BAD BLACK MEN AND COMICAL CHINESE 103

 According to L6pez, Caignet hit upon a formula that became the model
for such radio series throughout Latin America:

 [...] marc6 una series de innovaciones que repercutiria en Cuba y en toda la
 Am6rica Latina hasta nuestros dias:
 a. El espectaculo de continuidad serialada.
 b. El g6nero detectivesca.
 c. El suspense.
 d. El falso suspense.11
 e. El narrador
 f. La no desaparici6n definitive de un personaje negative si este le
 agradaba al oyente (1981: 507)

 L6pez's claims that Caignet was the first to employ this formula are over-
enthusiastic, but Caignet was able to see the commercial possibilities of a
radio thriller serial and imported already well-established methods to the
medium. Magazine suspense serials had been popular throughout the world
from the mid nineteenth-century and it was of course a medium in which
detective literature also flourished. Transferring the format from the page to
the loudspeaker is hardly a radical innovation. Of all the characteristics
identified above, the last (i.e., f) is perhaps the most original and indicates
how sensitive Caignet was to the whims of his audience. If any character
proved popular, whether they were evil or not, they would be retained.
 Another aspect of the formula, not mentioned by L6pez is the fact that
Chan Li Po was not a Cuban detective, and none of the plots are set in Cuba.
They were all located outside the island in cities such as Los Angeles, London,
Paris or New York. Thus, Chan Li Po does in part merit Crist6bal P6rez's
criticism of pre-revolutionary Cuban detective fiction being an imitation of
foreign 'classics'. Nevertheless, it also represents a national achievement
because the series became a cultural export to countries such as Venezuela,
Mexico and Argentina and earned Caignet sufficient capital for him to launch
a film project. Chan Li Po not only provided the cash, it also provided the
subject matter for the first sound feature film made in Cuba when, in 1937,
Caignet produced La serpiente roja (incidentally, the first radio series) as a
talking picture.
 Filmed in black and white during May 1937 in the Hotel Almendares,
Havana, for a total cost of $50,000 and using an all Cuban crew and cast, the
film proved a success with the public, recovering its costs within three
months.12 The fact that the plot was based in London and not Havana was
not missed by its reviewers who, while welcoming the film as the first such

I L6pez does not explain what he means by 'Falso suspense' but presumably it
means a contrived suspense i.e. nothing really happens after the cliffhanger ending.
12 Information from ICAIC 'Cinemateca' archive, calle 23, Havana.