Warner Oland
Birthday: 1879-10-03
Place of Birth: Nyby, Västerbottens län, Sweden
Synopsis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Warner Oland (born Johan Verner Ölund, October 3, 1879 – August 6, 1938) was a Swedish-American actor most remembered for playing several Chinese and Chinese-American characters: the Honolulu Police detective, Lieutenant Charlie Chan; Dr. Fu Manchu; and Henry Chang in Shanghai Express. His family emigrated to the United States when he was 13. He pursued a film career that would include time on Broadway and dozens of film appearances, including 16 Charlie Chan films. After several years in theater, including appearances on Broadway as Warner Oland, in 1912 he made his silent film debut in Pilgrim's Progress, a film based on the John Bunyan novel. As a result of his training as a Shakespearean actor and his easy adoption of a sinister look, he was much in demand as a villain and in ethnic roles. Over the next 15 years, he appeared in more than 30 films, including a major role in The Jazz Singer (1927), one of the first talkies produced. Oland's normal appearance fit the Hollywood expectation of caricatured Asianness of the time, despite his having no definitively proven Asian cultural background. Oland portrayed a variety of Asian characters in several movies before being offered the leading role in the 1929 film, The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu. It was the first onscreen portrayal of the Fu Manchu character in film. Oland continued to appear onscreen as an Asian, probably more often than any other white actor in the history of cinema. In Old San Francisco, Oland played an Asian unsuccessfully impersonating a white man.
Oland was the first actor to play a werewolf in a major Hollywood film, biting the protagonist, played by Henry Hull, in Werewolf of London (1935). Once again, Oland's character was Asian.
A box office success, The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu made Oland a star, and during the next two years he portrayed the evil Dr. Fu Manchu in three more films (although the second one was purely a cameo appearance). Firmly locked into such roles, he was cast as Charlie Chan in the international detective mystery film Charlie Chan Carries On (1931) and then in director Josef von Sternberg's 1932 classic film Shanghai Express opposite Marlene Dietrich and Anna May Wong.
The enormous worldwide box office success of his Charlie Chan film led to more, with Oland starring in 16 Chan films in total. The series, Jill Lepore later wrote, "kept Fox afloat" during the 1930s, while earning Oland $40,000 per movie. Oland took his role seriously, studying the Chinese language and calligraphy.
Acting
Charlie Chan at the Olympics
as Charlie Chan
Get ready for a Gold Medal murder mystery! This "tense, thrilling mystery" ('California Congress of Parents and Teachers') pits Charlie Chan against international spies who are using the Berlin Olympic games as the perfect cover...for cold-blooded murder!
Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo
as Charlie Chan
Although Charlie and Lee are in Monaco for an art exhibit, they become caught up in a feud between rival financiers which involves the Chan's in a web of blackmail and murder.
Charlie Chan at the Race Track
as Charlie Chan
When a friend of Charlie's is found kicked to death by his own race horse on board a Honolulu-bound liner, the detective discovers foul play and uncovers an international gambling ring.
Charlie Chan's Secret
as Charlie Chan
Allen Colby, heir to a huge fortune, is presumed drowned after an ocean liner sinks off the coast of Honolulu. Mysteriously, Colby reappears at his mansion only to be murdered soon after. When his body is discovered during a seance, everyone in attendance becomes a suspect, and it's up to Chan to find the murderer before he or she strikes again.
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Charlie Chan at the Circus
as Charlie Chan
While visiting the circus with his family, Charlie is recruited by the big top's co-owner to investigate threatening letters that he's received.
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Charlie Chan at the Opera
as Charlie Chan
A dangerous amnesiac escapes from an asylum, hides in the opera house, and is suspected of getting revenge on those who tried to murder him 13 years ago.
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Shanghai
as Ambassador Lun Sing
A New York socialite travels to Shanghai to visit her ailing aunt and falls in love with a Russian banker, who harbors a family secret.
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Charlie Chan in Paris
as Charlie Chan
Charlie's visit to Paris, ostensibly a vacation, is really a mission to investigate a bond-forgery racket. But his agent, apache dancer Nardi is killed before she can tell him much. The case, complicated by a false murder accusation for banker's daughter Yvette, climaxes with a strange journey through the Paris sewers.
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Charlie Chan in Egypt
as Charlie Chan
While investigating the theft of antiquities from an ancient tomb excavation , Charlie discovers that the body of the expedition's leader concealed inside the mummy's wrappings.
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Charlie Chan in Shanghai
as Charlie Chan
When a prominent official is murdered at a banquet honoring Charle Chan, the detective and son Lee team up to expose an opium-smuggling ring.
