Charlie Chan’s Secret ** (1936, Warner Oland, Rosina Lawrence, Charles Quigley) – Classic Movie Review 9038

Director Gordon Wiles’s modest 1935 mystery Charlie Chan’s Secret is set in a creepy old mansion in San Francisco, where Chan (Warner Oland) endures séances, apparitions, a hurled knife, and Herbert Mundin’s insufferable comic butler Baxter, before unveiling an heir’s murderer in the drawing room.

Number One Son is conspicuous by his absence, and much missed, in this plain though acceptable Chan episode, done without too many frills or real thrills, and too much weak and silly comedy for comfort.

Also in the cast are Rosina Lawrence, Charles Quigley, Henrietta Crossman, Edward Trevor, Astrid Allwyn, Herbert Mundin, Jerry Miley, Jonathan Hale, Ivan Miller, Francis Ford, Gloria Roy, Egon Brecher and Arthur Edmund Carew.

Charlie Chan’s Secret follows Charlie Chan in Shanghai (1935) and is followed by Charlie Chan at the Circus (1936).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9038

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