Charlie Chan is a fictionalHonolulu police detective created by authorEarl Derr Biggers for a series of mystery novels. Biggers loosely based Chan on Hawaiian detectiveChang Apana. The benevolent and heroic Chan was conceived as an alternative toYellow Peril stereotypes and villains likeFu Manchu. Many stories feature Chan traveling the world beyondHawaii as he investigates mysteries and solves crimes.

Charlie Chan
Warner Oland as Charlie Chan
First appearance	The House Without a Key (1925)
Last appearance	Keeper of the Keys (1932)
Created by	Earl Derr Biggers
Portrayed by	George Kuwa Kamiyama Sojin E. L. Park Warner Oland Manuel Arbó Sidney Toler Roland Winters Ross Martin Peter Ustinov
Voiced by	Keye Luke
In-universe information
Gender	Male
Occupation	Detective
Children	14
Nationality	American-Chinese

Chan first appeared in Biggers' novels and then was featured in a number of media. Over four dozenfilms featuring Charlie Chan were made, beginning in 1926. The character, featured only as a supporting character, was first portrayed by East Asian actors, and the films met with little success. In 1931, for the first film centering on Chan,Charlie Chan Carries On, theFox Film Corporation castSwedish actorWarner Oland; the film became popular, and Fox went on to produce 15 more Chan films with Oland in the title role. After Oland's death, American actorSidney Toler was cast as Chan; Toler made 22 Chan films, first for Fox and then forMonogram Studios. After Toler's death, six films were made, starringRoland Winters.

Readers and moviegoers of America greeted Chan warmly. Chan was seen as an attractive character, portrayed as intelligent, heroic, benevolent, and honorable; this contrasted with the common depiction of Asians as evil or conniving which dominated Hollywood and national media in the early 20th century. However, in later decades critics increasingly took a more ambivalent view of the character. Despite his good qualities, Chan was also perceived as reinforcing condescending Asian stereotypes such as an alleged incapacity to speak idiomatic English and a tradition-bound and subservient nature. No Charlie Chan film has been produced since 1981.

The character has also been featured in severalradio programs, twotelevision shows, andcomics.

The character of Charlie Chan was created byEarl Derr Biggers. In 1919,^[1] while visitingHawaii, Biggers planned a detective novel to be calledThe House Without a Key. He did not begin to write that novel until four years later, however, when he was inspired to add a Chinese-American police officer to the plot after reading in a newspaper ofChang Apana and Lee Fook, two detectives on the Honolulu police force.^[2][3][4] Biggers, who disliked theYellow Peril stereotypes he found when he came to California,^[5] explicitly conceived of the character as an alternative: "Sinister and wicked Chinese are old stuff, but an amiable Chinese on the side of law and order has never been used.":^[6]

It overwhelms me with sadness to admit it … for he is of my own origin, my own race, as you know. But when I look into his eyes I discover that a gulf like the heaving Pacific lies between us. Why? Because he, though among Caucasians many more years than I, still remains Chinese. As Chinese to-day as in the first moon of his existence. While I – I bear the brand – the label – Americanized.... I traveled with the current.... I was ambitious. I sought success. For what I have won, I paid the price. Am I an American? No. Am I, then, a Chinese? Not in the eyes of Ah Sing.

— Charlie Chan, speaking of a murderer's accomplice, inKeeper of the Keys, by Earl Derr Biggers^[7]

The "amiable Chinese" made his first appearance inThe House Without a Key (1925). The character was not central to the novel and was not mentioned by name on the dust jacket of the first edition.^[8] In the novel, Chan is described as "very fat indeed, yet he walked with the light dainty step of a woman"^[9] and inThe Chinese Parrot as being " … an undistinguished figure in his Western clothes."^[10] According to critic Sandra Hawley, this description of Chan allows Biggers to portray the character as nonthreatening, the opposite of evil Chinese characters, such asFu Manchu, while simultaneously emphasizing supposedly Chinese characteristics such as impassivity and stoicism.^[11]

Biggers wrote six novels in which Charlie Chan appears:

• The House Without a Key (1925)
• The Chinese Parrot (1926)
• Behind That Curtain (1928)
• The Black Camel (1929)
• Charlie Chan Carries On (1930)
• Keeper of the Keys (1932)

