Author | Earl Derr Biggers |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Series | Charlie Chan |
Genre | Mystery Novel |
Publisher | Curtis |
Publication date | 1926 |
Media type | Print (Hardback and paperback) |
Preceded by | The House Without a Key |
Followed by | Behind That Curtain |
The Chinese Parrot (1926) is the second novel in the Charlie Chan series of mystery novels by Earl Derr Biggers and is the first in which Chan travels from Hawaii to mainland California. [1]
The story concerns a valuable string of pearls which is purchased by a wealthy and eccentric financier. The handsome young son of the jeweller is assigned to deliver the pearls to the financier's vacation home in a desert area of California. Because of his long association with the owner of the pearls (before joining the police force, he was her houseboy), Charlie Chan travels from Hawaii to California to also look after the pearls. After two mysterious deaths, first of a Chinese-speaking parrot and then of the household's Chinese man-of-all-work, Charlie Chan masquerades as a pidgin-speaking cook named Ah Kim and works undercover to solve the crimes. Along the way, the jeweller's son meets a beautiful young woman who works as a location scout and he decides to stay in the California desert.
The novel was adapted for film twice, as The Chinese Parrot in 1927 and as Charlie Chan's Courage in 1934 (both of which are considered lost films [2] [3] ).
Philip Michael Ondaatje is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian poet, fiction writer, essayist, novelist, editor, and filmmaker.
Charlie Chan is a fictional Honolulu police detective created by author Earl Derr Biggers for a series of mystery novels. Biggers loosely based Chan on Hawaiian detective Chang Apana. The benevolent and heroic Chan was conceived as an alternative to Yellow Peril stereotypes and villains like Fu Manchu. Many stories feature Chan traveling the world beyond Hawaii as he investigates mysteries and solves crimes.
Earl Derr Biggers was an American novelist and playwright. His novels featuring the fictional Chinese American detective Charlie Chan were adapted into popular films made in the United States and China.
Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker Buck was an American writer and novelist. She is best known for The Good Earth, the best-selling novel in the United States in 1931 and 1932 and which won her the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, Buck became the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China" and for her "masterpieces", two memoir-biographies of her missionary parents.
Keye Luke was a Chinese-American film and television actor, technical advisor and artist and a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild.
The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan is an American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, animated by Eric Porter Studios in Australia and broadcast on CBS from September 9, 1972, to December 30, 1972, with reruns continuing through the summer of 1973 and in syndication from 1976 to 1982. The show was loosely based on the Charlie Chan series of mystery novels and films, which began with the 1925 novel The House Without a Key.
The House Without a Key is a 1925 novel by Earl Derr Biggers, the first of the Charlie Chan mysteries. Set in 1920s Hawaiʻi, the novel acquaints the reader with the look and feel of the islands from the standpoint of both white and non-white inhabitants, describing social class structures and customs of the era.
Behind That Curtain (1928) is the third novel in the Charlie Chan series of mystery novels by Earl Derr Biggers.
Warner Oland was a Swedish-American actor. His career included time on Broadway and numerous film appearances. He is most remembered for playing several Chinese and Chinese-American characters: Dr. Fu Manchu, Henry Chang in Shanghai Express, and, most notably, Honolulu Police detective Lieutenant Charlie Chan in 16 films.
Victor Sen Young was an American character actor, best known for playing Jimmy Chan in the Charlie Chan films and Hop Sing in the western series Bonanza. He was born in San Francisco, California to Gum Yung Sen and his first wife, both immigrants from China.
Chang Apana (December 26, 1871 – December 8, 1933; traditional Chinese: 鄭阿平; simplified Chinese: 郑阿平; pinyin: Zhèng Āpíng; Wade–Giles: Cheng4 A1p'ing2; Jyutping: Zeng6 Aa3ping4) was a Chinese-Hawaiian member of the Honolulu Police Department, first as an officer, then as a detective. He was acknowledged by Earl Derr Biggers as the inspiration for his fictional Chinese American detective character, Charlie Chan.
Frank Chin is an American author and playwright. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of Asian-American theatre.
Call It Courage is a 1940 children's novel written and illustrated by American author Armstrong Sperry. The novel won the Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature in 1941.
The Kitchen God's Wife is the second novel by Chinese-American author, Amy Tan. First published in 1991, it deals extensively with Chinese-American female identity and draws on the story of her mother's life.
Roland Winters was an American actor who played many character parts in films and television but today is best remembered for portraying Charlie Chan in six films in the late 1940s.
The Chinese Parrot is a 1927 American silent mystery film, the second in the Charlie Chan series. It was directed by Paul Leni and starred Japanese actor Sōjin Kamiyama as Chan. The film is an adaptation of the 1926 Earl Derr Biggers novel The Chinese Parrot. Another version of the novel was filmed in 1934 entitled Charlie Chan's Courage.
Donald Woods was a Canadian-American film and television actor whose career in Hollywood spanned six decades.
Longnü, translated as Dragon Girl, along with Sudhana are considered acolytes of the bodhisattva Guanyin (Avalokiteśvara) in Chinese Buddhism. Her presence in Guanyin's iconography was influenced by tantric sutras celebrating the esoteric Amoghapāśa and Thousand-armed forms of Guanyin, which mention Longnü offering Guanyin a priceless pearl in gratitude for the latter visiting the Dragon King's palace at the bottom of the ocean to teach the inhabitants her salvific dharani.
Shi Tiesheng was a Chinese novelist, known for his story which was the basis of the film Life on a String. The China Daily stated regarding his essay about the park near where he lived, "Many critics have considered I and the Temple of Earth as one of the best Chinese prose essays of the 20th century."
Charlie Chan's Courage (1934) is the fifth film in which Warner Oland played detective Charlie Chan. It is a remake of the 1927 silent film The Chinese Parrot, based upon the novel by Earl Derr Biggers. Both are considered lost films.