History Film / CharlieChan

* CoolCar[=/=]TransformingMecha: The Creator/HannaBarbera cartoon featured "the Chan Van", a vehicle which could transform itself into various modes of transportation from van to station wagon to sports car, ''etc.'', at the push of a button. (It makes one mildly uncomfortable to recall that it shared this trait with HongKongPhooey's Phooeymobile, though the canine crime-fighter used a gong to trigger the change.)

** Creator/DellComics managed two issues; GoldKeyComics did a 4-issue tie-in to TheAmazingChanAndTheChanClan.

** Then, with now-defunct ComicBook publisher ''Prize Comics'', drawn by none other than Creator/JackKirby and Joe Simon, otherwise known as the creators of CaptainAmerica. When Prize lost the license, the series transferred to CharltonComics, continuing the same numbering.

** First, as a NewspaperComic that ran from 1938-42 (it was cancelled because the white readers didn't want an Asian in the funnies... even though during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII [[ViewersAreMorons the Chinese were on the Allied side]]).

!!!Tropes Associated With This Character Include:

* HurricaneOfAphorisms: Charlie often speaks like this.

It was, oddly, a Swede, Warner Oland, who became in the opinion of Biggers and of most fans the ideal embodiment of the character. (Oland had already played FuManchu in the movies, and always claimed to be of Mongolian descent himself; he would continue to be in demand throughout the Thirties to play various Asian characters, such as Dr. Yogami in 1935's ''Film/WerewolfOfLondon''.) Oland played the detective in a series of 15 films for TwentiethCenturyFox, starting with ''Charlie Chan Carries On'' (1931), though many fans believe that his characterization really hit its stride in ''Charlie Chan in London'' (1934). Here Charlie assumed his archetypical form: the unassuming, heavily accented but brilliant detective, spouting pseudo-Oriental aphorisms (a {{Flanderization}} which Biggers himself cordially disliked), kindly and devoted to his fractious and multifarious family, and often having to endure the feckless co-detecting effort of his thoroughly Americanized Number One Son, Lee, or others of the clan. Chan became a globe-trotter: He rarely remained home in Honolulu, but appeared against a number of glamorous and exotic backgrounds: at the racetrack, at the opera, on Broadway, in London, in Paris, in the Pyramids of Egypt, at the 1936 Berlin OlympicGames. By the time of Oland's death in 1938, Charlie Chan was one of Fox's most popular and successful film series.

* AnimatedAdaptation: Not only the 1972 HannaBarbera [[TheAmazingChanAndTheChanClan series]], but also the 1970 {{Creator/Filmation}} series (''See'' LawyerFriendlyCameo'', below.'')

* TheOtherDarrin: After three films in which Chan was played by George Kuwa, Sôjin, and E.L. Park, Chan was played in a series of 15 films by Warner Oland until his death in 1938. The series continued with Sidney Toler playing Chan in 22 films, and when he died in 1947, Roland Winters took over the role for 6 films.

* ShoutOut: In ''Charlie Chan in Shanghai'', Oland sings a song making reference to "the Emperor FuManchu", a part he had [[ActorAllusion played himself]] in previous films. In the same film he asks son Lee Chan (Keye Luke) whether he is selling "Oil for the Lamps of China" -- the title of a popular TwentiethCenturyFox film in which Luke had just appeared.

* MissingEpisode: Four of the Chan movies from the 1930s, ''Charlie Chan Carries On, Charlie Chan's Chance, Charlie Chan's Greatest Case'', and'' Charlie Chan's Courage'', are lost (though ''Charlie Chan Carries On'' survives in a Spanish-language version, ''Eran Trece'').

* FakeNationality: While remaining Chinese, the character has only once in the Western media been portrayed by a Chinese actor. The animated version was voiced by Keye Luke. Live action versions have been played by Japanese, Korean, and (for the most notable versions) white actors.

* EnforcedMethodActing: Warner Oland was an alcoholic; his director, "Lucky" Humberton, at times encouraged his drinking, because he found the actor's slightly slurry speech better conveyed the sense of one struggling with a foreign language.
** Which is ironic considering that Charlie Chan himself is a confirmed teetotaler.

