The DVD Report #15

Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Columbo and Jessica Fletcher are beloved in their own right, but no sleuth, professional or otherwise, had as long an on-screen career as Charlie Chan, whose series of films lasted from 1929 through 1949, with occasional revivals on both the big and small screens in the years since.

Chan, who first appeared in Earl Derr Biggers’ novels in 1925, was first seen on screen as a minor character in 1929’s Behind That Curtain in which Warner Baxter (42nd Street, The Prisoner of Shark Island) stars as a ventriloquist falsely accused of murder. He doesn’t actually appear as the main character until 1931’s Charlie Chan Carries On, a lost film, though its storyline can be seen in both 1931’s Eran Trece, the Spanish version of the film, andthe 1940 remake Charlie Chan’s Murder Cruise.

The series was an immediate hit due to the astute casting of urbane Warner Oland in Charlie Chan Carries On and really kicked into high gear with the addition of Keye Luke as his number one son in 1935’s Charlie Chan in Paris. The chemistry between the two stars rivaled that of Laurel & Hardy and Loy & Powell, it was that palpable.

The Swedish-born Oland (The Jazz Singer, Shanghai Express) was a Chinese history buff and often played Chinese characters on stage. He played the venerable Chinese detective without makeup, his Chinese appearance attributable to his grandmother who was of Mongolian descent. The Chinese-born, American-raised Luke was a commercial artist and technical advisor on Asian-themed Hollywood films before making his acting debut in 1934’s The Painted Veil.

Luke left the series when Sidney Toler (Blonde Venus, Double Wedding) was hired to replace the ailing Oland in 1938’s Charlie Chan in Honolulu, unable to play opposite another actor in the role, and Victor Sen Young (Across the Pacific, China) was hired to play Charlie’s number two son. The Toler-Young Chan films were well produced and almost as good as the Oland originals, but when Fox tired of the series in the early 1940s, Monogram picked it up and the series, though still a pleasure to have around, had lost its edge. Benson Fong (The Keys of the Kingdom, His Majesty O’Keefe) joined Toler as Chan’s number three son in the Monogram produced films, but when Toler died, and Monogram replaced him with Roland Winters (So Big, Bigger Than Life), they brought back both Luke and Young, even using the two together in one film.

The three “sons” appeared in the same film only once, 1955’s Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, albeit in different roles. When the 1958 Broadway musical Flower Drum Song was filmed in 1961 it was Fong who took Luke’s stage role as the old Chinese father, a role quite different than those they had played as Charlie Chan’s Americanized sons so many years before. All three later appeared in the 1972-1975 TV series Kung Fu in which Luke had a major role.

Long sought after on DVD, MGM finally released six of the Monogram Toler-Fong Chan films in 2004 and independent DVD producer Vintage Theatre put out a set of all 42 extant Chan films in The Charlie Chan Collection in 2005, but “official” release of the Oland films was held up by rights-holder Twentieth Century-Fox until last year.

Fox has now released three collections of the Oland films in restored, pristine prints.

Charlie Chan Collection, Vol. 1 consists if Charlie Chan in London, Charlie Chan in Paris, Charlie Chan in Egypt, Charlie Chan in Shanghai and Eran Trece. The latter is a special feature on the Shanghai disc. The other three all contain absorbing documentaries on the Chan legacy as well as one on the real Honolulu detective who was Derr Biggers’ inspiration. All of these films are still highly watchable.

Charlie Chan Collection, Vol. 2 consists of Charlie Chan at the Race Track, Charlie Chan at the Circus, Charlie Chan at the Opera and Charlie Chan at the Olympics. There are extras on all the discs including an in-depth documentary on the life of Keye Luke on Race Track. Opera is the only film in which Oland ever shared above-the-title credit with another actor, one Boris Karloff. Once again, all these films are still highly watchable today, my favorite being Charlie Chan at the Olympics in which Luke is a member of the American swim team at the Berlin Olympics.

The newly-released Charlie Chan Collection, Vol. 3 consists of Behind That Curtain, The Black Camel, Charlie Chan’s Secret, Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo and Charlie Chan on Broadway. Behind That Curtain is presented as one of five bonuses, which also include one on the modern Charlie Chan, Dr. Henry Lee, as well as one on the last days of Warner Oland. My favorite of the five films is Charlie Chan’s Secret, featuring a superlative performance by Henrietta Crosman (The Royal Family of Broadway, Pilgrimage) as an old friend Charlie is called upon to protect from relatives after her money.

The 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is if anything, even scarier than the original. It’s also wittier, better photographed and features a cast that is at least the equal of the original. Directed by Philip Kaufman (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Quills) it stars Donald Sutherland (Aurora Borealis, Reign Over Me), Brooke Adams (Days of Heaven, The Dead Zone), Jeff Goldblum (The Big Chill, Igby Goes Down), Veronica Cartright (Alien, Kinsey) and Leonard Nimoy (Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country). The original’s Kevin McCarthy (Mommy, Addams Family Reunion), who is still making movies at the age of 93, and director Don Siegel (Dirty Harry, Escape From Alcatraz) have small parts in the film which has been given a spiffed-up Special Edition DVD release to coincide with the fourth version of the film, its title shortened to The Invasion. Carrying on the tradition, Veronica Cartright has a supporting role in this one.

