BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Hitchcoc When an important research scientist is killed, the government sends Charlie Chan to investigate. He keeps the entire set of guests in place while he looks into the events. Soon we have a group of suspects, any one of whom could've culpable. This time, two of Chan's children show up at the scene. If I've got this right, it is his number three son and his number two daughter. They bumble their ways in, but do prove helpful at times. There is also Mantan Moreland, who is the stereotypical black man who often appeared in mysteries of this time. He is really funny, but for many of the inappropriate reasons. Anyway, there is a missing set of schematics for a new torpedo that the late scientist had developed. Charlie must sort through a lot of subterfuge to get at the answer. A decent entry.

bkoganbing After a two year hiatus, the Charlie Chan series moved over to Monogram from 20th Century Fox and the production values dropped accordingly. Continuing as Charlie Chan was Sidney Toler who with one exception would confine his thespian activities to playing the shrewd Oriental detective who spoke in fortune cookie aphorisms. Assisting Charlie in a manner of speaking are two offspring Benson Fong as number 2 son Tommy and Marianne Quon as number 1 daughter.Charlie Chan In The Secret Service, the title does say it all. Charlie is called in as a consultant on a murder case by the Secret Service which was guarding a scientist/socialite who worked at home upstairs and threw parties downstairs. At one of those parties he winds up quite dead with no outward appearance of homicide. He also would not allow any bodyguards inside the house. That was a bit much, the President of the United States can't override their presence much less a scientist.Toler deduces first that it was a murder, second the method used, and lastly who did it. Then his culprit also is killed with a silent gunshot and Charlie then has to find the accomplice.This was one of the only Chans at least in the Monogram films that had a wartime related plot to it. Amazing how many foreign nationals could get close to a scientist working on a government project with no kind of clearance. The film has one very large red herring as the plot lets you in on a secret one of the suspects has. Because the secret is divulged early you know this can't be the culprit. The real culprit will surprise you though.The character of Birmingham Brown is introduced who in two films later would wind up employed as the Chan family chauffeur. For now he's the chauffeur of one of the invited guests and apparently Toler deduced early on he wasn't the murderer because he gets in on the investigation, albeit reluctantly with the Chan kids.A lot of plot holes, typical of a Monogram Picture are in this one. But I did like the ending.

Lechuguilla 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.

Spondonman 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.