Mon 27 Mar 2023
EARL DERR BIGGERS – Behind That Curtain. Charlie Chan #3. Bobbs-Merrill, hardcover, 1928. Reprinted many times in both hardcover and paperback. Films: Fox, 1929; Fox, 1932, as Charlie Chan’s Chance.
This one begins almost immediately after the previous book in the series ended (The Chinese Parrot, 1926). It finds Sergeant Chan of the Honolulu Police still in San Francisco after aiding the police there conclude a case they needed his assistance for. Charlie is anxious to get back home again, as he is about to become a father again – for the eleventh time.
But as things happen in detective mysteries such as this one, fate conspires against him, and he finds himself caught up in helping solve the murder of a retired Scotland Yard detective at a dinner party at which both he and Charlie were honored guests. Although retired, as it turns out, the dead man was still working on a case he had never solved – that of a young married woman who had completely and mysteriously disappeared after a picnic party in faraway India many years earlier.
Was he closing in on a solution? Apparently so, and he had also apparently baited a trap for someone whose secret that person did not want revealed.
There is no shortage of suspects, including a world famous explorer, any number of female characters,, one of whom may even be the missing woman, and of course, a butler whose past he has managed to keep hidden until now. That all of these people have connections with Sir Frederic’s case is amazing but not (as it turns out) purely coincidental.
Working against a self-imposed deadline to return home, and confronted by a homicide detective who, quite naturally, resents any kind of assistance or other threat to his authority, Charlie works quietly and efficiently to bring all of the threads of the plot successfully together. Or at least so it appears: the plot is supremely complicated in a most exquisitely excellent fashion.
Add in a female assistant district attorney, almost unheard of at the time, a bit of 1920s romance, and a charming Chinese detective who continually speaks in the way of all the actors who ever played him in the movies did, and what you get is a Grade A novel that’s been the most fun I’ve had all year in reading.
___
NOTE: Biggers wrote only six Charlie Chan novels before his relatively early death. Later on, two other authors have added two more to the total:
Charlie Chan Returns, by Dennis Lynds (1974)
and
Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen, by Michael Avallone (1981)
I’ve owned both over the years, but have not read either. Has anyone?
March 27th, 2023 at 11:20 pm
A recreation of what is considered a lost film:
March 28th, 2023 at 12:48 am
I read all the CHANs when I was about 14, but they seem to have left no impression on me.
March 28th, 2023 at 12:54 am
Funny you should say that, Dan. All the while I was reading this, I was aware I’d read it before, probably around the age of 14, maybe a bit older, I kept wondering to myself, how did this book get so much better now than it was back then?
March 28th, 2023 at 6:53 pm
This was the first Chan I read, at about 14, and I used the form at the back of the Paperback Library edition to order the whole lot and devour them.
Admittedly some of the appeal was that Charlie was somewhat like his screen persona, something that couldn’t be said of Mr. Moto who is much different in the books.
But, they were also good mysteries largely in the Van Dine tradition (even down to a few too many of the murderers committing suicide), engagingly written by a writer who knew his way around snappy dialogue as well as storytelling. It is no wonder Charlie was the favorite of the SATURDAY EVENING POST with Biggers slick style, and understanding of structure so the novels had natural climaxes that could be used to lure readers to buy the next issue (or better yet subscribe).
The Chan novels remain among my favorites from that era.
When I began reading mysteries in the 60’s there was a tendency to dismiss the importance of Charlie and Biggers. Fortunately, a generation of critics came up that reevaluated Charlie (an Asian scholar even rehabilitated him as a positive icon), in part by their love of the films, and turned the tide of dismissal.
I suspect some of the attacks on Charlie had to do with the popularity of the films and a knee jerk reaction to anything popular with “the great unwashed” and their ubiquity on late night television.
Re the Dennis Lynds and Mike Avallone Charlie Chan novels they are both film tie ins, the Lynds the better of the two for being a straight Chan story even if what it represents is not, though I’m not sure the movie ever came out. Avallone does the best he can with the goofy scenario he is given that features Peter Ustinov as Charlie and Angie Dickinson the Dragon Queen.
There are also the Chan novellas of Bill Pronzini and others that were printed in the Digest magazine CCMM and actually aren’t bad for what they are with some quite good and all entertaining.
March 28th, 2023 at 8:22 pm
I remember the Charlie Chan movies almost being blacklisted out of existence by over zealous PC folks, and I’m sure glad that didn’t happen, but if it had, then the books would have been their next target. There are enough stereotypical references to the Chinese people as a race, very minor, but enough perhaps to rouse their wrath.
I have just read somewhere that Agatha Christie’s books are being “cleaned up” for today’s readers.
As for the two books by other authors, you are right, the one by Lynds was based on a movie mever made:
“CHARLIE CHAN RETURNS is a novelization of a script by Ed Spielman and Howard Friedlander that was never produced. Bantam published it as part of the uniform series of the Chan novels by Earl Derr Biggers, making in number four. It was published in 1974.”
I don’t know why it would have been numbered #4, unless it was inserted into the series in chronological order, Charlie Chan-wise.
The Dragon Queen script was made into a movie, but in spire of a fine cast:
Peter Ustinov as Charlie Chan
Lee Grant as Mrs. Lupowitz
Angie Dickinson as The Dragon Queen
Richard Hatch as Lee Chan Jr.
Brian Keith as Police Chief Baxter
Roddy McDowall as Gillespie
Rachel Roberts as Mrs. Dangers
Michelle Pfeiffer as Cordelia Farenington
it was reportedly considered a bomb. For example, per Wikipedia, “Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel loathed the movie, giving it two “no” votes on their public television series Sneak Previews, and later listing it as one of the worst movies of 1981.”