Radio Drama · The Joe Hehn Memorial Collection · Mystery & crime

Incomparable Charlie Chan

Heard
1945
Episodes
1

The detective Charlie Chan has been viewed in many different ways over the decades. Earl Derr Biggers, who created the character in novels, which were adapted to the movies, developed a heroic figure that was new to many readers and viewers. Many Asian characters had been depicted in movies as nefarious adversaries, but detective Chan was positive force in more positive public perceptions.

More about it

The times of the popular movies and radio broadcasts were indeed confusing: the US was fighting against Japan after the Pearl Harbor attack, had interred many Asian Americans in camps because of fear of treason or sabotage, yet watched Charlie Chan movies as entertainment with great affection for the character. Keye Luke, Asian actor, was generally happy to have his role in the movies because, for once, the lead character was a hero. Over the years, however, there has been great concern over the stereotypes that the character may have reinforced.

Much of the concern involves the lack of an Asian actor in the lead role. Two silent films, one in 1926 and another in 1927, had different Japanese actors play the lead. In 1929, a Korean actor did so in a sound movie. These were small films compared to the succession of white actors who played the role in the highly successful movie series while wearing heavy makeup (despite it being black and white films). Warner Oland, Sidney Toler, and Roland Winters all played the role from 1931 to 1949. On radio, another white actor, Ed Begley, Sr.,…

Episodes, in broadcast order

  1. Man Who Moved Mountains

    · 14 min

Where it comes from 1

The archive items its episodes are played from, best first, with each one’s rights as its archive states them. An episode two sets both hold is played from the first.

  1. Incomparable Charlie Chan

    The Joe Hehn Memorial Collection · The Joe Hehn Memorial Collection · 1 episode here · archive.org

    the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.

From the Joe Hehn Memorial Collection, at the Internet Archive.

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Radio drama, old-time radio and historic broadcasts from the Internet Archive (its Old Time Radio collection with the Old Time Radio Researchers' sets, WWII Era Audio Recordings, the Pacifica Radio Archives, the Radio Haiti Archive, German radio plays and listeners' uploads), Wikimedia Commons (with the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision's broadcasts) and the Library of Congress. Every episode plays from its archive, which this site does not copy; rights are as each archive states them. Nothing here is called public domain on this site's say-so. In the United States, sound recordings first fixed before 15 February 1972 have federal protection under the Music Modernization Act of 2018, for most until 2067 at the latest, so most American radio of the 1930s to the 1950s is not in the public domain there. Each set shows the licence, mark or statement its archive gives, and says whose it is. Horror, crime, war and westerns are for teenage and adult profiles, racist caricature for adults only, and children’s profiles hear what was made for children. More about these archives.