Behind That Curtain (1929)

Director:

Irving Cummings

Writers:

Earl Derr Biggers (novel)
Sonya Levien (writer)

Release Date:

30 June 1929 (USA)

Genre:

Mystery

Plot:

Eve Mannering realizes too late that her abusive husband is a philanderer and murderer and seeks protection with her true love, explorer John Beetham.

Plot Keywords:

India | Persia | Lecture | Charlie Chan | Earring

Cast

Warner Baxter	...	Col. John Beetham
Lois Moran	...	Eve Mannering Durand
Gilbert Emery	...	Sir Frederick Bruce (as Gilbert Emory)
Claude King	...	Sir George Mannering
Philip Strange	...	Eric Durand
Boris Karloff	...	Beetham's Manservant
Jamiel Hasson	...	Sahib Hana
Peter Gawthorne	...	British Police Inspector
John Rogers	...	Alf Pornick
Edgar Norton	...	Hilary Galt
Frank Finch Smiles	...	Galt's Clerk
Mercedes De Valasco	...	Nuna
E.L. Park	...	Police Insp. Charlie Chan

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric System)

Certification:

USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Chinatown, San Francisco, California, USA

Company:

Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

This film was premiered at the grand opening of the Fox Theater at 1350 Market Street in San Francisco on 28 June 1929.

Quotes:

Sir Frederick Bruce: Fear and love, my good friend, make their own destiny. I have arranged tonight that fear and love shall meet.

Movie Connections:

Followed by Dark Alibi (1946)

More Historical than Entertainment Value

Author Earl Derr Biggers (1884-1933) was among America's most popular writers of the 1910s and 1920s and many of his works, such as 'Seven Keys to Baldpate', were translated to stage and screen with great success. About 1919 Biggers encountered stories about Hawaii's celebrated Chang Apana (1887-1933), a police officer of Chinese heritage who was noted for his fearlessness in dealing with criminals engaged in the opium trade. Apana, who carried a whip as his weapon of choice, was more noted for courage than detective skills--but he proved the inspiration for Charlie Chan.

Between 1925 and 1932 Biggers wrote six Chan novels. HOUSE WITHOUT A KEY and THE Chinese PARROT were filmed as silents in 1926; the first sound film to feature Chan was BEHIND THAT CURTAIN. But although it is generally based on the Biggers novel, the film takes a very strange direction: instead of presenting the mystery novel that Biggers wrote, it dispenses with mystery and presents the story of a runaway wife as a melodrama pure and simple, and Chan (played here by E.L. Park) is only a cameo role tacked on at the film's finish.

The cast sports several notable actors of the era, most particularly Warner Baxter, who had a distinguished career, and it offers an early and very brief role to Boris Karloff in his pre-FRANKENSTEIN era. But the cast struggles a great deal with the new technology of sound and they read as stiff and mannered. The direction and cinematography are only serviceable, and even for an early sound film BEHIND THAT CURTAIN feels extremely slow and heavy-handed.

BEHIND THAT CURTAIN is not presently available to the home market in the form of a studio release, nor is it likely to be so at any time in the near future. Although it is generally credited as "The First Sound-Era Charlie Chan Film," it is not really a part of the series that would become so popular between 1931 and 1942. Hardcore Chan fans will want to see the film at least once, but once will be more than enough.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer