Charlie Chan’s Secret (1936)

The series of the Charlie Chan films starring Warner Oland were probably the strongest films in the Charlie Chan series.  Sidney Toler made several good films also but eventually the series would become low-budget “B” films produced by Monogram Pictures.

Charlie Chan’s Secret (1936) (affiliate link) was one of the earlier Twentieth-Century Fox films about Charlie Chan.  The production values are better than later entries in the series.  In this film, Inspector Chan investigates the disappearance of Allen Colby, heir to the Colby estate.  Most of his family believes Colby was lost at sea.

In the first scenes of the film, Charlie Chan supervises a deep-sea dive at the wreckage site of Colby’s ship.  The captain tells Mr. Chan, “It’ll be hard on the Colby heirs, if Allen Colby is alive.”  Mr. Chan responds, “Harder on Allen Colby, if he is dead.”

Allen Colby is indeed alive but is killed soon after returning home.  Charlie Chan must solve his murder and the killings that follow before all the Colby family is eliminated.

Warner Oland was born Johan Verner Oland on October 3, 1879 in Sweden.  He originally played on the stage before making his silent film debut in the early 1910s.  Oland has found that he was often cast as Asian characters because of his distinctive facial features.

According to Keye Luke, the only makeup Oland every wore as Charlie Chan was a little goatee.  Oland first played Fu Manchu before being cast as Charlie Chan.  According to Wikipedia, the series was a large financial successful and kept Fox afloat in the 1930s.

Oland made $40,000 dollars a film and took the role seriously.  However, he battled alcoholism, which would take his marriage and then his life in 1938.  Oland died from pneumonia made worse by his smoking and drinking, while visiting Stockholm in August 6, 1938.  Even though they divorced in April 1938, his ex-wife returned his body to the United States, had him cremated and buried by their former home in Massachusetts.

This film runs about 71 minutes.  Keye Luke is absent as his number one son Lee but the film is entertaining and well-done.  I give it three out of four stars?  How many stars do you give it?

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