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Warner Oland's my sentimental favorite. I'm also prejudiced, as I visited his grave when I was a lad. My mother and I took a trip to the cemetery where Mr. Oland was buried, and this is indelibly stamped in my memory. That Oland was the first actor to put CC on the map gives him an unfair edge, in my mind and probably for many others as well. I find Oland 's Charlie warmer, gentler and more humble than Toler's. At his best he comes across as a wise man, a sage, as well as a great detective. Mr. Toler is more of a sharp cookie, and while I wouldn't quite call him a know it all he is clearly a superior person; the way he behaves, enters a room, speaks to others. Not arrogant, mind you, maybe only a tad imperious, but it's still there. Oland never came off like that. I also find Oland's slowness, his phlegmatic aspect, more in sync with the early talkie to mid-30s Chans he appeared in.

When 20th merged with Fox the pace of their films sped up. Oland didn't have much longer to live, and I wonder if he'd done as well as Toler did in those later, faster moving Chans of the 1938-42 period. To give Toler his due, his style suits those later Chans and in a way (and rather tragically) it is maybe better that things worked out like this despite the painful loss of the gentler, more courteous Mr. Oland. Toler's edgier personality may have been the key ingredient for the series staying alive as long as it did. In many respects his Chan, with his white suit and hat, is more the popular public image of Chan even as Oland is probably the better known of the two, a situation comparable to Glenn Strange's towering, husky Frankenstein monster with outstretched arms is the popular image of the creature even as Karloff owns it in all other respects. Of my favorites in the CC series there are many more Tolers than Olands, with the former having the advantage of having played the part for a longer period of time. I believe that the Fox series (I find the Monogram Chans unwatchable) peaked during the Toler era, as he got the best scripts and directors.

So in the end it's actually a close call, with Oland more my favorite actor who played Charlie Chan, Toler having appeared in the better entries in the series. The slow pace of the Olands continued right through 1935, with a gradual increase in speed thereafter; while the Tolers nearly all move faster, have better supporting players, better locales, better production values, quite frankly, and more intriguing stories. In this, Oland is at a disadvantage because he wasn't around to appear in these films, and as I suggested earlier, I wonder if he'd have been a good fit for them. Toler was. Also, the later, "busier", more elaborately plotted films with Toler as Charlie not only suit him, they seem to take their cue from him, their style, as it were, as if he had some input as to how they were made. He probably didn't, but those Toler entries of his peak period show the actor and the series on a roll, as the series improved, modernized, moved with the times, with Toler on board. In the end it's a close call, for while I love Oland's Chan more than Toler's, I love Toler's Chan films more than Oland's.