The Return of Charlie Chan

This movie starring Ross Martin of Wild, Wild West fame was a good effort at adding to the Charlie Chan Mythos, but in the end, failed.

It is too complicated and hard to follow. Not that I don't mind good mysteries, but I doubt anyone could solve it on their own and that is part of the fun of Charlie Chan movies.

Martin does a decent job as Chan, but a little more of the family Chan might have added to this film. It is fun seeing Leslie Nelison in an early role, but overall, this movie just doesn't hit it and we can see why it stayed on the shelves for over five years after production before seeing the light of day.

A number of classic detective characters had revivals in TV-pilots in the early 70's, including Stewart Granger as SHERLOCK HOLMES, Robert Conrad as NICK CARTER, and, it figures, Ross Martin as CHARLIE CHAN. The 1st 2 were "period" pieces, but CHAN was a sequel to the Fox & Monogram series, updated to the present-day (1971) and featuring 2 of his kids grown up plus several grand-kids in cameo. It could have been interesting, but like the others I mentioned, it didn't sell. Not only didn't it sell, it wasn't even aired until 8 years after it was made! That's gotta hurt.

I usually have no problem watching "old" movies or TV shows, but somehow this one screams "1971" a little too much. The fashions, the loud blaring jazz music, but worse (and this is something I bet most viewers aren't even aware of), the style of directing and editing. I just came off watching my entire CHARLIE CHAN collection, and the entire way this thing is written, directed, acted, photographed & edited is just JARRING beyond belief. Among other annoyances, too many close-ups, too much fast-cutting between 2 or more things going on at the same time... Honestly, if you want to revive a "classic" character, would it HURT that much to study the STYLE of the old films and try to bring at least a LITTLE of that ambiance to the present project?

One thing that bugged me in many of the late-70's and 80's "revivals" was the way so many stories insisted on telling us that our heroes had "retired" and stopped doing their thing. STAR TREK, WILD WILD WEST, THE MOD SQUAD, MAN FROM UNCLE... I'd forgotten this trend actually started almost a decade earlier. But then, nobody had ever seen this film when most of those sequels were being made.

Something that I actually found amusing in this film was that no less than 3 of its leads were not using their regular accents. Not only is Ross Martin playing a Chinese detective, but Leslie Nielsen (FORBIDDEN PLANET) is playing a Greek tycoon, while Richard Haydn (AND THEN THERE WERE NONE) is NOT doing his usual "nasal" whine thing. Actually, Ross Martin's regular voice creeps in far too much of the time. He LOOKS right in the part, but he doesn't SOUND right. I'd have almost preferred if they'd gotten Joey Foreman, who played "Harry Hoo" on GET SMART (doing a dead-on Sidney Toler impression).

I kept rattling my brains trying to figure out where I'd seen Louise Sorel before... I narrowed it down to one of the NBC MYSTERY MOVIES (yes, she did a BANACEK) or STAR TREK. But I'd forgotten it was "Requiem For Methusaleh", where she played the last of the various women Jim Kirk FELL HARD for. I'm astonished to see how many episodes of daytime soap-operas she's been in since! Wow.

The story itself is monstrously over-complicated. Having watched tons of murder mysteries in the last few months (SHERLOCK HOLMES, POIROT, MISS MARPLE, MR. MOTO, and yes, CHARLIE CHAN), this may get the vote for the MOST indecipherable. I just saw it, and have almost no idea who did what to who and why.

Ironically, THIS film was apparently the inspiration for the cartoon series THE AMAZING CHAN AND THE CHAN CLAN, which debuted on Saturday mornings just a year later. In that, they got Keye Luke (alias "Number One Son" Lee Chan) to do the voice of Charlie. It's too bad nobody thought of having him star in THIS first.

I found this to be a fun, if overly complex, updating of the Chan legacy--Charlie is now sixty years old and has been in retirement for ten years. It is a bit jolting to see him roll up to his house at the beginning in a dune buggy wearing a gaudy Hawaiian shirt but it's got a good spirit about it. Ross Martin is certainly not the best choice to portray the great detective but he certainly is credible and grows on you with subsequent viewings. The mystery itself, as I mentioned, is quite confusing on the first go round but becomes clear on a second viewing. I suppose that this complexity is what landed this pilot film on the shelf for so many years before it was finally released. Unlike some other reviewers here, I love the "tacky" 70's feel of this and it adds a certain camp quality that makes it even more fun. The two offspring of Charlie's that appear as his companions here(one son and one daughter)again grow and you and showed promise as potential regular characters. This would have been a good regular series in the mould of McMillan And Wife, Columbo etc. etc. At any rate it is an enjoyable one off that is never less than diverting. In the end maybe it was right this didn't become a series, inasmuch as Ross Martin was not Asian and it was getting to a point where it seemed out of place to have caucasians portraying the great sleuth. Hopefully the latest chapter of Chan,with Chow Yun-phat will rectify this issue! So, if by chance your a fan of Charlie Chan, give this a try and realise it was simply a different take made for an early 1970's audience and enjoy it!

Consumate character performer Ross Martin was clearly always up for a challenge from a thought provoking script and a wonderful part. Forget The Wild Wild West, I remember him as the towering self-obsessed murderer in Columbo! Equally capable of emotive nuance, though, as in his two memorable Twilight Zone appearances. On occasion however it all just seemed to go wrong! The Return of Charlie Chan is one such occasion. Try as he might, Martin's overwhelming on-screen personality simply cannot fit that of the Earl Derr Biggers subtle crime solving genius. To make matters worse, we have Gene Kearney's script that is about as interesting as a leftover fortune cookie. Add to this the woeful dialogue ... some of which seems to never end! And finally pasty faced Leslie Nielsen no less as a Greek shipping tycoon! At one point we even see him try to convince us he is Zorba himself during a Syrtaki Dance! Enough to make Nikos Kazantzakis whince ... where the heck was Telly Savalas for this part? Or even Nana Mouskouri for pity's sake!

The Return of Charlie Chan will unfortunatly make you long to see John Wayne's turn as Gengis Khan. Since it has been bungled in just about every constipated department. The final explanation of the killer for instance will evoke painful memories of Ted Rodgers on 321. 'AYE'?

By the way it is an error to say this TV movie was made in 1971 and finally released in 1979 ... this was simply how long it took Universal execs to sit through the film!

This TV movie from the early 70's was a misguided effort to revive the Charlie Chan film series. It fails on every count. It is needlessly complicated. And it is dated in a tacky, rather than nostalgic, way--unlike the classic Chans from the 30's and early 40's, which hold up. Don't waste your time unless you are an absolute Chan fanatic. Your time would be better spent watching "Charlie Chan at Treasure Island" or "Charlie Chan at the Opera", or any of the Fox Chan films. Even the Monogram Chan films are better than this one!