The first film featuring Charlie Chan, as a supporting character, wasThe House Without a Key (1926), a ten-chapter serial produced byPathé Studios, starringGeorge Kuwa, a Japanese actor, as Chan.^[12] A year laterUniversal Pictures followed withThe Chinese Parrot, starring Japanese actorKamiyama Sojin as Chan, again as a supporting character.^[12] In both productions, Charlie Chan's role was minimized.^[13] Contemporary reviews were unfavorable; in the words of one reviewer, speaking ofThe Chinese Parrot, Sojin plays "theChink sleuth as aLon Chaney cook-waiter … because Chaney can't stoop that low."^[14]

For the first film to center mainly on the character of Chan,Warner Oland, a white actor, was cast in the title role in 1931'sCharlie Chan Carries On, and it was this film that gained popular success.^[15] Oland, a Swedish actor, had also playedFu Manchu in an earlier film. Oland, who claimed someMongolian ancestry,^[16] played the character as more gentle and self-effacing than he had been in the books, perhaps in "a deliberate attempt by the studio to downplay an uppity attitude in a Chinese detective."^[17] Oland starred in sixteen Chan films for Fox, often withKeye Luke, who played Chan's "Number One Son", Lee Chan. Oland's "warmth and gentle humor"^[18] helped make the character and films popular; the Oland Chan films were among Fox's most successful.^[19] By attracting "major audiences and box-office grosses on a par with A's"^[20] they "kept Fox afloat" during theGreat Depression.^[21]

Oland died in 1938, and the Chan filmCharlie Chan at the Ringside was rewritten with additional footage asMr. Moto's Gamble, an entry in theMr. Moto series, another contemporary series featuring an East Asian protagonist; Luke appeared as Lee Chan, not only in already shot footage but also in scenes with Moto actorPeter Lorre. Fox hired another white actor,Sidney Toler, to play Charlie Chan, and produced eleven Chan films through 1942.^[22] Toler's Chan was less mild-mannered than Oland's, a "switch in attitude that added some of the vigor of the original books to the films."^[17] He is frequently accompanied, and irritated, by his Number Two Son, Jimmy Chan, played byVictor Sen Yung,^[23] who later portrayed "Hop Sing" in the long-runningWestern television seriesBonanza.

When Fox decided to produce no further Chan films, Sidney Toler purchased the film rights from the author's widow. He had hoped to film more Charlie Chan pictures independently, to be released through Fox, but Fox had already discontinued the series and had no interest in reviving it. Toler approachedPhilip N. Krasne, a Hollywood lawyer who financed film productions, and Krasne brokered a deal withMonogram Pictures. James S. Burkett produced the films for Monogram. The budget for each film was reduced from Fox's average of $200,000 to $75,000.^[22] For the first time, Chan was portrayed on occasion as "openly contemptuous of suspects and superiors."^[24]African American comedic actorMantan Moreland played chauffeur Birmingham Brown in 13 films (1944–1949) which led to criticism of the Monogram films in the forties and since;^[24][25] some call his performances "brilliant comic turns",^[26] while others describe Moreland's roles as an offensive and embarrassing stereotype.^[25] Toler died in 1947 and was succeeded byRoland Winters for six films.^[27] Keye Luke, missing from the series after 1938's Mr. Moto rework, returned as Charlie's son in the last two entries.

Three Spanish-language Charlie Chan films were made in the 1930s and 1950s. The first,Eran Trece (There Were Thirteen, 1931), is amultiple-language version ofCharlie Chan Carries On (1931). The two films were made concurrently and followed the same production schedule, with each scene filmed twice the same day, once in English and then in Spanish.^[28] The film followed essentially the same script as the Anglophonic version, with minor additions such as brief songs and skits and some changes to characters' names (for example, the character Elmer Benbow was renamed Frank Benbow).^[29] A Cuban production,La Serpiente Roja (The Red Snake), followed in 1937.^[30] In 1955, Producciones Cub-Mex produced a Mexican version of Charlie Chan calledEl Monstruo en la Sombra (Monster in the Shadow), starring Orlando Rodriguez as "Chan Li Po" (Charlie Chan in the original script).^[30] The film was inspired byLa Serpiente Roja as well as the American Warner Oland films.^[30]

