TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Cristal The movie really just wants to entertain people.

biorngm Review - Charlie Chan in the Secret Service, released 2-14-44 The first of eleven films released by Monogram Pictures, featuring Sidney Toler as Charlie Chan, and a worthy movie for the genre of Saturday matinee double features. Our intrepid detective is now with the Secret Service during war time, in D.C., working on a murder case involving a government project with a scientist perfecting torpedoes against the German U-Boats. The scientist is killed and his torpedo design-plans are missing. Chan has to sift through the usual suspects, all of dubious character; some we learn later, are worse than others. Charlie suspects the handiwork of a certain espionage criminal being directly involved. Give Monogram the benefit of doubt with their production. If the movie was from 20th Century Fox, it would still be considered poorly edited, but in order to fit the film in the time frame required, a few cut corners were necessary disallowing certain plot explanations. The music playing in specific scenes was unnecessary, and the picture could have survived without the music accompaniment. For their first time around, it was an interesting film, with a believable story able to keep the viewer enthused till the end, where as always, the explanations run aplenty from Charlie Chan. The climax revealing the killer proved to be a surprise, considering all the suspects were red-herrings. The scenes were almost exclusively in the house of the murders, one location in different rooms. A man is murdered early in the film and Charlie goes about linking the data to the alleged killer, only to have him murdered before actual admission. The true guilty party was working with the prime suspect and was afraid of being found, so she killed him by way of his own studies. Watch the film to witness how Chan catches her at the end.

kapelusznik18 ****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.

binapiraeus In 1942, 20th Century-Fox had dropped its long-running 'Charlie Chan' movie series (perhaps the studio bosses thought that in war times, murder mysteries would be inappropriate); but Sidney Toler himself bought the rights, and two years later he 'carried on' at Monogram Pictures. Monogram had already tried their hand at an 'imitation' of the series, the (not too impressive) 'Mr. Wong' films with Boris Karloff - but now they had the REAL thing in their hands! And even from this very first Monogram 'Charlie Chan', the quality of the movies (although made on a considerably lower budget!) was NOT inferior to that of the Fox films (with the exception of some REAL masterpieces like "The Black Camel", "Charlie Chan's Secret", or "Dead Men Tell") - they were just DIFFERENT in style. More humor was added, more members of Charlie's family were introduced as his assistants, and Monogram regular, the great black comedian Mantan Moreland, became an almost indispensable member of the troupe.In Monogram's first entry in the 'Charlie Chan' series, our beloved detective has joined the Secret Service - doing his duty for his country hunting down not 'ordinary' murderers, but dangerous spies of enemy countries. And he's assigned to the case of scientist Melton, who'd been working on a very effective new torpedo, and had suddenly died right in the hall of his own house where he was about to hold a dinner party - and the torpedo plans he had on him are missing... Charlie immediately suspects the international spy who's known only as 'Manlic', hoping to be able to lie his hands on him at last - and starts his investigations with the dinner party guests, who all really look MORE than suspicious...Meanwhile, number three son Tommy and number two daughter Iris are eager to help their Pop while Jimmy is away - and together with chauffeur Birmingham (who tries all the time in vain to get away from the scene of the crime), they make a marvelous trio of confusion that adds laughter rather than help for Charlie - and for us! A REALLY entertaining, and quite clever spy/murder mystery, a great start for a new 'era' of Charlie Chan movies at Monogram Pictures...

bensonmum2 I've been a Charlie Chan fan as long as I remember. Some of my earliest memories involve watching Chan late at night on television. But Charlie Chan in the Secret Service doesn't work for me the way most Chan films do. Sure, it has its moments (like introducing Birmingham Brown), but there are too many problems I have with the movie for me to call it anything other than average.What are the problems with Charlie Chan in the Secret Service? Glad you asked. Two areas where I have real issues with the movie are the means of murder and the padding. First, Charlie Chan in the Secret Service features a couple of fairly elaborate murder weapons that would have taken some time to set up. But the killer was just a guest in the house. So when did the murderer get inside and re-do the electrical wiring to be able to commit murder? Second, Charlie Chan in the Secret Service has a runtime of only 63 minutes. But if you were to take out the numerous instances of padding, you might end up with a movie less than 45 minutes in length. The most egregious example is the scene where Chan leaves the Secret Service building. We see Chan walk down the hall, through the doorway, down the steps, wait for a cab, get in the cab, ride to his destination, exit the cab, and finally get inside the house. Alone, these scenes take a good two or more minutes and add absolutely nothing to the film other than stretching its runtime.I realize that most of the Monogram Chan films can't compare with what came before. But Charlie Chan in the Secret Service is weak even by Monogram standards.