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Charlie Chan at the Circus, the 1936 Harry Lachman Asian detective big top crime mystery comedy thriller ("A gorilla killer on the loose! Crime at the Carnival! Murder under the Big Top!"; "HELP! - and Chan's 12 children come to the rescue!"; "Based on the character 'Charlie Chan' created by Earl Derr Biggers") starring Warner Oland (in the title role as Charlie Chan), Keye Luke, George Brasno, Olive Brasno (the Brasnos are billed as "George and Olive Brasno"), Francis Ford, John McGuire, J. Carrol Naish, Shirley Deane, and John Aasen. Note that the very first Charlie Chan movie was "House Without a Key" in 1925, with George Kuwa as Chan. In 1927, "The Chinese Parrot" (directed by Paul Leni) starred Sojin Kamiyama as Chan. In 1929 came the third movie, "Behind That Curtain", starring E.L. Park as Charlie Chan. 1931 brought "Charlie Chan Carries On", starring Warner Oland in the first of many movies with him as the Asian detective, and he was later replaced by Sidney Toler and then Roland Winters (there would ultimately be 47 Charlie Chan movies!). Of course, Charlie Chan is one of the most memorable literary creations ever, from author Earl Derr Biggers, but because politically correct-minded people have viewed the character as outdated, the movies are rarely shown, which is a shame! Also note that George and Olive Brasno were brother and sister who were "little people" who each appeared in a handful of movies (including The Mighty Barnum). They did not take the parts of Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz because they were making more money in vaudeville! Also note that John Aasen was a Norwegian giant who appeared in ten movies between 1923 and 1936, often uncredited. He first appeared as "Colosso" in Harold Lloyd's "Why Worry?", and he appeared with the Our Gang kids as a circus giant in "Growing Pains". He died in 1938 at the age of 48. He was advertised as being 8' 9", but this is almost certainly an extreme exaggeration, for it was common at the time to add at least one foot to the height of tall men in circuses, and in 2008, his skeleton was measured and he was discovered to have been 7' 2". If anyone knows more about John Aasen, please e-mail us and we will post it here.
NOTE: Click on linked names to see a biography.

Important Added Info: Note that these stills are undated and measure 8" x 10", and appear to look identical to stills from the first release of this movie. But they are on a "newer" paper stock that is blank on the back ("newer" than the 1930s or 1940s, but consistent with the paper stock used in the 1960s, and the printing is quite nice). We believe that they were created in the 1960s when this movie was shown on TV, and that stills like these were distributed to TV stations. We have been consigned some large collections of stills that came directly from TV stations, and they included a large number of stills that are very similar to these, which makes us think it is even more likely that these were created in the 1960s for TV use. But we can't say for certain, so please do not bid on these stills unless you can accept that uncertainty as to when they were created.

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