During the 1930s and 1940s, five Chan films were produced in Shanghai and Hong Kong. In these films, Chan, played by Xu Xinyuan (徐莘园), owns his detective agency and is aided not by a son but by a daughter, Manna, played first by Gu Meijun (顾梅君) in the Shanghai productions and then by Bai Yan (白燕) in postwar Hong Kong.^[5]

Chinese audiences also saw the original American Charlie Chan films. They were by far the most popular American films in 1930s China and among Chinese expatriates; "one of the reasons for this acceptance was that this was the first time Chinese audiences saw a positive Chinese character in an American film, a departure from thesinister East Asian stereotypes in earlier movies likeThief of Baghdad (1924) andHarold Lloyd'sWelcome Danger (1929), which incited riots that shut down the Shanghai theater showing it." Oland's visit to China was reported extensively in Chinese newspapers, and the actor was respectfully called "Mr. Chan".^[5]

In Neil Simon'sMurder by Death,Peter Sellers plays a Chinese detective called Sidney Wang, a parody of Chan.

In 1980, Jerry Sherlock began production on a comedy film to be calledCharlie Chan and the Dragon Lady. A group calling itself C.A.N. (Coalition of Asians to Nix) was formed, protesting the fact that non-Chinese actors,Peter Ustinov andAngie Dickinson, had been cast in the primary roles. Others protested that the film script contained a number of stereotypes; Sherlock responded that the film was not a documentary.^[31] The film was released the following year asCharlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen and was an "abysmal failure".^[32][33] An updated film version of the character was planned in the 1990s byMiramax. While this Charlie Chan was to be "hip, slim, cerebral, sexy and... a martial-arts master," and portrayed by actorRussell Wong, nonetheless the film did not come to fruition.^[33] ActressLucy Liu was slated to star in and executive-produce a new Charlie Chan film for Fox.^[34] The film was in preproduction by 2000; as of 2009, it was slated to be produced,^[35] but it also did not come to fruition.

On radio, Charlie Chan was heard in several different series on three networks (theNBC Blue Network,Mutual, and ABC) between 1932 and 1948 for the 20th Century Fox Radio Service.^[36]Walter Connolly initially portrayed Chan on Esso Oil'sFive Star Theater, which serialized adaptations of Biggers novels.^[37]Ed Begley, Sr. had the title role in N.B.C.'sThe Adventures of Charlie Chan (1944–45), followed bySantos Ortega (1947–48). Leon Janney and Rodney Jacobs were heard as Lee Chan, Number One Son, and Dorian St. George was the announcer.^[38]Radio Life magazine described Begley's Chan as "a good radio match for Sidney Toler's beloved film enactment."^[39]

Valentine Davies wrote a stage adaptation of novelKeeper of the Keys for Broadway in 1933, withWilliam Harrigan as the lead. The production ran for 25 performances.^[40]

• In 1956–57,The New Adventures of Charlie Chan, starringJ. Carrol Naish in the title role, were made independently for TV syndication in 39 episodes, byTelevision Programs of America. The series was filmed in England.^[41] In this series, Chan is based in London rather than the United States. Ratings were poor, and the series was canceled.^[42]
• In the 1960s,Joey Forman played an obvious parody of Chan named "Harry Hoo" in two episodes ofGet Smart.
• In the 1970s,Hanna-Barbera produced ananimated series calledThe Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan.Keye Luke, who had played Chan's son Lee in many Chan films of the 1930s and late '40s, lent his voice to Charlie, employing a much-expanded vocabulary; Luke thus became the first actual Chinese person to portray Chan on screen. (The title character bears some resemblance to the Warner Oland depiction of Charlie Chan.) The series focused on Chan's children, played initially by East Asian-American child actors before being recast, due to concerns that younger viewers would not understand the accented voices. Leslie Kumamota voiced Chan's daughter Anne, before being replaced byJodie Foster.^[43]
• The Return of Charlie Chan, a television film starringRoss Martin as Chan, was made in 1971 but did not air until 1979.

ACharlie Chancomic strip, drawn byAlfred Andriola, was distributed by theMcNaught Syndicate beginning October 24, 1938.^[44] Andriola was chosen by Biggers to draw the character.^[45] Following the Japanese attack onPearl Harbor, the strip was dropped; the last strip ran on May 30, 1942.^[46] In 2019,The Library of American Comics reprinted one year of the strip (1938) in theirLoAC Essentials line of books (ISBN 978-1-68405-506-7).

