I've been struggling with a particularly nasty virus over the past week. It's completely knocked me out of all of my routines, but I'm finally back on the mend. All that time in bed allowed me time to explore some public domain movie websites, which encouraged me to dig further back into Charlie Chan's cinematic history.
I still haven't found any of his original silent film appearance, but I did finally get to watch "Behind That Curtain" from 1929, which was the first talkie featuring the character. It was a good movie, about a woman (Eve Mannering) who defies her family to marry a rogue, who turns out to be an abusive troublemaker and a murderer (Eric Durand). She spends much of the film running from her husband under the protection of another man (Col. John Beetham). What follows is a world-spanning chase followed by a fatal gunfight -- gunned down by Charlie Chan himself!
Keep in mind that "Behind That Curtain" was billed as a Charlie Chan movie, as he's certainly in it. But not much. He was mentioned early on in the film and then he made a few short appearances about 75 minutes into the film. He does some quick police work, but is otherwise a secondary character to pretty much everyone!
One thing to note though is that this Charlie Chan was played by E.L. Park, a Korean-American actor. So no "yellow face," which was actually quite astounding. Too bad that his contribution to the Charlie Chan mythos is so little!
You can watch "Behind That Curtain" at this link.