Good evening… come on in. Why don’t you get yourself some popcorn and a Coke from our stunning black-on-silver art-deco refreshment stand? (Be nice to the charming and vivacious young lady manning the counter; you’ll find her attitude very different from the sullen mouth-breathers at the multiplex. She actually likes her job.) Yes, I know our modestly sized bags of corn look puny compared to those MegaTubs you’re accustomed to getting at the other places, but trust me: this is all you need.
Feel free to peruse the vintage one-sheets lining the walls of our lobby. Beautiful, aren’t they? Every one a genuine work of art, individually designed to uniquely showcase the films in question, painted by skilled craftsmen who’ve never heard of Photoshop.
Ah, here we are at the usher’s podium. We called it the chopper back in my day. But of course that means nothing to you, does it? Here, let me take your ticket. That little slip of inch-wide red cardstock there. What’s that? You wonder why it doesn’t tell you which film you’re seeing? But why would you… oh, I see why you’re confused. This ticket says only “Admit One,” without all the other extraneous information that’s printed on other movie tickets nowadays. But we don’t need all that nonsense here at the Black-and-White; you see, we have only the one screen. Now, go on into the auditorium and find a seat… watch your step, please, it’s a bit darker than what you’re probably used to. Slip into one of our low-back red-velvet seats. No, I’m sorry, they don’t rock, but you should find them comfortable enough. I have made one concession to your modern sensibilities: you’ll find the cupholder right there in front of you. There you are.
I hope you’ll use the last few minutes before the movie starts to relax or to converse quietly with your date. We have no pre-show reel to distract you with mindless advertising; this space is supposed to be isolated from the outside world, a bit of escapism even before the movie begins. Isn’t the hushed atmosphere so much nicer than all the blather that usually surrounds us? Please, don’t do that. You won’t be able to text or surf the web, not in my establishment. And no calls in or out, either, not while we’re here in the auditorium. Mobile phones don’t work here, not even the clock function, so you may as well put it back in your pocket and forget all about it for a couple hours. In a moment, there will be nothing trying to grab your attention except the film itself…. and here we go. The big waterfall curtain rises, the lights go down.
Tonight’s feature at Bennion’s Black-and-White Old-Tymey Movie Theatre is… Charlie Chan in Panama! A little bit of pre-war intrigue involving sabotage, a deadly plague, poisoned cigarettes, and the US Navy, all set against the exotic backdrop of the Panama Canal! SEE… a beautiful refugee countess hiding out as a nightclub singer! SEE… the suave Latino club owner who has a secret identity! SEE… the author of countless “blood-and-thunder” adventure novels, drawn into a real-life web of danger!
Okay, I’ll drop the silly patter. Sorry. I was just having a bit of fun remembering/imagining the way movie-going used to be back when there was still some glamour to it. The truth is, Black-and-White Theatre tonight consisted of me sitting on the couch in my bathrobe in front of my hi-def TV, spinning a DVD of a flick from 1940 that I doubt anyone reading this has even heard of. A far cry from the fabled movie palaces of old… or even those far more modest neighborhood movie-houses that used to lure people inside during the hot summers with promises of air conditioning and all-day programs for a dime. They’re all gone now, the palaces and the small houses, all exterminated by the rise of the multiplex. But I love the movies that would’ve run at those places. Black-and-white is not inferior, kids! And just because something is old doesn’t mean it doesn’t still have the power to entertain…
So… Charlie Chan. Charlie was one of several popular detective characters who appeared in long-running film series in the 1930s and ’40s. These films were somewhat analogous to modern TV mystery series (or perhaps more accurately to the TV detective shows of the 1980s): the individual “episodes” were fairly short as feature films go (usually around 70 minutes), they were made on the cheap, and they tended to be rather formulaic with likable but basically static characters. They were also reliably entertaining, which I think was the key to their longevity and popularity. Just like tuning into The Rockford Files, say, or Magnum PI, you had a pretty good idea of what you were going to get, but that was one of the selling points.
Charlie Chan was originally a literary hero, intended by the author who created him to be a counterpoint to the “yellow menace” Asian stereotypes that abounded at the time. When he made the leap from the pulps to the silver screen, Chan would be played by three different actors over the course of some 43 movies. Sadly, though, Charlie tends to be a figure of
controversy today, often derided as an ethnic stereotype as pernicious in his way as the Fu Manchu villains to which he was supposed to be an antidote. Watching a typical entry in the series such as Charlie Chan in Panama, it’s easy to see why he ruffles modern feathers… for one thing, all of the actors who portrayed him were white men, not Asians, as was the
unfortunate pattern of Hollywood in those less enlightened (and far less touchy) days. And then there is the singsong pidgin-English with which he reads his dialog. I don’t find it as cringeworthy as many critics do, but it is odd that an obviously intelligent character with a deep vocabulary hasn’t mastered something as simple as the personal pronoun.
That’s only surface-level stuff, though. If you look deeper, you’ll find that Chan is actually a surprisingly well-rounded character, at least within the limitations of his genre (remember, none of these detective flicks were deep character studies). He’s a devoted and loving (though often exasperated) father. He’s dedicated to his job. He’s noble and compassionate. He has a sly sense of humor. And he’s usually the smartest guy in the film. He may not pass muster with modern-day political correctness, but I grew up watching Charlie Chan movies, and I personally find him a highly appealing protagonist.
The specific Chan movie I watched this evening is a pretty standard example of the series: a cast of diverse and colorful characters is introduced, one of them drops dead, and Charlie Chan is on the case. This particular film, though, is much fun because of the all the myriad threads it weaves together: its exotic background, the country’s growing war jitters, and all the 1930s adventure-film trappings that were so successfully recycled by the Indiana Jones films four decades later. (If you like Indy flicks, you’re going to feel very comfortable in this environment.) One thing I especially enjoyed was the scattering of stock footage, actual film of World War II-era battleships moving through the locks of the Canal; the catapult launch of a military biplane; and especially a passenger-carrying flying boat lifting off and landing. We’ve seen all this stuff imagined in newer films, simulated with models and CGI, but this film shows us the real thing.
If you happen to run across it, give Charlie Chan in Panama a try. I haven’t seen the whole Chan series in decades, but as far as I know (and can remember) there’s no real continuity between the films, so this is as good an entry point as any. Just remember to leave the 21st century PC at the door, and try to imagine what going to the movies used to be like…
