Mystery Man,

I agree with you regarding the order of the actors who portrayed Charlie Chan in films/TV.

After going through the Chan series four times with the CC family, I have come to the following conclusion:

With each new actor taking over the part of Charlie Chan, there is a slight caricature in the portrayal of Chan. I suspect that the "in-coming" actors were required to view past Chan films and see the previous actor's interpretation. By the time we get to Winters and Naish, the actor's eyes are rotating back and fourth so much, it's like Chan is watching a pinball machine.

For me, I completely believe Oland as Chan. In my humble opinion, Naish and Winters are less effective in their protrayal of Chan.

In the movies: Bela Lugosi is Dracula. Sean Connery is James Bond. In TV sitcom land: Dick York is Darrin Stephens. For me, Warner Oland is Charlie Chan.

I agree with both of you for the most part. Yes, Warner Oland is my Number One Chan, but Sidney Toler pulls in at a close second. I think that his portrayal was a masterful piece of taking an already beloved and well-established character and making his own personification. In fact, many see Toler as the consummate Charlie Chan.

Between Roland Winters and J. Carrol Naish, I would see that as something of a toss-up, with a small edge to the latter. Winters has a couple of GREAT "acts" to follow, and, in that did, in my humble opinion, a good job. I think that one trouble was that he took the character from Toler's sometimes testy reactions to offspring and others and increased it a bit to seem more "removed" emotionally. Thank goodness, perhaps, to Mantan Moreland's Birmingham Brown, who added a very necessary dose of emotion!

One thing for which I am very thankful is that we may now be giving due credit to J. Carrol Naish for his portrayal of Chan as well as to the TV series itself.

Sincerely,
Rush

Warner Oland is my number 1 on almost all levels. For whatever reason I've never really cottoned to Toler as Chan. I actually liked Winters Chan more, but he seemed to change his characterization as the films progressed... his earlier ones seemed to echo Oland more. J Carrol Naish does a very good Chan, though his odd choice of hat (homberg?) was a bit off putting.Still very good, and only a shame that he never made a full length film Chan... which might have put him more easily into the pantheon.
SO Oland far and away... Winters & Naish next... I put up with Toler.

TYSM to all those whose input was voiced. It's nice to see Chan fans communicate still. At least we know a few people still enjoy these films!!! Now it's Fridays Night and Dark Alibi is my choice.

Toler is my favorite with Oland thisclose behind. I feel lucky to enjoy both actor's portrayals. I like Toler's sarcastic edge to his portrayal.

While Toler is my favorite, Oland is the better Chan. Sort of like Rathbone being my favorite Sherlock, but Brett was better ...

I LOVE this thread. I have often thought about this topic and have listened to others share their thoughts too. Perhaps our individual favorite Chan can be identified from our most earliest of childhood memories, when watching Charlie Chan? I still remember watching Oland and Toler growing up, but really don’t remember the others.

There will never be a unanimous Chan favorite, other than our mutual love of Charlie Chan himself. That being said, here are my preferences:

1.Warner Oland-In my mind, he is the first identifiable Chan. Being he’s the first; he’ll always be the one we compare the other Chan’s too. He’s a soft spoken and caring person, as well as a loving and compassionate father. I never got the feeling he had to “grow” into this role either; rather he was a perfect Charlie Chan from day one.

2.Sidney Toler-A close second, though he did have to grow into the role (though rather quickly). In my opinion, there was a loss in the bonding between father and son that was obvious with Oland. At the end of the Toler films, I thought he was a great Chan, but still I compare him to Oland.

3.J. Carol Nash-The bonding he shared with his son reminded me of the Oland films. I only wish we were able to see him in a Charlie Chan film, rather than a TV series, as I feel we miss his true potential in the Chan role. I think he could have been an outstanding Chan on the “big screen”.

4.Roland Winters-In my opinion, he took too long to grow into the role of Charlie Chan. I was able to see he was becoming more comfortable towards the end of his run, but there were too many films that we had to “endure” while he grew. I was also never comfortable with his relationship with his son. His sarcasm toward his son was always odd to me and often times left me feeling very uncomfortable. The “loving” father was missing with Winters.

5.E.L. Park-He has to be on the list, though we never really got a chance to see what he could do in the role. Wouldn’t it be interesting if he was chosen for the role, rather than Warner Oland?

At the end of the day, no matter who you favored in the role of Charlie Chan and who you least enjoyed, I think we can all say, “The only bad Chan, is no Chan”.

Matt

I agree that Warner Oland is VERy believable as Chan and is problably "best" in the role. However, my favorite is

1. Sidney Toler. I guess it kind of like what was said about Basil Rathbone and Jermey Brett.
2. Nest is Warner Oland because he is just So good.
3. then J. Carrol Nash. I think he had great potential. if he had a film or longer episodes to show what he could do I think we would've seen a worthy sucessor to Oland and Toler.
4. Roland Winters. He took a while to grow into the rola and as was mentioned show an unattractive harsh side to Chan toward his offspring.
5. Keye Luke. Not so bad if I recall correctly, but it was an over the top cartoon, so he has to rank poorly because of the nature of the venue.
5. Ross Martin. A fine actor, a terrible Chan. As was mentioned there seemed an element of characture in later Chan portrayals and by the time it got to Ross it was just plain ridculous.

I have a feeling that many prefer the first actor they saw portray CC. Regardless, I will always prefer Sidney Toler, since the others all seemed much too passive and obsequious to be a police lieutenant,
and not in control of the situation. Actually, Toler was for many many years the only CC that I was aware of. His were the films I saw on the TV during the 1950s.

I had forgotten for years that the first Chan movie I saw was Murder Over New York with Toler.

My favorite Chan - and Chan movie for that matter - was Warner Oland in CC's Secret.

Go figure.

Virginia