Charlie Chan From MGM!
 

DVD Drive-In Is reporting that MGM plans to release a boxed set containing six Charlie Chan films in August. It will be called The Charlie Chan Chanthology and will contain the following films:

01: Charlie Chan In The Secret Service
02: The Chinese Cat
03: Meeting At Midnight
04: The Jade Mask
05: The Scarlet Clue
06: The Shanghai Cobra

I hope this spurs Fox to begin releasing their Charlie Chan films.

Very, very cool. I have all the Chan movies on tape, but would LOVE to replace. I hope Fox does get a clue because the older ones are my favorites! I'd pick em up in a heartbeat.

-- Jenny

I heard these movies are racist.

Yes, they portray Asians as super-intelligent sleuths who outsmart the dimwitted Americans at every turn. ;)

Whoa, the "Model Minority" Myth.

I want them in all their politically incorrect glory! Society's awareness of other ethnicities has advanced enough so that we now know not all Chinese are like Charlie Chan - they're all like <i>Jackie</i> Chan.
-wink-

Charlie Chan is the man!

I never understood why it was racist to portray Charlie Chan as a brilliant detective. Has anyone else read the six Charlie Chan novels by Earl Derr Biggers?
It always amazed me that six novels spawned forty four movies.

I suggest that some reading is in order:

http://home.thirdage.com/Movies/vabo...ChanTruth.html
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/crosby070303.asp
http://www.suanews.com/articles/edit...tthemovies.htm

The actors who played Charlie Chan were white. The main complaint that I've heard relates to the manner in which they were portrayed. Someone people say that movies reinforce negative Asian stereotypes.

I'd suggest that you watch one of the movies and judge for yourself.

-- Jenny

The racism that is being refered to in the later Chan films is probably the black stereotype. The Stepin Fetchit character so loved in 30's cinema. To be more exact its Mantan Moreland playing the character he always seemed to play. The scared black man with the wide eyes. This is something not found very much in the Fox films. Stepin Fetchit did appear in one Fox film I can remember. Charlie Chan in Egypt where he surprisingly enough played the lazy and easily scared black guy.

Yes, the later Monogram Chan films are loaded with bad stereotypes. The Asian ones are the least of it. Honestly, considering the times the way Asians are depicted in the films is pretty positive. The sons were played by real asian actors who spoke perfectly normal English. Key Luke's performances where excellent. Yes it would have been nice for Charlie to have been played by an Asian actor, but the character would have still been portrayed pretty much the same way.

So, it was okay for Lou Costello to have wide eyes and be scared, but not Mantan Moreland? I have never understood those criticisms. Films reflect their times and should be viewed in context.

Maybe if a few black actors had also appeared in the films without being scared of ghosts, without saying No sah and yah sah all the time, without being lazy and without the big bulging eyes I could agree.

The problem was they were 99% of the time played this way. Costello was one idiot surrounded by a bunch of normal white people. There are no positive blacks in these films to set off the bad.

These films do not represent the times. Believe it or not there were lots of educated blacks in the 30's that were not afraid of ghosts or lazy.

Again I have no problem with comic relief in a movie. Its just sad that blacks were almost always the comic relief and never normal.

I'm not even saying these films can't be enjoyed now. I was just answering the question that was asked about racism in the later Chan films.

The character of Birmingham is not negative. He is presented as a good man who tries to do the right thing despite his fears.
Having said that, I understand that a stereotype was being used. However, it reflected society at the time, and thus should be viewed as a sign of the times.
It is funny that people who object to Mantan Moreland don't object to blacks playing slaves in order to reflect reality in that time.

For the past fifteen minutes now,
you've just been droning on with
names. "Toby...Toby...Toby...
Toby Wong...Toby Wong...Toby
Chung...f***in Charlie Chan."

I never said Birmingham Brown or Snowshoes in the Egypt film for that matter were bad men.

The original question asked was about there being racism in the Chan films. The answer to that question is yes as there was racism in many films of the era including the Monogram Chan films. I'm not saying it makes the movies unwatchable or that anyone should feel guilty for watching them. We all understand it was something that happened at the time and if anything these films are a nice reminder of how stupid white views of other races have been in the past.

It was simply a question of whether a racist stereotype is present in the films and the answer is yes. Argue all you want, but Moreland and Fetchit played characters that reinforced a negative black stereotype. Doesn't mean their characters were bad men and it doesn't mean the actors that played them were bad men. (though some blacks think that way)

If you can't see a difference between a character like Snowshoes and a character like Kunta Kinte then I feel for you.

Being a Charlie Chan fan, I am grateful to MGM for having the courage to put out these films. I hope Warners follows suit and releases the remaining Monograms which they control.