Charlie Chan is a fictional Chinese-American detective created by Earl Derr Biggers. Biggers had been vacationing in Hawaii in 1919, when he read a newspaper account of a Chinese-American detective, Chang Apana, connected with the Honolulu Police Department. Fascinated by the idea of an Oriental hero as a contrast to the ubiquitous YellowPeril villains of the period, Biggers included an Oriental detective named Chan as a peripheral character in his novel ''House Without a Key'' (1925). In the 1926 novel ''The Chinese Parrot'', Chan took center stage, and his successful adventures spanned four more Biggers novels: ''Behind the Curtain'' (1928), ''The Black Camel'' (1929), ''Charlie Chan Carries On'' (1930) and ''Keeper of the Keys'' (1932).

** Then, with now-defunct ComicBook publisher ''Prize Comics'', drawn by none other than JackKirby and Joe Simon, otherwise known as the creators of CaptainAmerica. When Prize lost the license, the series transferred to CharltonComics, continuing the same numbering.

In {{Hanna-Barbera}}'s 1972 AnimatedAdaptation, ''TheAmazingChanAndTheChanClan'', Mr. Chan was portrayed for the first time by an actor actually of Chinese descent: Keye Luke, who had played Number One Son Lee Chan in the Oland series of films, and who was later well known as "Blind Master Po" from the popular ''KungFu'' series of the 1970s.

* CoolCar[=/=]TransformingMecha: The {{Hanna-Barbera}} cartoon featured "the Chan Van", a vehicle which could transform itself into various modes of transportation from van to station wagon to sports car, ''etc.'', at the push of a button. (It makes one mildly uncomfortable to recall that it shared this trait with HongKongPhooey's Phooeymobile, though the canine crime-fighter used a gong to trigger the change.)

* AnimatedAdaptation: Not only the 1972 HannaBarbera [[TheAmazingChanAndTheChanClan series]], but also the 1970 {{Filmation}} series (''See'' LawyerFriendlyCameo'', below.'')

** In 1970 {{Filmation}}'s ''Will the Real JerryLewis Please Sit Down?'' featured a [[JerryLewis Jerry]]-ized version of Chan, Flewis Lewis (and his One-Ton Son), both ''ghastly'' [[EthnicScrappy Ethnic Scrappies]].

* CoolOldLady: Henrietta Lowell in "Charlie Chan's Secret".

** First, as a NewspaperComic that ran from 1938-42 (it was cancelled because the white readers didn't want an Asian in the funnies... even though during WorldWarII [[ViewersAreMorons the Chinese were on the Allied side]]).

So popular was he, in fact, that the studio refused to let the character die with the actor, and so the Missouri-born Sidney Toler took up the role in 1938's ''Charlie Chan in Honolulu''. His Chan was slightly more acerbic than Oland's, and he was much given to ridiculing the efforts of his Number Two Son, Jimmy (or sometimes Tommy) Chan (Victor Sen Yung). After 11 films, [[TwentiethCenturyFox Fox]] decided to end production of the Chan series, whereupon Toler bought the rights to the character, and proceeded to make another 11 films, with Monogram Pictures, until his death in 1947.

A pair of [[AffectionateParody Affectionate Parodies]] appeared as ''The Return of Charlie Chan'' (aka ''Happiness Is a Warm Clue'') (1973) and ''Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen'' (1981), in which Chan was played by Ross Martin and Peter Ustinov, respectively. (A [[CaptainErsatz Chan-based character]] was also played by PeterSellers in the 1979 omnibus mystery spoof, ''MurderByDeath''.)

* NoSwastikas: An early example of this appeared in 1936's ''CharlieChan at the Olympics'', which were, of course, held in [[NaziGermany Berlin]] that year; all the numerous swastikas that appear (including on the ''Hindenburg'') are carefully [[{{Pixellation}} blotted out]].

* AdaptationDistillation: Generally speaking, the best regarded films are those produced between 1934 and 1939.

* LawyerFriendlyCameo: Charlie Chan-type characters show up in a number of works, usually as AffectionateParodies. For instance:

In the 1990s, a number of Charlie Chan films were produced in Hong Kong by Chinese production companies. An Italian Chan appeared in 1983. There was talk in the 2000s about a screen adaptation starring Lucy Liu as the granddaughter of the famous detective, but it never came to pass.