CHARLIE CHAN IN HONOLULU (1938)

It looks like I have given myself two summer projects for my blog. One is to get through a backlog of serials I have been watching over the past few months, starting with the Republic Rocket Man serials. The other is rewatching some of the classic era Charlie Chan movies, occasioned by my finally catching up on the later Chan films with Roland Winters. The generally accepted Charlie Chan film canon consists of over forty films made between 1931 and 1949. Three different actors played Chan. The first and best known is Warner Oland; after his death, Sidney Toler took over, followed by Winters. Because the Oland movies are generally better known and remain fresher in my memory, I'll probably focus on the Toler films with a few Olands sprinkled in here and there. HONOLULU, the first Chan movie made after Oland died, is Sidney Toler's first. Die-hard Oland fans don’t care much for Toler, but honestly, I don't see a great deal of difference between them. Toler is a little feistier and, in his first few films, a bit lighter on his feet than Oland, and of course, both are portly non-Asian actors done up in varying degrees in yellowface elements. I give a slight nod to Oland just because his films at Fox are generally of a higher budget—many of the later Toler films, done for B-movie studio Monogram, suffer from a lower budget. 

Chan is a globe-trotting detective throughout the film series, but his home base was Hawaii and, appropriately for a new beginning, this is set in Honolulu, with the opening scene showing Chan eating dinner with his large family. His oldest son Lee is away at art school but his #2 son Jimmy is adamant about following in his pop's footsteps as a detective. Son-in-law Wing arrives with news of the imminent birth of Charlie's first grandchild, so most of the clan heads to the hospital, but Jimmy takes a phone call meant for his father to investigate a murder on a freighter. Claiming to be Charlie, Jimmy, accompanied by his younger brother Tommy, heads to the docks. Among the passengers who are being detained on the ship: a bank secretary who was supposed to deliver $300,000 in cash to the murdered man, a psychiatrist who pretends to be hard of hearing and who claims to have a live brain in his luggage (and because he's played by George Zucco in mad doctor mode, we believe he might), a rich widow, an animal keeper who is guarding a large shipment of zoo animals in the hold, and a San Francisco cop who is transporting a handcuffed criminal. Eventually, Tommy is exposed just as the group is about to dump him in the drink, but his dad arrives in time to save his son and take over the case. Chan soon discovers that few of the people on the ship, perhaps even the crew members, are what they claim to be, but Chan eventually gathers all the suspects in a room and reveals the killer and the motive. This one is enjoyable, with Victor Sen Yung (pictured with Toler) making his first appearance as Jimmy Chan; he went on to do eighteen Chan movies, though in the later entries with Roland Winters, his name was Tommy. George Zucco is always a welcome face and he keeps us on our toes here—is he an insane bad guy or a goofy good guy? John King is the possible love interest for the secretary (Phyllis Brooks), assuming that she is cleared of suspicion. The entire supporting cast is solid, including Richard Lane, Marc Lawrence, Robert Barratt, and Philip Ahn. At times, the film threatens to approach the pace of a screwball comedy, and it generally works. [DVD]