Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944)

Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944). 1h 3m | Approved

“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.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eCharlie 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 canu0026#39;t override their presence much less a scientist.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eToler 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.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis 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. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe 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 canu0026#39;t be the culprit. The real culprit will surprise you though.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe character of Birmingham Brown is introduced who in two films later would wind up employed as the Chan family chauffeur. For now heu0026#39;s the chauffeur of one of the invited guests and apparently Toler deduced early on he wasnu0026#39;t the murderer because he gets in on the investigation, albeit reluctantly with the Chan kids.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eA lot of plot holes, typical of a Monogram Picture are in this one. But I did like the ending.”