Tonight, Turner Classic Movies presents three Charlie Chan detective mysteries and then tosses in a Mr. Moto outing and two Mr. Wong adventures as part of their look at "Asian Images in Film" Festival this month.
First up at 8pm is Charlie Chan at the Circus with the late, great Swedish actor Warner Oland in his signature role as Chan with Keye Luke featured as Number One Son, Lee, then at 9:30 pm we are treated to Charlie Chan in Honolulu starring Sydney Toler in his first theatrical appearance as Chan following the sudden death of Oland in 1938, along with Victor Sen Yung as Number Two Son, Jimmy. After this we jump ahead a few years to 1945's The Scarlet Clue also starring Toler, but this time featuring Benson Fong as the Number Three Chan son, Tommy.
Hungarian Actor Peter Lorre stars in his 2nd outing as the Japanese secret agent in Thank You, Mr. Moto (1937) at midnight and then two different actors portray Mr. Wong. Boris Karloff appears as Mr. Wong in Mr. Wong in Chinatown (1939); one of his five Mr. Wong films at 2:30 am and then Chinese-American actor Keye Luke leaps from the role of Lee in the Charlie Chan films to the title role in the final Mr. Wong film, Phantom of Chinatown (1940) at 3:45 am.
If you're a fan of these great movies or if you can get past any latter-day, politically correct leanings you are in for a rare treat as these are really terrific and fun to watch.
2 comments:
I love seeing other blogs start to promote TCM film series like this... did you see that Mr Doortree has a killer gallery of Asian stuff up this week too?
I do touch on films from time-to-time, but I also have to admit that seeing many of your own promos for other TCM stuff did help prod me into highlighting the Chan films.
I DO love me some TCM. I watch the channel pretty much daily. I
managed to make it through all of the Chan films last night and started watching the Mr. Moto, but I bailed out before it ended and didn't see the Wong movies.
Sad, 'cause I've never seen any of those.
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