As part of the Turner Classic Movies "Detective Double Features", film historian Robert Osborne introduced two Charlie Chan films on Sunday, September 20, 2015.
The following is a transcript of Osborne's opening and closing comments for the showing of "Dark Alibi" (1946 Monogram Pictures).
Opening Comments: "The line-up for the rest of Sunday, we have four low-budget movies with two famous movie detectives trying to find out 'who done it.' The sleuths being Honolulu based crime solver, Charlie Chan, and sophisticated man-about-town Gay Lawrence, AKA The Falcon. First, from 1946, "Dark Alibi" with Charlie played by Sidney Toler.
For the record, Charlie Chan was the fictional creation of writer Earl Derr Biggers, who based the character on a real-life detective that Biggers had read about while vacationing in Hawaii -- leading to his writing six novels about Charlie Chan.
As early as 1926, Hollywood began turning those novels into films. The success of the Charlie Chan movies expanding when 'talking pictures' became the norm, and when actor Warner Oland played the Asian Charlie.
For the record, Warner Oland was not Asian, but was actually Swedish. He went on to play the role in 16 films at Twentieth Century Fox. While the series was still underway, in 1938, Oland died. Fox didn't miss a beat in replacing him with Missouri-born Sidney Toler, who then made 11 Charlie Chan films at Fox. Sidney Toler wasn't Asian either. He was a good-old Missouri boy from a Scottish family.
When Fox pulled the plug on their Charlie Chan films, Toler and company just moved over to low-rung Monogram Studios and made 11 more Charlie Chan films there. 'Dark Alibi" is one of them.
Monogram turned out to be the ideal place for Charlie Chan to land. Because it was a studio that specialized in making quick, short, snappy and entertaining program fillers, as they called them. And that's what the Charlie Chan films certainly were."
(Osborne goes on to describe the plot of "Dark Alibi".) "Will Charlie solve the mystery? Etc. When we stop asking questions like this?"
Closing Comments (after completion of film): "The man who created the character of Charlie Chan, Earl Derr Biggers, wrote only six mystery novels about Charlie before Biggers died in 1933. His most famous creation, of course, lived on and on thanks to Hollywood screenwriters.
To date, Charlie Chan has been the major subject to 48 feature films. All but one of them made between 1926 and 1949. The final theatrical film to date was 'Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen' in 1981 with Peter Ustinov playing Charlie."
Osborne goes on to plug the Charlie Chan DVD collection ... "the Greatest Classic Film Collection from TCM and Warner Home Video. Four Charlie Chan mysteries, all released by Monogram Pictures in the 1940s. All of them starring Sidney Toler as Charlie. Includes: 'Dark Alibi', 'The Trap', 'The Chinese Ring', and the movie we have coming up next ('Dangerous Money')."
Thank you Mr. Osborne for your wonderful comments about Earl Derr Biggers, Warner Oland, Sidney Toler, and of course, Charlie Chan. Thank you TCM Programming Department for showing these wonderful old films. Mahalo!
Re: Robert Osborne's Comments "Dark Alibi" (9/20/15)
Dear Steve,
Thank you for this transcription of the commentary by Robert Osborne from TCM's welcomed showing of those two Chan films! I, too, felt that he did his usual great job, and he showed himself to be far above the mentality that was prevalent recently regarding these great pictures. (NOTE: Please feel free, ladies and gentlemen, to express our collective thanks to TCM for this twin airing last week. They can be reached through tcm.com)
I would like very much to second your "Mahalo" to Mr. Osborne as well as the kind people at TCM!
