Charlie Chan's Secret

Warner Oland is Charlie Chan in "Charlie Chan's Secret" from 1936.

Charlie is attempting to ascertain whether a man named Allen Colby is dead or alive. After seven years of being away, he's announced to his family that he is on his way home to claim the family fortune.

However, the ship that he is on sinks near Honolulu, and he is presumed drowned. But is he? Charlie sees in the journal Colby left behind that there have been attempts on his life. He heads for the family mansion.

There he sees the matriarch of the family (Henrietta Crosman) and other family members. Henrietta is involved with a psychic and has séances at her home to connect with her late husband.

During one séance, the body of Allen appears - dead. It's the actual body -- he arrived home, was murdered, and then hidden until the séance. Charlie has to find the killer.

It's not hard to figure out the killer, but that doesn't make the film any less entertaining. Warner Oland was a delightful Chan, cheerful and funny, with more energy than the older Sidney Toler. The rest of the acting, with the exception of Crosman, isn't very good - in fact, it's bad -- but Oland keeps it going.

Some nice spooky elements, some sinister-looking people, and a fun mystery.

Warner Oland in classic mystery set in old house with secret passages. Lots of clues and comic relief done extremely well by Herbert Mundin as butler Baxter. Story has sufficient twists and turns to keep interest and keep ending unpredictable. Chan brings multitude of suspects together in room at end: `Motive for recent murders like tangle of many strings, ends of which held by persons in this room.' Like in most Chan films, the missing clue that cinches the case is not revealed until the guilty party is in custody. Good lighting makes the séance scenes even spookier.' Recommended.

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.

"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 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.