AMUSEMENTS.

Hokitika Guardian, 30 November 1931, Page 3

AMUSEMENTS.

£VRRYBPDYS PICTURES. TO-NIGHT AND TUESDAY. “CHARLIE CHAN CARRIES ON.” During the filming of the latest story about the noted sleuth, £ ‘Chailie> Chan Carries On,” Fox picture which will be shown at the Princess Theatre to-night, the author was in frequent consultation witli Director Hamilton MacFadden, and the latter one day queried Biggers on how he happened to conceive the character “Charlie Chan,” and whether Charlie had an actual prototype. “No,” said Biggers, “In 1919 I had a couple of plays in rehearsal at the same moment on Broadway and when that job was finished I found myself with a blood pressure that was trying for an altitude record. In the following spring I was ■sitting one evening at the water’s edge at Waikiki Beach, Honolulu, carrying out the doctor’s orders for a long rest.. “Suddenly in the twilight f thought of an excellent wa. y of murdering a man —the swimming ashore from a ship in the harbor trick, that later was to lie the backbone of ‘The House Without A Key.’ When I got back to the mainland, however, I devoted myself to short stories for the ‘Post’ for a long time and it was four years after my return that I decided to do the Honolulu mystery story. “If I had known before that there were Chinese on the police force over there, I had forgotten it. But I decided at once that a Chinese detective would be a good idea in ‘The House Without A Key.’ Sinister and wicked Chinese were old stuff in mystery stories, but an amiable Chinese acting on

the side of law and order had, up to that time, never been use'dE “Meanwhile, in Honolulu, practically all tiie characters in ‘The -Mouse Mini out A Key,’ and its sequels bad—quite without reason—been connected with real people, and Chang Apana, an old Chinese who had been on the force more than thirty years, was designated as the original of Charlie Chan. Put i never met Chang until I had written three of the Chan stories, and when I did, I found none of Charlie’s characteristics noticeable. The character of Charlie Chan, is entirely fictitious.” Warner Oland, enacts the title role in “Charlie Chan Carries On,” and the cast includes John Garrick, Marqucrito Churchill, Warren Hymer, Marjorie White, and O. Henry Gordon. Good supports. Prices 2/6, 1/6, children 6d downstairs. *