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Werewolf of London
as Dr. Yogami
A strange animal attack turns a botanist into a bloodthirsty monster.
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Charlie Chan in London
as Charlie Chan
Charlie Chan is sought out by Pamela Gray, a desperate young socialite whose brother Paul awaits execution for the murder of a weapons inventor. Pamela is convinced of his innocence.
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Charlie Chan's Courage
as Charlie Chan
Charlie is hired to deliver a pearl necklace to a millionaire at his ranch. When murder intervenes he disguises himself as a Chinese servant and begins sleuthing.
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The Painted Veil
as General Yu
The wife of a doctor in China falls in love with a diplomat.
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Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back
as Prince Achmed
Bulldog Drummond finds himself immersed in another adventure when he stumbles upon a corpse in the mysterious London mansion of Prince Achmed. Enlisting the help of his old friend Algy and the beautiful Lola, Drummond uncovers a scheme to ship illegal cargo into the country. He must rely on his cunning to survive when the prince offers a reward for his capture.
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Charlie Chan's Chance
as Charlie Chan
Charlie is the intended murder victim here, and he avoids death only by chance. To find the murderer (since, of course, murder does occur), Charlie must outguess Scotland Yard and New York City police.
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The Big Gamble
as Andrew North
A gambler, hopelessly in debt, agrees to pay off his debt by allowing his creditor to take out a life insurance policy on him and collecting once the one-year suicide clause has elapsed.
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The Black Camel
as Charlie Chan
Movie star Shelah Fane is seeing wealthy Alan Jaynes while filming in Honolulu, Hawaii, but won't marry him without consulting famed psychic Tarneverro first. Enter inspector Charlie Chan of the Honolulu Police, investigating the unsolved murder, three years earlier, of a Hollywood actor.
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Dishonored
as Colonel von Hindau
The Austrian Secret Service sends its most seductive agent to spy on the Russians.
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The Drums of Jeopardy
as Dr. Boris Karlov
A mad doctor is determined to take revenge on the family he believes is responsible for his daughter's death.
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The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu
as Dr. Fu Manchu
The sinister Dr. Fu Manchu returns to destroy the people he holds responsible for the death of his family.
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Dangerous Paradise
as Schomberg
Heyst, a hermit on his own tropical island, plays unwilling host to red-headed stowaway Alma. Danger looms...
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The Vagabond King
as Thibault
The story takes place in medieval France. Poet-rogue Francois Villon, sentenced to hang by King Louis XI for writing derogatory verses about him, is offered a temporary reprieve. His hanging will be postponed for 24 hours, and in that time he must defeat the invading Burgundians and win the love of the beautiful Katherine.
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Chinatown Nights
as Boston Charley
Joan Fry, a society woman, falls in love with Chuck Riley, the white-leader of a powerful gang in Chinatown, and he quickly drags her down into the depths with him. But seeing her so much in love with him causes him to realize he isl in love with her, and he determines to lift her up again. "Boston" Charley, the rival gang-leader, has other plans.
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The Jazz Singer
as Cantor Rabinowitz
A young Jewish man is torn between tradition and individuality when his old-fashioned family objects to his career as a jazz singer. This is the first full length feature film to use synchronized sound, and is the original film musical.
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The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu
as Dr. Fu Manchu
A Chinese doctor vows revenge against the allied troops who killed his wife and child during the Boxer Rebellion.
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The Studio Murder Mystery
as Rupert Borka
Philandering actor Richard Hardell is murdered at a movie studio. His jealous wife Blanche, his director Rupert Borka, and a girl he mistreated, Helen MacDonald, all have substantial reasons for having wanted him dead.
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Old San Francisco
as Chris Buckwell
In San Francisco, a villainous landowner with underworld connections seeks to steal the property of an old Spanish family.
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Don Juan
as Cesare Borgia
If there was one thing that Don Juan de Marana learned from his father Don Jose, it was that women gave you three things - life, disillusionment and death. In his father's case it was his wife, Donna Isobel, and Donna Elvira who supplied the latter. Don Juan settled in Rome after attending the University of Pisa. Rome was run by the tyrannical Borgia family consisting of Caesar, Lucrezia and the Count Donati. Juan has his way with and was pursued by many women, but it is the one that he could not have that haunts him. It will be for her that he suffers the wrath of Borgia for ignoring Lucrezia and then killing Count Donati in a duel. For Adriana, they will both be condemned to death in the prison on the river Tigre.
