Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944)

****SPOILERS**** Master detective Charlie Chan, Sidney Toler, lends his hand in helping the war effort against the Nazis by working part-time for the US Secret Service in solving the murder of inventor George Melton who was electrocuted and his plans for a anti-U-boat underwater bomb stolen. The bomb would wipe out the German U-Boat menace that's sinking millions of tons of allied shipping in the North Atlantic.Charlie checking out the guests that the late George Milton invited at his mansion feels that one of them is a Nazi spy and did the guy in as well as stole his secret plans to combat the Nazi U-Boats. There's also Charile's #3 son as well as daughter, he has a family of 14 children, Tommy & Iris who by trying to put in their two cent in makes Charlie's job of finding the killer even more difficult. As Charlie is about to crack the case wide open the person he uses to do it the escapee from fascism Louis Vega is shot dead by an electro magnetized activated gun before he can expose the killer.***SPOILERS*** Despite all the road blocks, like his kids as well as his man servant the eye popping and bumbling Birmingham Brown, Charlie gets to the bottom of what happened to both Melton & Vega that was at the bottom of a piano that the killer used to off one of his victims. Trying to play it real cool and escape his or her fate the killer tried to make a run or better yet walk from the scene but Charlie had all the escape routs blocked and had him brought to justice, in this being wartime, without as much as having him read his rights and have a lawyer present. P.S "Charlie Chan in the Secret Service" was the first Charlie Chan movie produced by Monogram Studios after 20th Century Fox dropped the series.

Just watched this, the first of the Monogram Charlie Chan movies after Fox dropped the Honolulu detective two years before, on DVD. It has Chan as a government agent in Washington, D.C., investigating a murder of a scientist who's invented a weapon used to stop some enemy spy missions. I'll stop there and just say that at just a little over an hour, there isn't too much in the way of excitement especially since nearly the entire thing seems to take place on a mansion but there are some good atmospheric shots and a few good suspenseful moments and also some amusing comic relief courtesy of no. 3 son Jimmy (Benson Fong), no. 2 daughter Iris (Marianne Quon), and, in his first appearance, chauffeur Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland, who isn't as outrageous as his later appearances in the series). So in summary, Charlie Chan in the Secret Service is a pretty entertaining first entry for the series at its new studio. P.S. In once again identifying someone from my favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life, Sarah Edwards-who was Mary's mother in that Frank Capra classic-plays Mrs. Hargue, a housekeeper here.

This one is mostly of curiosity value for Chan fans, as the first film where Charlie takes a job with the Federal government, to ferret out spies and saboteurs. Its also the first Chan movie to feature Mantan Moreland as the well-meaning but nervous Birmingham Brown, who later becomes Charlie's chauffeur and assistant. The storyline is simple enough, but with an unusually large group of suspicious characters gathered in the home of a prominent scientist, any one of whom could be the murderer, when the inventor meets his untimely demise. Ranging from a talkative society woman to a grumpy Washington economist, a controlling South American politician who does all the talking for everyone in his party, a surly businessman who doesn't like to answer questions about his background, a no-nonsense housekeeper, the suspects run the gamut from average to pretty peculiar. Throw in the unwelcome " help" from two of Charlie's offspring, Number Three Son Tommy and pretty daughter Iris, and the reluctant assistance of Birmingham, plus assorted cops and federal agents, and this is a pretty lively household.It's really not a bad picture, though arguably there's more plot and characters than truly necessary. The moment when Charlie realizes that crashing sounds and yelling in the basement mean some of his children have arrived to add their contribution to his problems, is classic Chan, as beautifully played by Sidney Toler.

A true yawner and a bad film even for the Chan series. I like a good Charlie Chan film or even a reasonably good one, but this one falls way short of the mark. Charlie is enlisted to help figure out the murder of a scientist working for our government when someone in the house has stolen the plans for another power. The mystery is very pedestrian and the acting doesn't fare much better. The only saving grace for me in the film was the presence of Mantan Moreland as Birmingham Brown. He gives the film a little comedy and has some good scared faces, but after that the pickings are rather slim. Benson Fong is here as Tommy Chan and pairs up with Chan's daughter of all things. What about Sidney Toler? He is pretty decent but looks like he is straining to carry the film. What I noticed most was the way the film was shot. Chan director Phil Rosen, of whom I generally like most of his entries, uses lots of long shots with no action(like Charlie's initial walk into the house from outside). Why? The film is only 64 minutes long for crying out loud! Shots like that tell me the director had to fill time up because the script was even weaker than he was accustomed to. This probably isn't the worst Chan film ever made, but up to now it is the worst I have sat through unfortunately.