Charlie Chans Geheimnis

A murder is revealed at a seance. All in attendance had motive and opportunity. There are a lots of nice tricks employed at the seance that Charlie has to figure out. Even after a plethora of red herrings, it still could be anyone when all are assembled in a typical ending in which Charlie pulls a surprise to reveal the criminal. There is no #1 or #2 son here, and Herbert Mundin, as the butler, who stands in for #1 and #2 to provide the laughs, is really annoyingly silly, more in the mode of Mantan Moreland in the later bad Chan films only minus the racism. However, he gives the crusty matriarch of the family a chance to deliver some rib-tickling lines at his expense. Listen for them. Oland is the best of the Chans and performs the role with dignity and some humor. You get the feeling that, although he isn't a Chinese actor, he respects the character. No "Confucius Say" here. I enjoy watching this film now and again and think anyone into old-style mysteries will too.

"Charlie Chan's Secret" (1936) is unique. Its predecessor is "Charlie Chan in Shanghai" (1935)---which featured Keye Luke in his usual role as Number One Son. All the remaining Warner Oland films in the series up to his final entry, "Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo" (1938), also had Keye Luke in the cast. However, "Charlie Chan's Secret", as others have pointed out, does not have Keye Luke on board. Rather, his "place" was taken (sort of) by the comic British actor, Herbert Mundin. Why did Keye Luke not appear in this film? Everyone seems to have missed him.

In the new DVD of "Charlie Chan's Secret", the extended commentary on the film fails to explain the cause of Keye Luke's absence-----only the fact that he does not show up in the film.

Is it possible that Keye Luke's void could be due to the fact that he was loaned by Twentieth Century Fox to M-G-M Studio around the same time to appear in the small but pivotal supporting role as Paul Muni's son in the classic Pearl Buck epic "The Good Earth" (1937)? Such loan out arrangements were not uncommon between studios in this period.

In any event, "Charlie Chan's Secret" survives his absence very nicely and emerges as a solid entry in the series with its own particular charm and entertainment value. But it does illustrate how the chemistry between Warner Oland and Keye Luke was very special and without doubt one of the greatest strengths of the "Charlie Chan" films.

I've just seen Charlie Chan's Secret for the first time and think it is one of the better Chan movies.

In this one, Charlie Chan is sent to Colby Mansion to investigate a murder of one of the Colby family. This place is very spooky with hidden doorways, secret passages and séances. There are quite a few suspects on who the murderer is. Charlie is not helped by any of his sons in this.

This movie is quite spooky throughout and reminds me of The House On Haunted Hill in some parts, though we haven't got Vincent Price in this.

The cast includes Warner Oland as Charlie, who plays the part well as always.

Have a good fright with Charlie Chan's Secret. Excellent.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5.

Filmed in 1935 and released in 1936, CHARLIE CHAN'S SECRET is the 10th film in the Fox series. It is also a film about which I have changed my opinion over several viewings. I originally felt it was among the weaker Chan films starring Warner Oland; today, however, I would describe it as a truly solid entry.

Several years earlier Alan Colby, heir to a major fortune, disappeared and was presumed dead--and elderly aunt Alice Lowell (Rosina Lawrence) inherited the estate. Now, however, it seems that Colby may be alive, and although his resurrection will cost her the family fortune Mrs. Lowell dutifully enlists Chan to investigate the matter. But with a great fortune at stake, murder cannot be far behind.

Such earlier Chan films as THE BLACK CAMEL and CHARLIE CHAN IN Egypt introduced an occult edge to the Chan films, and CHARLIE CHAN'S SECRET plays upon this theme to a degree not previously seen in any other Chan film: Mrs. Lowell is a spiritualist who is given to everything from séances to nightly sessions with the Ouija board, and both elements play into the story in a significant way. Although the plot itself is nonsense, the "spooky" elements fill the holes, and the cast--most particularly Rosina Lawrence as Mrs. Lowell and Herbert Mundin as the bumbling butler Baxter--deliver solid and quite often charming performances.

Chan films are often accused of being racist, and critics often complain that the actors playing Chan wore "yellowface" make up. The films, however, must be seen within the context of their era. In the 1930s, Hollywood presented most Asian characters as either servile or as Fu Manchu-like entities; Chan was actually just about the only positive Asian character going, and as such the films were tremendously popular with Asian-American audiences of the era.

True enough, Chan is inevitably played by an occidental actor, but this was typical of the era, in which star status was considered more important than racial accuracy. Whatever the case, neither Warner Oland or the later Sidney Toler wore significant make-up for the role, and Oland--although a Swede by birth--actually had a strong strain of Asian ancestry in his family tree. But most significantly, while Chan often allows his suspects to dismiss him through their own prejudices, as a character he is always presented in a positive light--and this is particularly true of CHARLIE CHAN'S SECRET, in which Chan is the only Asian character in the film.

While I would not rank it along such knock-out Chan films as CHARLIE CHAN AT THE OPERA or CHARLIE CHAN AT TREASURE ISLAND, CHARLIE CHAN'S SECRET grows upon you with each viewing. As noted the plot is weak, but the film is long on charm. It is also one of the few Chan films available to the home market. Most Chan fans should enjoy it.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

I've worked my way recently through about 10 of the films in the Chan series and this is one of the most compelling I've seen yet -- largely due to the good chemistry between Warner Oland and Henrietta Crosman, who is one of the more memorable of the leading ladies in the series. True, the Chan family is missing -- except when viewed briefly in a photograph at the film's very end -- and the San Francisco location isn't very convincing; it is hard to place the "ancient" house where much of the action takes place in a city where most everything was burnt to the ground in 1906. Nevertheless many of the typically alluring elements of the Chan films are present in full force -- society ladies in long dresses, a shady pair of mediums, séances that come to a screaming end, pitch black scenes in secret rooms, and odd applications of 1930s technology. Jonathan Hale is a welcome presence and the comic relief supplied by Herbert Mundin as the butler stops short of being annoying, which is more than one can say for some of the later entries in the series. All in all quite satisfying.