Regarding the controversy others have alluded to, I beg that this thread doesn't deteriorate into a rehashing of the tired arguments from last year. There is room to agree to disagree on some points. There's no need to get emotional on this.

I would like to commend Darkside for making valid, level headed points about what he finds stereotypical about the Monogram films and Mantan Moreland. Unlike others, Darkside doesn't seek to bury these films using emotional based arguments. I will say while I don't see Charlie Chan as a negative stereotype I can see why some would say Birmingham Brown is.

Bottom line: please don't rely on what you've "heard" about the films; watch them yourselves. If you don't like them, don't watch them again and don't deny others the right to watch them either.

MGM's decision to release this set just reinforces what a bunch of spineless cowards FOX is for caving in to PC extremists who had their facts all wrong and felt it was their mission to bury these films forever. The extremists have succeeded because both the Fox Movie Channel and Fox Home Entertainment have made themselves look stupid by saying not only is it not appropriate to air these films, but there is no longer a market for these films so they'll keep them in the vault.

No film should be hidden away in a vault. I wish companies like Disney and Fox would realize burying something in a vault and pretending it never exhisted is a much bigger insult to people than anything contained in the movie.

The Chan films by Fox as a whole are very positive and enjoyable movies. A white guy playing Chan does nothing to take away from how cool of a detective he was. His broken English (the one main stereotype Biggers gave him)is a side of effect of English being his second language and does not take away from in my opinion his greatnest as a brilliant Asain character. Key Luke played him in the Animated series and he was played the same way as the books and films.

Hopefully Fox will see the error of their ways.

I agree 100% with you. No film should ever be banned because of what they represented, they were simply a sign of the times. To ban such a movie would be like pretending slavery never existed. Isn't there a saying that goes "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it"?

A side note about Abbott and Costello films. I love them all, but would be the first to admit they do contain a few elements that would be deemed "racist" by today's society. Such as a musical number by the Andrew Sisters in "Buck Privates" that takes place on a train...they approach the lone black "porter" on the train, and his musical line is "cause I'm my uncle Sammy's fair haired boy". I don't know what's worse, that, or in the movie "Hold That Ghost", where Ted Lewis is singing "Me and My Shadow", while a black man in white tux mimics Ted Lewis' every move behind him. Then there's the scene where Abbott and Costello squirt each other with grease to the face and Costello says "Hey Chuck, we're a couple of shadows!" I grew up in the 60s, so I'm pretty much a pollitically incorrect guy, and I admit, I fall on the floor laughing everytime I see these scenes, however, I can understand how today's sensitivities might anger those belonging to the black race, who watch these scenes. Still, knowing these are classic movies from a different period in time, I don't think it's anyone's right to ever ban or cut such scenes from the original works. No one is twisting anyone's arms to buy these movies right?

CP

I don't believe that there was any racism in the films. Racism requires intent. The people who made these films were merely reflecting the times in which they lived, not making a values statement about blacks. In fact, they were employing blacks in film at a time when few blacks worked in Hollywood.

If you don't see it, you don't see it.

I have more I could say, but it would be pointless. I will say the treatment of blacks in the 30s whether in films or at a lunch counter in Virginia is not okay because it was just the way things were at the times.

I think we agree that films should not be banned from being released on DVD for any reason. I think we agree that racism is wrong and that it existed strongly in America during the thirties and forties. I also think that we agree that the Charlie Chan films contain racial stereotypes.

We seem to disagree as to the intent of the filmmakers. I don't believe that they were trying to perpetrate racism. I think that they were making movies and employing blacks as best they could at the time. I do understand your position, however. While we disagree on details, I don't think we disagree on values.

Just to be clear on this, the Fox Movie Channel has not stopped airing the Chan films. They just decided not to present them as a packaged film festival last year, since some groups felt a film festival format would somehow "glorify" the negative aspects they perceived in the series. FMC did air the films anyway, with panel discussions before and after some showings.

Then throw everything we have out prior to 1990 out. All art, all books, all movies, everything. Because I'm sure somebody can find something offensive in everything.

Your point of view is nothing different than what the church has been doing for decades. Trying to surpress art in the name of "Decency", and "morality". You just call it something different.

Most of the people who watch Chan know that times were different and know how to view the films based on thier time and society.

If you can't do that, please allow the rest of us to continue.

Did you miss darkside's second to last post? He's not saying the movies shouldn't be released or that no one should watch them. Seems to me like he wants people to acknowledge that stereotypes exist in the movies and NOT justify those stereotypes by saying people back then "didn't know any better".