Earl Derr Biggers' legendary sleuth, Charlie Chan, had returned to television in the fall of 1972 in the animated series, The Amazing Chan & The Chan Clan, for CBS. Keye Luke, who'd played #1 son Lee in several movies, voiced Charlie, but, around the same time, he was also appearing in two primetime shows, CBS' Anna & The King and ABC's Kung Fu, which premiered a month apart. In fact, Anna bowed about a week or two after Amazing Chan did.
This, then, would explain why Luke was not available to play Chan in a live-action film that followed a few months later.
"The Return of Charlie Chan", alternatively known as "Happiness is a Warm Clue", after a line spoken by Chan in the film, follows along with Amazing Chan in that Charlie speaks perfect, fluent English in much of the film. Ross Martin (Sealab 2020, ex-The Wild, Wild West) was instead cast as Chan, bringing back all the arguments against non-Chinese actors portraying Chan.
In "Return", Charlie is retired, living in Hawaii with his grown children and grandchildren, but is lured out of retirement to take the case of an assassination attempt on a Greek shipping tycoon (Leslie Nielsen).
Nielsen had made at least one guest appearance on The Wild, Wild West, and there is that chemistry between him and Martin in the course of the movie. However, if this was meant to be a pilor for another attempt at a primetime Chan series, it didn't click with viewers.
Rating: B-.
This film was made for NBC in 1971, a pilot for possible use in the forthcoming Mystery Movie wheel.
ReplyDeleteBut it wasn't aired until July of 1979 - as part of ABC's late-night Wide World Of Entertainment.
I know this because that's when I first saw it - and recorded it on the family's Zenith VHS tape deck, first one on the block.
I'd heard that NBC bailed on series use because they'd gotten some flak over the casting of Polish-born Ross Martin as Charlie Chan; this was the onset of such "protests".
In any event, the passage of eight-plus years had pretty much put paid to the whole deal; even if the Chan pilot had gotten any kind of reaction in a post-midnight throwaway airing (against Johnny Carson at his peak of popularity), even a positive audience response would have been to little avail.
I am feeling just a bit nostalgic about that old Zenith VHS - two speeds, remote hooked up with a long cord, pop-up hatch for the cassette, keyboard that went ka-CHUNK … those were the days (?).
All the sources I checked, Mike, said this came out in '73, two years after it'd been made, so maybe it'd been burned off before '79, when ABC acquired it.
ReplyDeleteSeeing as how this was made in '71, do you think they could've gone with Keye Luke after all as Chan?
Back from checking IMDb:
ReplyDeleteAccording to that always reliable (?) source, Happiness Is A Warm Clue (the working title) aired in '73 on British television - but it's not specified whether this was BBC, ITV, or one of that latter company's local organizations, thereby putting it into the realm of speculation.
The first American airing of The Return Of Charlie Chan (the changed title) was the ABC showing in '79; as a Chan devotee of lifelong standing, I would have known about any earlier showing, especially given the title change.
When ABC ran the promos, it was the first I knew that one of my favorite character guys, Richard Haydn, had a major role in the picture; my understanding was that Haydn had retired from acting after Young Frankenstein in '75.
(That's Richard Haydn in the screen grab in your imbedded clip.)
I'm still mystified as to why this sat on the shelf, if you will, here in the US for so long.
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