Over decades, other Charlie Chancomic books have been published:Joe Simon andJack Kirby createdPrize Comics'Charlie Chan (1948), which ran for five issues. It was followed by aCharlton Comics title which continued the numbering (four issues, 1955).DC Comics publishedThe New Adventures of Charlie Chan,^[47] a 1958 tie-in with the TV series; the DC series lasted for six issues.Dell Comics did the title for two issues in 1965. In the 1970s,Gold Key Comics published a short-lived series of Chan comics based on theHanna-Barbera animated series. In March through August 1989Eternity Comics/Malibu Graphics publishedCharlie Chan comic books numbers 1 - 6 reprinting daily strips from January 9, 1939 to November 18, 1939.

In addition, a board game,The Great Charlie Chan Detective Mystery Game (1937),^[48] and aCharlie Chan Card Game (1939), have been released.

The character of Charlie Chan has been the subject of controversy. Some find the character to be a positiverole model, while others argue that Chan is anoffensive stereotype. Critic John Soister argues that Charlie Chan is both; when Biggers created the character, he offered a unique alternative to stereotypical evil Chinamen, a man who was at the same time "sufficiently accommodating in personality... unthreatening in demeanor... and removed from his Asian homeland... to quell any underlying xenophobia."^[49]

Critic Michael Brodhead argues that "Biggers's sympathetic treatment of the Charlie Chan novels convinces the reader that the author consciously and forthrightly spoke out for the Chinese – a people to be not only accepted but admired. Biggers's sympathetic treatment of the Chinese reflected and contributed to the greater acceptance of Chinese-Americans in the first third of [the twentieth] century."^[50] S. T. Karnick writes in theNational Review that Chan is "a brilliant detective with understandably limited facility in the English language [whose] powers of observation, logic, and personal rectitude and humility made him an exemplary, entirely honorable character."^[26]Ellery Queen called Biggers's characterization of Charlie Chan "a service to humanity and to inter-racial relations."^[8] Dave Kehr ofThe New York Times said Chan "might have been a stereotype, but he was a stereotype on the side of the angels."^[18] Keye Luke, an actor who played Chan's son in a number of films, agreed; when asked if he thought that the character was demeaning to the race, he responded, "Demeaning to the race? My God! You've got aChinese hero!"^[51] and "[W]e were making the best damn murder mysteries in Hollywood."^[21][52]

Other critics, such as sociologistYen Le Espiritu and Huang Guiyou, argue that Chan, while portrayed positively in some ways, is not on a par with white characters, but a "benevolent Other"^[53] who is "one-dimensional".^[54] The films' use of white actors to portray East Asian characters indicates the character's "absolute Oriental Otherness;"^[55] the films were only successful as "the domain of white actors who impersonated heavily-accented masters of murder mysteries as well as purveyors of cryptic proverbs." Chan's character "embodies the stereotypes of Chinese Americans, particularly of males: smart, subservient, effeminate."^[56] Chan is representative of amodel minority,^[57]: 43 the good stereotype that counters a bad stereotype: "Each stereotypical image is filled with contradictions: the bloodthirsty Indian is tempered with the image of the noble savage; thebandido exists along with the loyal sidekick; and Fu Manchu is offset by Charlie Chan."^[58] However, Fu Manchu's evil qualities are presented as inherently Chinese, while Charlie Chan's good qualities are exceptional; "Fu represents his race; his counterpart stands away from the other Asian Hawaiians."^[45]

Some argue that the character's popularity is dependent on its contrast with stereotypes of the Yellow Peril or Japanese people in particular. American opinion of China and Chinese Americans grew more positive in the 1920s and '30s in contrast to the Japanese, who were increasingly viewed with suspicion. Sheng-mei Ma argues that the character is a psychological over-compensation to "rampant paranoia over the racial other."^[59]

In June 2003, theFox Movie Channel cancelled a planned Charlie Chan Festival, soon after beginning restoration for cablecasting, after a special-interest group protested. Fox reversed its decision two months later, and on 13 September 2003, the first film in the festival was aired on Fox. The films, when broadcast on the Fox Movie Channel, were followed by round-table discussions by prominent East Asians in the American entertainment industry, led byGeorge Takei, most of whom were against the films.^[5] Collections such asFrank Chin'sAiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian-American Writers and Jessica Hagedorn'sCharlie Chan Is Dead are put forth as alternatives to the Charlie Chan stereotype and "[articulate] cultural anger and exclusion as their animating force."^[60] Fox has released all of its extant Charlie Chan features on DVD,^[26] andWarner Bros. (the current proprietor of the Monogram library) has issued all of the Sidney Toler and Roland Winters Monogram features on DVD.

