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San Francisco jeweller Alexander Eden, who's brokered the sale of a valuable necklace for Madame Sally Jordan of Honolulu, becomes suspicious when the purchaser, millionaire P. J. "The Plunger" Madden, suddenly calls and asks that the pearls be delivered to his ranch outside Eldorado, instead of his home address in New York. Det. Sgt. (not acting in his official capacity here) Chan, who couriered the necklace from Honolulu as a favour to Mme. Jordan, his former employer, concurs; and so Eden's son Bob travels to Eldorado, ostensibly to deliver the necklace, while Chan (who actually has it) works there undercover as a cook. At the ranch, Chan senses that something is not right, but with no obvious crime, he can't tell what. He convinces Bob to keep stalling while the two of them (quickly joined by local journalist Will Holley and movie-location scout Paula Wendell) investigate. At first the only murder victim is a parrot, but when the ranch's usual cook and caretaker Louie Wong returns unexpectedly, someone dispatches him as well...
Project Gutenberg has Earl Derr Biggers' Charlie Chan novels, and I've just finished reading The Chinese Parrot (1926). It bolsters my (admittedly white, Canadian, and 21st-century) opinion that the novels are less problematic than the movies -- we don't have to see Chan played by a white actor in makeup, and his dialogue is a bit less stereotypical than in most portrayals. Biggers lampshades this by having the detective go undercover; as "Ah Kim," he affects a very heavy dialect and plainly feels humiliated at having to do so. I was thinking it would be interesting to see a modern adaptation with Keone Young or somebody, when I realized the real problem with adapting this novel:
(Spoilers for 89-year-old novel ahead)
You see, the plot turns on a case of impersonation: the real Madden appears in the opening chapter, but when we change locations to Eldorado an imposter has taken over. In a visual medium, you'd therefore need to either cast two different actors and risk the audience spotting the substitution, or one actor in a dual role and risk the audience feeling cheated. (Though having watched more than one season of Orphan Black, the latter trick might work with the right actor and a makeup artist who can create enough inconsistency between scenes to plant some subconscious doubt.)
In the text, OTOH, Biggers can do a beautiful job of misdirection while dropping enough hints to satisfy the golden-age-mystery rules of Fair Play. The physical descriptions of Madden constantly dwell on his red face (distinctive, and easy to fake); and at least twice someone states they "recognize him from photos in the newspaper;" in other words, from a grainy black-and-white photo that they don't actually have with them at the moment. Holley, who does recall meeting him years before, turns out to have met the imposter back when he was first pulling his con.
The main trick, however, was switching the POV without setting off alarm bells. It occurs to me that Fair Play is the reason mysteries use either first-person narration, or third-person-but-we-only-hear-one-character's-thoughts. In The Chinese Parrot, the POV character in the first two chapters is Alexander Eden;he third chapter POV is Chan; and chapters IV and onward are from the POV of Bob. Neither Bob Eden nor Chan were on the scene when the real Madden was introduced in chapter 1, but as the perspective shift falls into the natural flow of the story, it doesn't seem suspiciously forced. Furthermore it's soon forgotten in the bewildering crowd of incidents and characters. This is a novel with a large and vividly-described cast. I'm not sure it passes the Bechdel test, but even the female supporting characters include a Chinese-American telephone switchboard operator, a doctor running a desert sanatorium, and a stage performer who outwits Bob when she suspects he's trying to trick her into giving up information about her boyfriend; even Paula gets to advance the plot in at least one way besides being Bob's love interest. It's sort of depressing to write that sentence, and about a novel from the 1920s; maybe someone really should have a go at an adaptation.
Project Gutenberg has Earl Derr Biggers' Charlie Chan novels, and I've just finished reading The Chinese Parrot (1926). It bolsters my (admittedly white, Canadian, and 21st-century) opinion that the novels are less problematic than the movies -- we don't have to see Chan played by a white actor in makeup, and his dialogue is a bit less stereotypical than in most portrayals. Biggers lampshades this by having the detective go undercover; as "Ah Kim," he affects a very heavy dialect and plainly feels humiliated at having to do so. I was thinking it would be interesting to see a modern adaptation with Keone Young or somebody, when I realized the real problem with adapting this novel:
(Spoilers for 89-year-old novel ahead)
You see, the plot turns on a case of impersonation: the real Madden appears in the opening chapter, but when we change locations to Eldorado an imposter has taken over. In a visual medium, you'd therefore need to either cast two different actors and risk the audience spotting the substitution, or one actor in a dual role and risk the audience feeling cheated. (Though having watched more than one season of Orphan Black, the latter trick might work with the right actor and a makeup artist who can create enough inconsistency between scenes to plant some subconscious doubt.)
In the text, OTOH, Biggers can do a beautiful job of misdirection while dropping enough hints to satisfy the golden-age-mystery rules of Fair Play. The physical descriptions of Madden constantly dwell on his red face (distinctive, and easy to fake); and at least twice someone states they "recognize him from photos in the newspaper;" in other words, from a grainy black-and-white photo that they don't actually have with them at the moment. Holley, who does recall meeting him years before, turns out to have met the imposter back when he was first pulling his con.
The main trick, however, was switching the POV without setting off alarm bells. It occurs to me that Fair Play is the reason mysteries use either first-person narration, or third-person-but-we-only-hear-one-character's-thoughts. In The Chinese Parrot, the POV character in the first two chapters is Alexander Eden;he third chapter POV is Chan; and chapters IV and onward are from the POV of Bob. Neither Bob Eden nor Chan were on the scene when the real Madden was introduced in chapter 1, but as the perspective shift falls into the natural flow of the story, it doesn't seem suspiciously forced. Furthermore it's soon forgotten in the bewildering crowd of incidents and characters. This is a novel with a large and vividly-described cast. I'm not sure it passes the Bechdel test, but even the female supporting characters include a Chinese-American telephone switchboard operator, a doctor running a desert sanatorium, and a stage performer who outwits Bob when she suspects he's trying to trick her into giving up information about her boyfriend; even Paula gets to advance the plot in at least one way besides being Bob's love interest. It's sort of depressing to write that sentence, and about a novel from the 1920s; maybe someone really should have a go at an adaptation.
