Charlie Chan Message Board
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: jonkaplan on November 15, 2014, 07:25:14 am
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In terms of film and TV detectives, is Chan your favorite one? For me, I have to pick 1. Columbo; 2. Oland Chan; and 3. Rathbone Holmes WHO ARE YOUR PICKS?
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Chan's always been #1 with me, going all the way back to my early television days in the 1950's. I also like the Lord Peter Wimsey series from Masterpiece Mysteries (both Ian Carmichael and Edward Petherbridge), and the 3 Bill Crane movies that Universal Studios produced in the 1930's. I do tend to watch a lot of Sherlock Holmes (in almost any form) as well. I've got to say that I'm really enjoying the Miss Fisher Mysteries (Australian made) that PBS is running now. They're high quality productions with the best female sleuth since Emma Peel. ...Ed K.
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I agree (per usual) with Ed. Can't beat Oland Chan. I think my 2nd choice would be Powell's Nick Charles. Foyle at #3. Lynley at #4. Also agree that Miss Fisher is top notch! Currently I am really enjoying Richard Poole (played by Ben Miller) in the 1st season DVD set of Death In Paradise, looking forward to season two. I see season 4 came out this year, but Miller left after one episode of season 3, and reviewers seem to agree that the series suffered from that loss.
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For me, it is Perry Mason, Chan, and Rathbone Holmes.
My wife got me to watch the new British Sherlock series (with Benedict Cumberbatch). It took some getting used to but I rather enjoy it (there's only been less than a dozen made) as it keeps the essential Holmes elements while making him part of the post 9/11 world. As others said above, the British make excellent mystery series.
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I also enjoyed watching some of the Chan movies while growing up; it seems they were usually the Monogram series with Birmingham Brown on board. It was later that I discovered the Oland Chan and the films with higher production values. The Nick and Nora Charles films were discovered and appreciated to varying degrees, with the earlier entries enjoyed more. My wife and I both enjoyed the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries a great deal years ago, but haven't seen one of those in a very long time. Is there somewhere you can go in cyberspace in order to see a Lord Peter film without having to be an IT enginer or having to pay a king's ransom to do so?
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My wife and I both enjoyed the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries a great deal years ago, but haven't seen one of those in a very long time. Is there somewhere you can go in cyberspace in order to see a Lord Peter film without having to be an IT enginer or having to pay a king's ransom to do so?
There are some on Youtube if you do a search on "lord peter wimsey".
Here's a link https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lord+peter+wimsey+full+episodes
(I don't think Youtube needs anything installed on your computer to play them ... whereas previously you needed flashplayer).
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Thank you, Gary. I should have thought to look there first. It looks as if many hours of viewing pleasure lie ahead. Thanks again.
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I agree (per usual) with Ed. Can't beat Oland Chan. I think my 2nd choice would be Powell's Nick Charles. Foyle at #3. Lynley at #4. Also agree that Miss Fisher is top notch! Currently I am really enjoying Richard Poole (played by Ben Miller) in the 1st season DVD set of Death In Paradise, looking forward to season two. I see season 4 came out this year, but Miller left after one episode of season 3, and reviewers seem to agree that the series suffered from that loss.
agree with you. Chan#1-a thin man #1-b
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Speaking of other detectives, TCM today showed the 1940 movie Haunted Honeymoon, with Robert Montgomery playing the part of Lord Peter Wimsey and Constance Cummings playing Lady Wimsey. The character actor Robert Newton played a lesser character in the movie. Montgomery's Lord Peter would have been enjoyed more if I hadn't been spoiled by Ian Carmichael's rendition of that role in later movies shown on PBS.
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Agreed! The Ian Charmichael Wimseys were so well done that I'd rank them right up there with the Fox Chans and the Universal Bill Cranes. I picked up the entire set about 20 years ago and still love to watch them every year, or so. The 3 stories done with Edward Petherbridge as Wimsey were also first rate recordings. I notice that Amazon is selling The Complete Collection (of Ian Charmichael Wimseys) for $33.95. It looks like the same recordings from that I have, but, on 6 discs instead of 12. They can get you that set too, but the prices start at $350.00. ...Ed K.
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I'm sure this is a dumb question, Ed, but why the wide disparity in the prices of the sets?
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The new, lower priced set has the stories on one disc apiece, and probably little, or no, extra material. The older issue came on at least 2 discs per story, with extensive interviews with Ian Charmichael, and other extra material. It was as elegant a set of dvds as I've ever seen. And, since it was issued so many years ago, there's probably a supply/demand factor involved as well. I think that the new set is issued by Acorn, the company that sells most of the good PBS series, so I'm pretty sure that the quality is going to be good. I'd order them in a heartbeat if I didn't already own the older set, which I seem to remember listing for around $100.00 at the time they came out. ...Ed K.
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I enjoy the actor Warren William playing the part of Michael Lanyard, the Lone Wolf, in a series of movies made both before the outbreak of World War II and during the war. I find his approach to the role entertaining, and regret his relatively early demise which cut short an interesting film career.
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How about the Cisco Kid as a TV detective.
