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”.
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.
