Your lengthy post deserves a longer response than I can give at the moment. I will try to do so later, if I may.
I will say, though, that you have provided our resident "Blooper Snooper" Virginia with another one regarding the dent in Mr. Chan's hat that magically vanishes.
I now have a few minutes to get back to your observations as promised!
First, as i noted earlier, the self-repairing dent in Charlie chan's hat is probably best shelved in the minor bloopers department. The scene where he emerges from the taxi/bus and the following one where he is outside the vehicle could have been shot an hour apart (or more!). This would have been plenty of time for the props person to have noticed the dent and fix it, no one realizing that it appeared on camera with the dent.
Now, with regard to Charlie Chan's more humorous and thus "kinder" attitude toward his children in the Monogram era of the series, I feel that this can be ascribed to that studio's injection of a more lighthearted feel into the movies. From the start, especially whith the inclusion of Birmingham Brown, the Monogram Chans had definite moments of pure comedy which were far less subtle than anything Fox ever added for a chuckle.
I simply believe that this was an integral part of the Monogram "formula." Along with this, Charlie Chan was allowed to crack a joke on occasion, often at the expense of a son (usually Tommy) or daughter. We can note that even when Mr. Chan might make something of an acidic comment to one of his offspring as well as Birmingham, that, as he walks away, he has a smile on his face, showing that he didn't really mean it.
Sidney Toler shopped the on-screen rights for the Charlie Chan character around following the end of the series at 20th Century-Fox. It was, of course, Monogram Pictures who decided to accept Toler's offer. With that, Charlie Chan took on a different "feel." I do not feel that Mr. Toler had much of a say in how the character would be portrayed. This was the decision of the studio, I am certain, although they probably gave the venerable actor some degree of creative freedom, allowing him to do what he had done so well at Fox.
Now as for the aphoristic statement made by Sheriff Mack in "The Jade Mask": "It's wonderful what doctors know, it's what they don't know that will kill you." This was a Sheriff Mack "original" which was never uttered by Charlie Chan in any film. I think that Sheriff Mack is one of the more interesting supporting characters to appear in any Chan film, and he said a few other appropriatly funny things during this movie.
Thank you for your patience as it took me this long to reply sufficiently to your original post!