In one episode he was given a card deck with hidden messages written on the side of the deck. The assault victim gave him the clue "Eight Kings Threatened To Save Ninety Five Queens For One Sick Knave" which Cisco worked out as the way to order the cards so that they formed the hidden messages. I had to look up the "Eight Kings Stack" trick on Google to work out what Cisco meant ... anyway the message tells you to put the cards in the following order :- 8, K, 3, 10, 2, 7, 9, 5, Q, 4, Ace, 6, J. Isn't that better than Captain Midnite's decoder ring ?
In another episode, the bank robbers used a plot device similar to ones used in Charlie Chan in Egypt and in one of the Mr Wong Detective movies (which was later recycled as a Roland Winters Chan movie) ... except the gas just put people to sleep. There aren't that many actual killings in Cisco (what with Cisco shooting baddies in their gun hand).
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TCM recently had a Bulldog Drummond marathon over a several hour period. I eagerly started watching some of them, but soon found the characters shallow and predictable, the scripts sophomoric and the attempts at humor heavy-handed. I was really disappointed and finally gave up on the last couple of them. Did anyone have a better opinion of these movies than I did? Perhaps the books about him are a better way to appreciate the character Drummond.
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Bulldog Drummond was initially given the A-list treatment when Ronald Colman played Bulldog in 1929 and 1934 but by the time John Howard got the role it definitely lost a lot of its status ... still I enjoyed "Arrest Bulldog Drummond" (1939). I wasn't convinced that Howard's accent was "British" enough. Still, he was Colman's brother in "Lost Horizon" so I guess the Producers thought he was "Pip Pip and Cheerio" enough. Like Philo Vance, several studios had a go at making Bulldog Drummond movies with actors like Walter Pidgeon, Tom Conway, Ray Milland and Ralph Richardson.
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I recorded several of the Bulldog Drummond films on DVR the other day. Haven't watched them yet. John Barrymore is in at least one of them. Will post an opinion later.
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i agree with you completely. I watched about 15 minutes of these and had to turn the channel. Compared to Boston Blackie, The Falcon, the saint,Mr Moto , mrs Marple and Nancy drew; Bulldog DRUMMOND doesn't do it for me
;D
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They seemed very repetitive to me. Some of the earlier Bulldogs were very good movies, especially the one featuring Warner Oland as the villain, but, they never show up on television these days :-X ...Ed K.
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I finally have time to watch some of the Bulldog Drummond films I recorded. I saw "BD's Revenge" and "BD at Bay". They were both interesting to watch once, but neither was a memorable film. They both have rather shallow storylines with simple mystery elements. Also, both films follow the "inverted mystery format", where the audience sees who the bad guys are, and the film focuses on the detective solving a crime for which we already know at least part of the solution. I will probably watch a couple more of these films, since rainy weather is coming. I would like to again see the old Drummond film with Warner Oland as a sinister Asian prince, which I saw years ago. I believe that film was a higher quality mystery.
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Chan Fans:
My Charlie Chan page on my drberlin.com website (as well as other links on this site) will close down around July 27. This does not mean that I have lost interest in the Chan films (or Moto and Wong) but my other website – www.numismatourist.com is hosted by the Authors Guild, of which I am a member. This site represents my current book writing and travel activities and I do not have the time to support both sites. I still eagerly await the release of the remaining Chan films on DVD to replace my VHS copies.
If anyone wants to copy any of the Chan links to articles I had written (e.g., “The Who’s Who of Charlie Chan’s Family,” and the Memphis 2004 article) for their own web site, you may do so but the copyright notice must not be removed.
I still will monitor the posts here and contribute my opinions when necessary. Feel free to inquire about my site by emailing me at: w3hb (at) yahoo (dot) com.
Thank you so much,
Howard, aka Dr. Humbug
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thank you for the updates. It is good to know that not all of the cc sites are going to fade away.
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TCM is showing some earlier people from outer space movies tonight (Thursday). I'm glad the Chan movies didn't descend to the level of, say, " Charlie Chan Outwits People From Outer Space". Has anyone seen anything Chan-related lately?
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Dead Men Tell ran this week on MOVIES! It's still one of my favorites. I'll be revisiting CC at the Opera soon. I've been reading Karloff's biography "More than a Monster" and, of course, there was a fair amount of coverage of Opera in it. The details of Lionel Atwill's legal problems following his infamous party (covered a little later on in the book) was also very interesting. This is a great book, and, a "must read" for all Karloff fans. ...Ed K.
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I watched "Bulldog Drummond in Africa" which was part of the recent Drummond marathon on the cable TV. I thought this was a weak movie with a rather far-fetched plot and dull character development among the supporting cast. For example, Algy Longworth, who usually provides a nice character contrast to Drummond, had a smaller role than usual, and his wife Gwen was absent. If you are planning on watching the Bulldog Drummond films, this is not the best one to start with.
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We all seem to be in accord in judging the quality of several of the Drummond movies. It is a shame that more respect wasn't paid to the material that the series was derived from, and that production values were not higher. To me, the movies had a "Let's hurry up and get this in the can." aspect to them. It's sad when you contemplate what could have been done with the character.