Charlie Chan's Secret (1936)

Ace sleuth Charlie Chan(Warner Oland) has been summoned by Henrietta Lowell(Henriettta Crosman), the matriarch of a wealthy family to help clear up the disappearance of her son Alan Colby(Jerry Miley), who has not been seen for seven years. A vast fortune is at stake of being divided. He returns home to only be murdered before claiming his inheritance. Next Mrs. Lowell's life is in harm's way. A creepy family mansion sets the scene for a couple of insightful séances. Several persons have greedy reasons for getting their hands on the money. Chan is there to right any wrongs; clearing up mystery and murder. Other players include: Rosina Lawrence, Charles Quigley, Astrid Allwyn, Jonathan Hale, Egon Brecher and Herbert Mundin.

I'm always a pushover for spooky old house mysteries, and this is one of the best, not so much for the intriguing puzzle itself but for the creepy noir atmosphere conjured up by Rudolph Maté's superlative cinematography (reminiscent of his work on Dreyer's Vampyr) and the marvelously bizarre background created by Hogsett and Cramer.I like the screenplay and I love the cast too, especially Herbert Mundin, one of my favorite character actors. For once he has a major role and even figures most inventively at the climax. Warner Oland dispenses his customary bon mots with ease, while Gloria Roy steers a remarkably skillful line in making her "used" medium a sympathetic oddball.My only quarrel is with director Gordon Wiles, the art director that William K. Howard and Jimmy Wong Howe had all the trouble with on Transatlantic and for which, after fighting Howard and Howe all the way, he then won the industry's big award! Mr Wiles was obviously not a man open to experimentation unless someone forced him into it. Left to his own devices, Wiles always preferred the safe, conservative approach. His record as a director is not an impressive one and Charlie Chan's Secret is the highlight of that 11-picture interlude from which he was rescued by Albert Lewin for whom he designed The Moon and Sixpence, The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Private Affairs of Bel Ami.

The Warner Oland series of Charlie Chan films made by Twentieth Century Fox were among the best of the B-detective series films--with excellent stories and acting as well as a quality level unmatched by the later series by Monogram Studios. So my expectations for this film were pretty high and I am sad to report that this is one of the few failures in the series. The biggest problem is that the usual comedic moments are sadly lacking, as inexplicably, none of the Chan children are here for comic relief. While #1 son (Keye Luke) is probably most people's favorite, I would have been happy if #2, #3, #4, #5 or even Chan's daughter were here to provide some needed fun for the film. In fact, now that I think about it, there were few of the Oland or Toler series films where Chan works alone. As a result, not only is the usual balance not there, but some of the lines and situations usually reserved for the Chan children have either been removed entirely or given to the butler, Baxter--who is a sad replacement indeed.Now as for the plot, while it was original, oddly, it was reused in a later Sidney Toler Charlie Chan film (CHARLIE CHAN IN BLACK MAGIC), as BOTH movies concerned phony psychics and a murder at a séance. It has its moments, but even this plot is a bit ordinary. Not a bad film and certainly worth seeing for fans, but truly a bit of a disappointment.

Missing for seven years, Allen Colby, heir to his father's fortune is no longer welcome at the Colby/Lowell home. His arrival would mean that the supply of funds doled out by his father's estate under matriarch Henrietta Lowell, Bernard Colby's sister, would come to an abrupt halt. Henrietta has an abiding interest in all things psychic, and has spent nearly one hundred thousand dollars on psychic research, séances, and payments to Professor Bowen and wife Carlotta to stay in touch with the dead.Although it's presumed Allen Colby drowned when a cruise ship went down, detective Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) has his doubts. With no body, and a recovered briefcase bearing the initials "A.C.", Chan believes the missing heir will show up. Indeed he does, but not as expected. Gaining entrance to the old Colby homestead, Allen is quickly dispatched by a knife in the back thrown from a parlor trapdoor. His corpse does make an appearance though, at a scheduled séance meant to determine his fate. With Colby truly gone, the remaining Colby/Lowell heirs can gain some measure of satisfaction - or can they? The film does a nice job of presenting a number of possible suspects to the Colby murder. Attorney Warren Phelps, the administrator of the Colby fortune stands to lose a substantial portion of his income from fees paid for his services. Henrietta Lowell would lose all of her psychic research funding, and her two daughters would be cut off as well. Accordingly, Professor Bowen and wife Carlotta would no longer enjoy their séance income if Allen Colby showed up to claim his inheritance. And for good measure, the film offers caretaker Ulrich as a suspect; his daughter was in love with Colby years ago, but died some time after Colby disappeared seven years earlier.Charlie Chan approaches the case methodically, and begins to unravel the case a step at a time. When he demonstrates to Mrs. Lowell how the séances were rigged by the Bowen's, she becomes a loyal ally to uncover the mystery, to the point of faking her own death when the killer lashes out. But with all the meticulous work done in laying out the suspects, the identity of the real murderer still comes as a surprise at the end. In typical Chan fashion, the killer had a stake in Colby's disappearance, but there were no real clues to implicate him throughout the film.With no Chan family members on board for this film, the comic relief is handled by Lowell butler Baxter, nervously but effectively portrayed by Herbert Mundin. As if to lend further credibility to mysterious psychic forces at work in the Colby House, a black cat named Lucifer snarls his way into a couple of well placed scenes. Sufficiently dark and moody, "Charlie Chan's Secret" is a well told mystery that nicely complements other films in the Chan series.