Product Description
-------------------
Pre-Owned. Item is in very good condition.
.com
----
"Size of package does not indicate quality within," Honolulu's
finest, Charlie Chan sagely observes in Charlie Chan at the
Circus, and while this boxed set contains only four films, it
does this venerable franchise justice, with some of Chan's most
arresting cinematic outings. All four films star Swedish-born
Warner Oland, who is to Charlie Chan what Sean Connery is to
James Bond. The high note of this set is Charlie Chan at the
Opera, in which the curtain comes down on two opera singers
during a performance. Boris Karloff (whose frightening presence
accounts for a very funny reference to Frankenstein) costars as
an amnesiac who escapes from a sanitarium to haunt the theatre
like some phantom of the... well, you know. William Demarest
steals his scenes as a cop in dire need of sensitivity training.
He refers to Chan as "Chop Suey" and "Egg Fu Young," and when No.
1 son (Keye Luke) gives his dad a note, he asks if it's a laundry
ticket. In Charlie Chan at the Circus, a Chan family excursion
(with all 12 children!) to the Big Top is interrupted when the
nasty circus owner is murdered.
Charlie Chan at the Olympics is another gold-medal outing that
finds Chan embroiled in international espionage when an
experimental automatic pilot device is stolen. His investigation
leads him to the Berlin Olympics (via the Hindenburg), where his
son is on the track team. Newsreel footage of the games
integrated into the film features Jesse Owens running the
400-meter relay. Less of a sure bet but still an efficient
mystery is Charlie Chan at the Race Track. Each restored film
looks great, and each is enhanced with featurettes that
illuminate interesting aspects of the series. One profiles
prolific Chan director H. Bruce "Lucky" Humberstone (who, we
learn, fortified his star with drink), and another Keye Luke.
"Charlie Chan at the Movies" examines these films' places in the
Chan canon. There are certainly enough 1930s cultural and racial
stereotypes (John Allen as stableboy "Streamline" Jones in Race
Track) here to keep the PC working overtime, but for
Charlie Chan buffs and B-movie fans, this is an essential
collection that is, to quote Chan, a "chip off ancient block."
--Donald Liebenson
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Review
------
"Size of package does not indicate quality within," Honolulu's
finest, Charlie Chan sagely observes in Charlie Chan at the
Circus, and while this boxed set contains only four films, it
does this venerable franchise justice, with some of Chan's most
arresting cinematic outings. All four films star Swedish-born
Warner Oland, who is to Charlie Chan what Sean Connery is to
James Bond. The high note of this set is Charlie Chan at the
Opera, in which the curtain comes down on two opera singers
during a performance. Boris Karloff (whose frightening presence
accounts for a very funny reference to Frankenstein) costars as
an amnesiac who escapes from a sanitarium to haunt the theatre
like some phantom of the... well, you know. William Demarest
steals his scenes as a cop in dire need of sensitivity training.
He refers to Chan as "Chop Suey" and "Egg Fu Young," and when No.
1 son (Keye Luke) gives his dad a note, he asks if it's a laundry
ticket. In Charlie Chan at the Circus, a Chan family excursion
(with all 12 children!) to the Big Top is interrupted when the
nasty circus owner is murdered.
Charlie Chan at the Olympics is another gold-medal outing that
finds Chan embroiled in international espionage when an
experimental automatic pilot device is stolen. His investigation
leads him to the Berlin Olympics (via the Hindenburg), where his
son is on the track team. Newsreel footage of the games
integrated into the film features Jesse Owens running the
400-meter relay. Less of a sure bet but still an efficient
mystery is Charlie Chan at the Race Track. Each restored film
looks great, and each is enhanced with featurettes that
illuminate interesting aspects of the series. One profiles
prolific Chan director H. Bruce "Lucky" Humberstone (who, we
learn, fortified his star with drink), and another Keye Luke.
"Charlie Chan at the Movies" examines these films' places in the
Chan canon. There are certainly enough 1930s cultural and racial
stereotypes (John Allen as stableboy "Streamline" Jones in Race
Track) here to keep the PC working overtime, but for
Charlie Chan buffs and B-movie fans, this is an essential
collection that is, to quote Chan, a "chip off ancient block."
--Donald Liebenson --.com
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