Warner Oland Trailers
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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.
Most Popular Warner Oland Trailers
Total trailers found: 99
06 August 1926
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.
14 February 1918
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.
06 May 2003
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.
29 June 1919
A woman with a gambling addiction finds that her daughter is threatened by the same tendencies.
11 October 1935
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.
04 June 1935
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.
01 January 1942
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.
28 December 1924
Big Bill Branigan, one of the tough characters of London's Limehouse district, falls in love with Curlytop because of her sweet innocence.
22 September 1937
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.
16 November 1929
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.
17 December 1937
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.
20 June 2006
A documentary on the creation of the popular Charlie Chan detective character as well as the history of Chan films of the 1930s.
21 June 1931
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.
14 September 1919
Stella Derrick and Dick Hazelwood love each other, but their families want them to make better financial matches.
15 October 1922
She'd wink till hearts went on the blink. And staid professors couldn't think. And everywhere they'd stop to stare.
21 March 1961
An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.
27 March 1936
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.
14 June 1915
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.
27 December 1925
Infatuation is based on Caesar's Wife, a story by Somerset Maugham. Dazzlingly British socialite Viola Morgan falls madly in love with professional soldier Sir Arthur Little at a dinner party.
23 December 1926
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.
26 May 1918
Anna Mirrel, a young Jewish girl in Czarist Russia, is forced to degrade herself in order to visit her father, whom she believes to be ill.
07 August 1936
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.
18 February 1928
Our heroine, Miss Velez (despite the fact that she seems to be just along for the ride) is much her usual over-eloquent self (how fortunate she has no sound track!), while Warner Oland makes such an impressive and villainously seedy bandit, he needs no sound track at all.
10 January 1936
Allen Colby, heir to a huge fortune, is presumed drowned after an ocean liner sinks off the coast of Honolulu.
27 May 1927
To satisfy her controlling mother and secure both of their futures, a daughter hesitantly enters a loveless marriage to a wealthy businessman.
04 September 1931
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.
04 August 1933
After the death of a gangster, those familiar with his million dollar stash start mysteriously dying.
02 May 1930
The sinister Dr. Fu Manchu returns to destroy the people he holds responsible for the death of his family.
15 August 1934
Bulldog Drummond finds himself immersed in another adventure when he stumbles upon a corpse in the mysterious London mansion of Prince Achmed.
23 June 1933
Bobby Jones is playing golf with his buddies, oblivious to the fact that they are being watched by a drunken juggler.
13 May 1935
A strange animal attack turns a botanist into a bloodthirsty monster.
13 October 2019
A history of anti-Asian racism and yellowface in Hollywood after the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack.
10 August 1929
A Chinese doctor vows revenge against the allied troops who killed his wife and child during the Boxer Rebellion.
14 September 1933
When a good-for-nothing man named Dan is stabbed to death and his arm broken, Charlie Chan is on the case.
01 March 1931
A mad doctor is determined to take revenge on the family he believes is responsible for his daughter's death.
18 March 1919
A drama about twin sisters Daisy and Violet, who grow up unaware of each other's existence, one with their wealthy father and the other with their poor mother.
06 October 1927
A young Jewish man is torn between tradition and individuality when his old-fashioned family objects to his career as a jazz singer.
04 September 1927
In San Francisco, a villainous landowner with underworld connections seeks to steal the property of an old Spanish family.
26 November 1922
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.
04 April 1931
The Austrian Secret Service sends its most seductive agent to spy on the Russians.
11 April 1931
Charlie steps in to solve the murder of a wealthy American found dead in a London hotel. Settings include London, Nice, San Remo, Honolulu and Hong Kong.
01 December 1928
A 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.
25 September 1921
Story concerns a paper mill, a mortgage and the struggle to obtain the lost formula for making paper from seaweed.
07 July 1917
A silent movie serial directed by George B. Seitz.
01 August 1928
The film follows Lya, a woman seeking refuge from Cossack soldiers, who finds herself at the palace of Prince Nicholas.
08 October 1927
Izzy 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.
12 February 1932
A beautiful temptress re-kindles an old romance while trying to escape her past during a tension-packed train journey.
06 July 1934
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.
23 December 1932
Young Asians in San Francisco find their love thwarted by clan warfare.
22 April 1930
This 1930 film, a collection of songs and sketches showcasing Paramount Studios' contract stars, cres
11 October 1920
Janet Dale feels that there is a danger looming over her home but cannot put her finger on what it is.
14 January 1917
Spies from Japan conspire to steal the Channing "preparedness" fortune and invade the United States, beginning in New York, then allying themselves with Mexicans across the border.
01 January 1999
Starting with "The Wolf Man" (in 1941), Universal Studios made five movies featuring The Wolf Man, a character portrayed by Lon Chaney, Jr.
25 August 1932
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.
03 July 1916
Pierre Felix, a couturier, makes a $25,000 bet with Ralph Courtland that he can take a girl from the streets, dress her appropriately, and within three months have her accepted into society.
04 December 1936
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.
27 January 1934
Lucille Lingard and her friend Emmie bid farewell to their European friends on their last night in Paris.
26 December 1915
Fernande marries a man and schemes to get his wealth when his expected death occurs. But he dies before he can change his will.
03 April 1916
Albert Jordan, publishing house manager, lavishes his salary on his adored wife, Rita, and little daughter Edna.
24 September 1931
At her Chinese father's bidding, a woman goes to murder an enemy and meets a Scotland Yard detective.
