool design on it that looks like Chan’s face. Besides that, how cool does Chanthology sound??

The only minor complaint that I have about this set, is that the overall quality of the transfer is pretty weak. All the films are watchable, but the powers that be didn’t really do all that much to improve the look of each film. The sound isn’t all that great either, but at least they are available. It would have been nice to see a few extra features thrown in for good measure, but as it is, you get the films and noting more.

There are so many good Charlie Chan films out there that I can only hope more ‘Chanthologies’ are on the horizon. At least these whet the appetite for more, and perhaps will introduce a new generation to all things Chan!

Films Included:
The Secret Service
The Chinese Cat
The Jade Mask
Meeting at Midnight
The Scarlet Clue
The Shanghai Cobra

Starring: Sidney Toler
Extras: None
Specifications: Full Screen, Dolby Mono
Studio: MGM
Release Date: 7/6/2004
Region 1
MPAA Rating: NR
Website

We'll give The Charlie Chan Chanthology a B-.