The original 1956 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the 1994 remake, called simply Body Snatchers, do not have newly released special editions but are still available in their original DVD release versions.

The unofficial remake of Hitchcock’s Rear Window, called Disturbia, has some neat twists and genuinely scary moments, but is slow in getting to where it’s going. It serves mainly as a showcase for the up-and-coming Shia LeBeouf (The Greatest Game Ever Played, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints) on his way to playing Harrison Ford’s son in the fourth installment of the Indiana Jones series.

A re-telling of the events covered in the 1970 film The Honeymoon Killers, told from the perspective of the detectives investigating the murders, is the premise of Lonely Hearts, a rather slow-moving film in which co-stars Jared Leto (Requiem for a Dream, Alexander) and Salma Hayek (Frida, TV’s Ugly Betty) outshine leads John Travolta (Domestic Disturbance, Ladder 49) and James Gandolfini, who always seems to me to be a rather dull actor when not playing Tony Soprano in TV’s The Sopranos.

Shakespeare on film has become almost as commonplace as Shakespeare on stage. Over the years many artists have attempted to bring the definitive versions of the Bard’s various comedies and tragedies to the screen with varying results. Warner Bros. has now released four major productions of his works, one comedy and three tragedies.

Legendary stage director Max Reinhardt’s Hollywood Bowl production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1934 led immediately to the 1935 Warner Bros. production co-directed by Reinhardt and William Dieterle (The Life of Emile Zola, The Hunchback of Notre Dame) featuring an all-star cast headed by James Cagney (The Public Enemy, Angels With Dirty Faces), Dick Powell (42nd Street, Dames), Mickey Rooney (Boys Town, Babes in Arms) and Olivia de Havilland (Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood), the latter two having been part of the sumptuous Hollywood Bowl production. The lavish film, with its delightful Ernest Korngold score, won Oscars for cinematography and editing.

MGM spared no expense in its 1936 production of Romeo and Juliet, generally considered the best of the pre-Olivier Shakespeare films. Norma Shearer (The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Marie Antoinette) and Leslie Howard (The Petrified Forest, Pygmalion) may have been too old for their parts, but no one at the time was complaining. Shearer’s wardrobe was inspired by Botticelli paintings. George Cukor (Dinner at Eight, The Women) not only drew inspired performances from his two stars, but the entire cast, most notably John Barrymore (Twentieth Century, Midnight) as Mercutio, Basil Rathbone (Anna Karenina, A Tale of Two Cities) as Tybalt, and Edna May Oliver (Little Women, David Copperfield) as the nurse. Interestingly, Rathbone, who won one of the film’s four Oscar nominations for his performance, had recently played Romeo in an acclaimed Broadway production opposite Katherine Cornell (Stage Door Canteen).

The only Shakespeare film to have won acting nominations for all four of its stars, 1965’s Othello, is basically a filmed version of Britain’s National Theatre production and not very cinematic. That said, it is still the best version of this oft-filmed tale. Laurence Olivier (Hamlet, Richard III) arguably gives his best screen performance in the title role, with fine support from Maggie Smith (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Oh! What a Lovely War) as Desdemona, Frank Finlay (The Pianist, TV’s Prime Suspect: The Final Act) as Iago, Joyce Redman (Tom Jones, TV’s Victoria & Albert) as Emilia, and Derek Jacobi (Dead Again, Nanny McPhee), the only one of the five principal players not to be nominated, as Cassio.

Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 version of Hamlet is the first full-text filming of Shakespeare’s masterpiece. Branagh (Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Rabbit-Proof Fence) as Hamlet, Kate Winslet (Titanic, Little Children) as Ophelia, Julie Christie (Darling, Don’t Look Now) as Gertrude, Derek Jacobi as Claudius, and Richard Briers (Love’s Labour’s Lost, Peter Pan) as Polnius are all exceptional in the leads. If there is a downside, it is the famous faces popping up in minor roles like the actors in George Sgevnes’ The Greatest Story Ever Told. I, for one, could have done without Billy Crystal, Jack Lemmon, Robin Williams, Charlton Heston, et. al., but it’s a minor complaint that should not detract from the splendor of Branagh’s overall achievement.

To coincide with the 30th anniversary of the passing of Elvis Presley, Warner Bros., Paramount and Fox are all either releasing or re-releasing their catalogues of his films. Most of Presley’s films were quickly-made efforts with slight stories, lots of singing and generally-poor production values. A couple of exceptions were 1957’s Jailhouse Rock and 1964’s Viva Las Vegas, the former featuring Elvis at his most energetic, the latter pairing him for the first and only time with a leading lady of equal strength, rising star Ann-Margret (Pocketful of Miracles, Bye Bye Birdie).

The silly Kissin’ Couins, also from 1964, at least has something new to offer in the inclusion of Presley’s “Smokey Mountain Boy” sequence missing in previous home video releases of the film directed by actor/singer/dancer Gene Nelson (Lullaby of Broadway, Oklahoma!). Sadly, though, the film is a low point in the careers of not only Elvis, but also those of Arthur O’Connell (Picnic, Anatomy of a Murder), Glenda Farrell (The Talk of the Town, Middle of the Night) and Jack Albertson (The Subject Was Roses, The Poseidon Adventure).