Modern critics, particularly Asian Americans, continue to have mixed feelings on Charlie Chan. Fletcher Chan, a defender of the works, argues that the Chan of Biggers's novels is not subservient to white characters, citingThe Chinese Parrot as an example; in this novel, Chan's eyes blaze with anger at racist remarks and in the end, after exposing the murderer, Chan remarks "Perhaps listening to a 'Chinaman' is no disgrace."^[61] In the films, bothCharlie Chan in London (1934) andCharlie Chan in Paris (1935) "contain scenes in which Chan coolly and wittily dispatches other characters' racist remarks."^[18] Yunte Huang manifests an ambivalent attitude, stating that in the US, Chan "epitomizes the racist heritage and the creative genius of this nation's culture."^[62] Huang also suggests that critics of Charlie Chan may have themselves, at times, "caricatured" Chan himself.^[63]

Chan's character has also come under fire for "nuggets of fortune cookie Confucius"^[64] and the "counterfeit proverbs" which became so widespread in popular culture. The Biggers novels did not introduce the "Confucius say" proverbs, which were added in the films, but one novel features Chan remarking: "As all those who know me have learned to their distress, Chinese have proverbs to fit every possible situation."^[65] Huang Yunte gives as examples "Tongue often hang man quicker than rope," "Mind, like parachute, only function when open," and "Man who flirt with dynamite sometime fly with angels." He argues, however, that these "colorful aphorisms" display "amazing linguistic acrobatic skills." Like the "signifying monkey" of African American folklore, Huang continues, Chan "imparts as much insult as wisdom."^[66]

• Biggers, Earl Derr.The House Without a Key. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1925.
• —.The Chinese Parrot. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1926.
• —.Behind That Curtain. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1928.
• —.The Black Camel. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1929.
• —.Charlie Chan Carries On. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1930.
• —.Keeper of the Keys. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1932.
• Davis, Robert Hart.Charlie Chan in the Temple of the Golden Horde. 1974.Charlie Chan's Mystery Magazine. Reprinted by Wildside Press, 2003.ISBN 1-59224-014-3.
• Lynds, Dennis.Charlie Chan Returns. New York: Bantam Books, 1974. ASIN B000CD3I22.
• Pronzini, Bill, and Jeffrey M. Wallmann.Charlie Chan in the Pawns of Death. 1974.Charlie Chan's Mystery Magazine. Reprinted by Borgo Press, 2003.ISBN 978-1-59224-010-4.
• Avallone, Michael.Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen. New York: Pinnacle, 1981.ISBN 0-523-41505-2.
• Robert Hart Davis. "The Silent Corpse". Feb.1974.Charlie Chan's Mystery Magazine.
• Robert Hart Davis. "Walk Softly, Strangler". Nov. 1973.Charlie Chan's Mystery Magazine.
• Jon L. Breen. "The Fortune Cookie". May 1971.Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.
• Swann, John L..Death, I Said: A Charlie Chan Mystery. Utica, New York: Nicholas K. Burns Publishing, 2023.ISBN 978-0-9755224-5-5.
• Swann, John L..The Tangled String: A Charlie Chan Mystery. Utica, New York: Nicholas K. Burns Publishing, 2024.ISBN 978-0975522479.

Unless otherwise noted, information is taken from Charles P. Mitchell'sA Guide to Charlie Chan Films (1999).

American Western

Latin America

China

• Portrayal of East Asians in Hollywood
• Mr. Wong

• The "Charlie Chan" Novels
  • Behind That Curtain
  • Charlie Chan Carries On
  • Keeper Of The Keys
  • The Black Camel
  • The Chinese Parrot
  • The House Without a Key
• About Charlie Chan
• Charlie Chan Biography
• Charlie Chan fan site
• Public-domain Charlie Chan radio programs
• The Charlie Chan Family Home
• Books and Films of Charlie Chan