Le Secret de Charlie Chan

After many years' absence, Allen Colby is on his way home to reclaim his inheritance. But there seems to be someone who wants to make sure he doesn't make it. There are plenty of suspects - Aunt Henrietta Lowell and the rest of the extended family who have grown accustomed to living off the money, Professor Bowen and Carlotta the medium who stand to benefit greatly from the generosity of Henrietta Lowell, the caretaker Ulrich who blames Colby for his daughter's death, and the family's lawyer Warren Phelps who has enjoyed administering the family's estate. Any one of these people could have it in for Colby. When Colby's lifeless body turns up at a séance, its up to Charlie Chan to find the killer.

I'm not sure how other Chan fans feel about Charlie Chan's Secret, but for me, it's a real winner. It's got everything that I could ask for in one of these movies - Warner Oland at the top of his game, atmosphere, a house full of suspects, mediums and séances, an old house with secret passages, and on and on it goes. What fun! Sure, if you sit and think about the plot too hard, it starts to fall apart. But that's not the way to watch a movie like Charlie Chan's Secret. Just turn your mind off and let it entertain. For me, it's one of the better films in the series.

There are a number of special things or moments or people in Charlie Chan's Secret that I could discuss, but I'll limit this to mentioning Herbert Mundin who plays Baxter, the butler. With no Number 1 son in sight, Mundin essentially plays the role usually reserved for Keye Luke in these early Chan films. And he does so masterfully. His comic bumbling is the perfect counter to the straight-laced Oland. One scene I especially enjoy is when Mundin must cross in front of a window through which a bullet has just passed. It's a small moment, but it's played to perfection. It's a nice performance from a talented actor.

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.

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.

From 20th Century-Fox and director Gordon Wiles. Chan (Oland) heads to the mainland from his home turf in Hawaii to help solve the mystery of a missing heir, and he gets wrapped up in the backstabbing of an eccentric, wealthy family involved in seances and other trappings of the paranormal.

Seances, ouija boards, voices from the beyond...it seems if a series goes on long enough, they have to do a spooky/horror entry, and Charlie Chan is no exception. He's dropped into a standard "old dark house" style mystery, with a big spooky house riddled with hidden passages, and a murderer on the loose. The supporting cast is capable if unmemorable. The mystery has enough twists to keep viewers guessing.

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