Watch Charlie Chan in the Secret Service For Free

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Review - Charlie Chan in the Secret Service, released 2-14-44 The first of eleven films released by Monogram Pictures, featuring Sidney Toler as Charlie Chan, and a worthy movie for the genre of Saturday matinee double features. Our intrepid detective is now with the Secret Service during war time, in D.C., working on a murder case involving a government project with a scientist perfecting torpedoes against the German U-Boats. The scientist is killed and his torpedo design-plans are missing. Chan has to sift through the usual suspects, all of dubious character; some we learn later, are worse than others. Charlie suspects the handiwork of a certain espionage criminal being directly involved. Give Monogram the benefit of doubt with their production. If the movie was from 20th Century Fox, it would still be considered poorly edited, but in order to fit the film in the time frame required, a few cut corners were necessary disallowing certain plot explanations. The music playing in specific scenes was unnecessary, and the picture could have survived without the music accompaniment. For their first time around, it was an interesting film, with a believable story able to keep the viewer enthused till the end, where as always, the explanations run aplenty from Charlie Chan. The climax revealing the killer proved to be a surprise, considering all the suspects were red-herrings. The scenes were almost exclusively in the house of the murders, one location in different rooms. A man is murdered early in the film and Charlie goes about linking the data to the alleged killer, only to have him murdered before actual admission. The true guilty party was working with the prime suspect and was afraid of being found, so she killed him by way of his own studies. Watch the film to witness how Chan catches her at the end.

Charlie Chan arrives at Monogram. I was a huge fan of the Fox Charlie Chan series. Warner Oland was my favorite but Sidney Toler made good ones too. For whatever reason, Fox decided to stop making Charlie Chan movies in 1942. So Sidney Toler bought the rights and took the series to Poverty Row studio Monogram. This meant a lower budget, weaker scripts, and a generally less impressive cast. Opinions on the Monogram Chan films are mixed among fans. I don't like them much myself. The best ones are watchable and nearly all of them are forgettable. That this movie is considered one of the better Monogram Chans is proof of how weak the series was there.Here, Charlie is less likable than before and more of a grouch. Sidney Toler looks noticeably older and frailer than just two years prior. This could be due to the difference in quality between Fox's hair, makeup, and wardrobe people and that of Monogram. I'd be surprised if Monogram even had such people. This movie sees the addition of bug-eyed comic relief Birmingham Brown, played by Mantan Moreland. The previous Chan films had some comic relief, usually from Charlie's sons Lee or Jimmy. But their comedy felt organic to the stories and brought something to the table beyond juvenile humor. Unfortunately, that's not the case with Moreland. His character exists just to be the stereotypical cowardly black man who runs at the sight of his own shadow. This also marks the debut of "Number Three Son" Tommy (Benson Fong). Fong is a poor substitute for either Keye Luke or Victor Sen Yung. He's very drab. We get to meet Charlie's daughter Iris (Marianne Quon). I like her and wish we could have had her as Charlie's sidekick in this series instead of boring Tommy or ridiculous Birmingham.The writing and directing is uninspired. The unnecessary comedy is NEVER funny and just detracts from the film building any kind of mood or suspense. The music is terrible and misused. An early scene shows Charlie exiting a building, walking to a cab, and riding to the scene of the crime. There's nothing exciting or suspenseful about this, yet the music used would make you think he was fighting for his life with an alligator on the wing of an airplane. Oh, Monogram!

A house full of guests is the setting for this mystery story, wherein a scientist is murdered. Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) investigates, along with his two irksome kids. The wonderful Mantan Moreland plays a bug-eyed Birmingham Brown, a role inserted presumably to add comic relief.This sixty-three minute film contains about fifty minutes of story. The rest is filler, mostly in the film's first half. The story, about a secret WWII torpedo plan, is simple and direct. It's the kind of film I can envision as being typical for a 1940's Saturday afternoon matinée. There's a stage play quality to it, in that most of the scenes take place in three or four rooms. As with other films in the Chan series, the production design here is minimal and cheap looking. The emphasis is on the whodunit puzzle, but that's what counts most for murder mystery fans.And the script does provide a good puzzle. The killer is camouflaged amid well thought out red herrings, in a way that makes solving the puzzle not real easy.For Charlie Chan fans, this is one of the better mysteries in the Monogram series. For everyone else, the film has little or nothing to offer.

I'm pretty sure there wasn't a Chan film made that I didn't like: I preferred Oland to Toler and Fox to Monogram but am more than happy (maybe even keen!) to watch a Toler Monogram effort. They all transported you to a world of more or less cultured baddies, each hiding a thousand secrets which Charlie (and us of course) has to work his way through. Usually, as in this case, to find the murderer from a roomful of shifty twitching eyes.Electrical scientist murdered and the secret plans stolen, Charlie with a little ... help from offspring Tommie and Iris has to decide which of the house guests did it. The Monogram house's hanging drapes and thick carpets lend a nice atmosphere to the mystery. Only gripes: the incongruously brash and childish music track and the continual visual reference to a Watching Evil Eye from a Dark Place.Watched from the Chanthology DVD and with the widescreen TV set to mild zoomview meant it was like the first time again for me seeing this, an experience I'd have to recommend and one I want to repeat with the other titles in the set.