
Acting
Warner Oland
Born 1879-10-03 · Nyby, Västerbottens län, Sweden
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 credits
7.3A duke has deposed Prince Mauritz's father, so Mauritz spends his time in affairs with a countess, the duke's wife and a gypsy girl Adrienne. Years later she is a famous actress in a play resembling the sad story of their earlier relationship. He falls in love with her again. The jealous duchess and the duke arrange to have him shot by firing squad but revolutionaries save him and make him King.
Dream of Love
1928
6.1A 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.
The Jazz Singer
1927
6.5U.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.
Tell It to the Marines
1926
6.8On 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…
The Fighting American
1924
5.7After 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.
Before Dawn
1933
6.9The Austrian Secret Service sends its most seductive agent to spy on the Russians.
Dishonored
1931
6.4The wife of a doctor in China falls in love with a diplomat.
The Painted Veil
1934
7.0After 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.
So This Is Marriage?
1924
7.0A beautiful temptress re-kindles an old romance while trying to escape her past during a tension-packed train journey.
Shanghai Express
1932
6.1A strange animal attack turns a botanist into a bloodthirsty monster.
Werewolf of London
1935
6.9While 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.
Charlie Chan in Egypt
1935
5.8In San Francisco, a villainous landowner with underworld connections seeks to steal the property of an old Spanish family.
Old San Francisco
1927
5.9This 1930 film, a collection of songs and sketches showcasing Paramount Studios' contract stars, credits 11 directors
Paramount on Parade
1930
3.4A history of horror movies.
The Horror Show
1979
6.6If 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 Juan
1926
7.3Starting 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).
Monster by Moonlight! The Immortal Saga of 'The Wolf Man'
1999
6.1Movie 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.
The Black Camel
1931
1.0Fernande 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.
Destruction
1915
6.8A 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.
Charlie Chan at the Opera
1936
6.7When a prominent official is murdered at a banquet honoring Charle Chan, the detective and son Lee team up to expose an opium-smuggling ring.
Charlie Chan in Shanghai
1935
7.0Izzy Murphy is a street vendor of scents that falls in love with the beautiful woman (Audrey Ferris) whose picture adorns the perfume bottle he sells. After resourcefully tracing the beauty (whose father(Warner Oland) manufactures the perfume to a luxury yacht, he finds himself in the company of an escaped lunatic John Miljan) who has vowed to murder the perfume manufacturer in retaliation for all the flowers that have been lost in the making of the perfume.
Sailor Izzy Murphy
1927
6.5Young Asians in San Francisco find their love thwarted by clan warfare.
The Son-Daughter
1932
6.9Looks 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.
Complicated Women
2003
8.0Follows 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.
His Children's Children
1923