Daniel Siu Chong Liu: Cop. Trailblazer. Actor. Okay, Cop.

Yeah, Hal Baylor. I happen to be watching another movie with him in it right now, The Young Lions. He's a Nazi there. (Update: I take it back. He's a violent anti-Semite in the U.S. Army. Typecasting: the peril of all actors.)

It's not surprising they had a Commie utter that line and word. Hollywood never really knew how to depict real-life Communist or Nazi spies. The studios usually fell back on something tried-and-true audiences could identify with, namely, the good old American gangster. It was a quick and uncomplicated way to convey cinematic nastiness and they could readily ascribe all sorts of distasteful character traits to them, however unlikely or unrealistic. They always showed the spies more concerned with things like money and acting like thugs instead of being clever or dedicated ideologues.

In this case, a real-life Communist wouldn't have used the "n-word" since racism was against Communist racial teachings. But it served as a useful foil, not only to show the Reds as racists and hypocrites, but to take the sting off of HUAC, whose members included some of the most vicious racists and anti-Semites in Congress, notably John Rankin and Martin Dies, as well as a higher-than-usual quota of Congress's imbeciles, crooks and demagogues.

Anyway, back to Honolulu's Police Chief. I think Wayne-Fellows Productions originally intended to hire an actor to play the part, but when they saw how realistically stiff Chief Dan was, they decided to use him in Liu of a professional.