Australians will get a kick out of the opening scenes of this film which is set during the Melbourne Cup and involves a successful horserace and its owner and trainer. I was looking forward to the whole of the movie being set in Australia - hey, Charlie went to Paris, London and Shanghai, didn't he? - but alas, no: the action then transfers to a ship back to the US, on which someone is killed - Charlie, being based in Honolulu, is called in to investigate.
There has been much discussion on whether Charlie Chan was a racist creation. I'm an Anglo, so admit my bias here, but while I recognise that many Asian would naturally find it offensive Warner Oland played a Chinese role, surely Charlie is a great heroic role model: smart, funny, a good family man, who manages to outwit all the baddies?
Having said that there is a shockingly racist black stable hand - a lawdy lawdy type that was all too common in the Hollywood of the 1930s. It distracts from a decent story (the murder is someone being kicked in the head by a horse) and fine work from Oland. It's also starting to get annoying that there are always these "good" juveniles who Charlie has to rescue. But I guess they gave mainstream America someone white to relate to.
No comments:
Post a Comment