Warner Oland

A history of anti-Asian racism and yellowface in Hollywood after the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack.

Looks at the stereotype-breaking films of the period from 1929, when movies entered the sound era, until 1934 when the Hays Code virtually neutered film content. No longer portrayed as virgins or vamps, the liberated female of the pre-code films had dimensions. Good girls had lovers and babies and held down jobs, while the bad girls were cast in a sympathetic light. And they did it all without apology.

Starting with "The Wolf Man" (in 1941), Universal Studios made five movies featuring The Wolf Man, a character portrayed by Lon Chaney, Jr. Monster by Moonlight! explores these movies. Rick Baker explains how the make-up was done on Chaney's character. Screenwriter Curtis Siodmak took very little from earlier werewolf legends, providing his own story for some of the films. This documentary displays clips from several other movies, including "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein" (1948) and "House of Dracula" (1945).

A history of horror movies.

An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.

The edition of Screen Snapshots celebrates 25 years of production. It looks at the content of edition #1, then a tribute to movie people who have died in those 25 years. Finally there are tributes to the Screen Snapshots series by Cecil De Mille, Walt Disney, Louella Parsons and Rosalind Russell.

A beautiful temptress re-kindles an old romance while trying to escape her past during a tension-packed train journey.

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.

A strange animal attack turns a botanist into a bloodthirsty monster.

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!

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.

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.

The wife of a doctor in China falls in love with a diplomat.

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.

Returning from European exile where she avoided testifying against her criminal associates, a former singer with a tell-all diary is murdered to insure her silence.

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.

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.

Young Asians in San Francisco find their love thwarted by clan warfare.

The Austrian Secret Service sends its most seductive agent to spy on the Russians.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When a good-for-nothing man named Dan is stabbed to death and his arm broken, Charlie Chan is on the case. His first clue comes from the victim's sister, who noticed a prowler wearing a glow-in-the-dark wristwatch.

At her Chinese father's bidding, a woman goes to murder an enemy and meets a Scotland Yard detective.

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.

After the death of a gangster, those familiar with his million dollar stash start mysteriously dying. Police detectives with the help of a clairvoyant try to determine who, living or dead, is responsible.

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.

Abandoned by her lover, a woman becomes the main "hostess" in a decadent nightclub, but tries to put her past behind her on a steamer to Mandalay.

The sinister Dr. Fu Manchu returns to destroy the people he holds responsible for the death of his family.

A mad doctor is determined to take revenge on the family he believes is responsible for his daughter's death.

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.

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.

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.

This 1930 film, a collection of songs and sketches showcasing Paramount Studios' contract stars, credits 11 directors

Just prior to the outbreak of World War I, in the British West African town of Akkra, English woman Myra Carson becomes involved in a scandal and is deported. While Myra's ship is docked at Duala, in German West Africa, the war breaks out and she finds herself facing internment by the Germans.

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.

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.

A Chinese doctor vows revenge against the allied troops who killed his wife and child during the Boxer Rebellion.

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.

Don Cesar De Vega crosses swords with a vicious member of the Queen's Guard, and steals the affection of a young heiress. When the officer frames the young upstart for murder, Don Cesar fakes his own death and retreats to the crumbling ruins of the family castle he plots his vengeance.

After five years of marriage, Beth and Peter Marsh's life together is a series of rows and reconciliations. Beth is frivolous and extravagant; Peter is domineering and ambitious and has difficulty paying the bills. Daniel Rankin, who lives in the same apartment building, becomes attracted to Beth and arranges with the Marsh chauffeur to have her car break down, allowing him to offer assistance and gracefully introduce himself; Rankin later invites her to a dance. Resenting Rankin's attentions to his wife, Peter forbids her to go. However, Beth accompanies Rankin to spite her husband, and Rankin proposes that she divorce Peter and become his wife. A lost film.

A nobleman studying for the priesthood abandons his vocation in 18th Century France when he falls in love with a beautiful, but reluctant, courtesan.

A soldier inaccurately reported as dead returns home to his Spanish family’s estate in California, only to find his father deceased and his ancestral land in the hands of strangers.

William Bradberry, an absent-minded Egyptologist, turns from a henpecked husband to a dominating one who, unknown to his daughter Betty and wife, writes theatre musical comedy on the side. And saves his daughter from the unsavory millionaire, Victor Smith she almost marries before she marries the decent man Tommy Dawson. A lost film.

A Texas Ranger searches for his kidnapped sister.

Nancy Raynor (Georgia Hale) is arriving from the East to see her dying uncle. Clint Beasley (Oland) and his gang are determined to kidnap her before she reaches him.

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 is in love with her, and he determines to lift her up again. "Boston" Charley, the rival gang-leader, has other plans.

Paul is a fearless French Foreign Legion officer. Ordered to quell a native uprising at a far-away outpost, he discovers that the revolt is actually a subterfuge hatched by the Arabs, so that the city under Paul's command will be left unguarded and defenseless.

In this melodrama set during WWI, a gangster joins the army and is promoted to major. He then returns from war torn Europe to tell a family that their beloved son had died in his arms during a battle. The major then falls in love with the late soldier's sister and decides to accept a position in town as the new police commissioner.

Follows three generations of the Mayne family through the year 1921-22. The 81-year-old patriarch reminisces about his rough beginnings in post-Civil War railroading, son Rufus rides rough waters as a wealthy financier, and his wife and three daughters muddle through their New York high society life.

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.

A Russian family, the Turkeltaubs, emigrates to the US before the Communist revolution that overthrew the Czar. One of their twin sons, Schulke, disappears and is believed dead before they leave. After they settle into their new country, the family does well: the surviving twin, Nicholai, becomes a crusading District Attorney. One of the cases he is assigned to prosecute is that of small-time gangster Jacob Talinef, who has killed a former girlfriend of Nicholai's. Further investigation of the case, though, reveals a shocking secret.

On the wager that he will propose marriage to any girl selected by his fraternity brothers, Bill finds himself making love to Mary, an old-fashioned girl who is secretly in love with him…

U.S. Marine Sergeant O'Hara has his hands full training raw recruits, one of whom, 'Skeets' Burns, is a particular thorn in his side. If Burns's lackadaisical approach to the military were not bad enough, he also makes advances on nurse Nora Dale, whom Sergeant O'Hara secretly loves. Nora is oblivious to O'Hara's feelings and is attracted to the handsome 'Skeet.' But an indiscretion turns her against him, and it takes an expedition to China and a battle with a warlord's bandit brigade to sort things out among the nurse and her two Marines.

Fernande marries a man and schemes to get his wealth when his expected death occurs. But he dies before he can change his will. She next tries to kill the son who inherits, but he outfoxes her.

Stella Derrick and Dick Hazelwood love each other, but their families want them to make better financial matches.

Albert Jordan, publishing house manager, lavishes his salary on his adored wife, Rita, and little daughter Edna. She is a churchgoing woman, while his home and his family is his religion. While returning home one day, Jordan sees his little daughter in the path of an auto. He runs to snatch her from instant death. He saves her but is seriously injured himself.

Trying to win the Three C's railroad line for his home town of Topaz, Colorado, Nicholas "Nick" Tarvin journeys to India to secure the famed jewel known as the Naulahka, which he plans to present to Mrs. Mutrie, the railroad president's wife.

The heroine had little time for romancing newspaper reporter Walter Jameson, what with Doctor X, alias Marcus Del Mar, threatening American democracy in general and master detective Craig Kennedy's designs for a new torpedo in particular. Whenever Doctor X has Elaine or Jameson in his grasp, they are inevitably saved in the nick of time by a mystery figure garbed in black.