Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise is a 1940 murder mystery film starring Sidney Toler in his fifth of many performances as Charlie Chan. It is based on the Earl Derr Biggers novel "Charlie Chan Carries On". The famed detective seeks to unmask a killer on a voyage across the Pacific Ocean. As has been mentioned elsewhere, this story is primarily a remake of the (now) lost movie, "Charlie Chan Carries On," (1931) starring Warner Oland. The story has been updated to include more Charlie, but it would be nice to have the missing movie to compare against.
Charlie Chan DVD in 2006; as of mid-2008, Fox has released all of the extant Warner Oland titles and has begun issuing the Sidney Toler series. The first six Monogram productions, all starring Sidney Toler, were released by MGM in 2004. Some modern critics, particularly East Asian-Americans, dismiss the Charlie Chan character as "bovine" and "asexual", allowing "white America … [to be] securely indifferent about us as men." Charlie Chan's good qualities are the product of what Frank Chin and Jeffery Chan call "racist love", arguing that Chan is a model minority and "kissass". Fletcher Chan, however, argues that the Chan of