Our Monday Evening Chat and Film Viewing for this week is “Charlie Chan in in the Secret Service,” starring Sidney Toler. This was the first Charlie Chan film made by Monogram Pictures, and although the drop in production budget as compared with its Fox predecessors is readily apparent, this is still a worthy entry in the series. In this film, we see the beginnings of what would become mainstays in the Monogram Charlie Chan series. Mantan Moreland appears for the first time as Birmingham Brown, and Benson Fong is Number Three Son, Tommy, for the first time, too. Also, Marianne Quon is Number Two Daughter, Iris, the first time that a Chan daughter appears on a case with Charlie Chan! All of this plus a perplexing mystery with international implications…

We begin, as usual, at 8:00 p.m., EASTERN time with arrivals and greetings and a trip to Virginia’s virtual beverage cart. Then, thirty minutes later, we begin running our personal copies of this very worthy film, which allows us to watch it together as our evening’s discussion progresses.

Our Chat Room is located RIGHT HERE at our Charlie Chan Family Home. Please use any of the “Chat Room” links to join us.

Even if you do not happen to have a copy of our featured movie, please do join us, as you will NOT be left out of our ongoing chat and festivities. Also, as is our custom, newcomers are offered the seat of honor at our humble table.

Let’s get together for much more fun as we watch Sidney Toler Charlie Chan in the Secret Service”…

Sincerely,
Rush Glick

Charlie Chan in the Secret Service has the unique distinction of following the traditional format of other Chan films while being different at the same time. It does this by being one of the entrees that does not travel to an exotic world location, being a lower budget film, but still delivering the goods with a fast-paced mystery, triple murder gimmicks, firmly defined characters, gentle humor from Birmingham Brown, warm family tinged moments plus a double dose of Chan family members. Take note the scene where Iris Chan is fooled by the wheelchair bound suspect she is supposed to be keeping tabs on. Charlie chastises her, then quickly comforts her. Quite the touching moment. Tommy and Iris played off each other exceptionally well providing a very different flavor to the proceedings. I should point out that the scenes at the beginning of the film around where Charlie, in a rather prolonged exit from the Secret Service building in Washington, D.C. appears to be passing under a California state flag identifying it as a state office. This is not the case. I happened to be in D.C. on that day on O.S.S. business (which is still classified and so I can not discuss). I was waiting outside the Secret Service office to meet with Senator Truman. When I pointed out the flag to him he quickly had the incident investigated. It turned out a Nazi Bund member, in an attempt to disrupt American morale had switched the stars and stripes for the Bear flag. He was subsequently arrested and spent the rest of the war at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. Why a Pennsylvania prison? That too remains classified. Some day I will tell you the truth about Jimmy and Tommy Chan and their mixed up names.

Dear Russell,

I anxiously await your report on why Jimmy became Tommy! (Our latest poll is somewhat related to this question.)

Sincerely,
Rush Glick

Dear Rush, all Charlie Chan fans far and near and all the ships at sea.(maybe not all the ships) Now it can be told. The true facts regarding the reason Jimmy Chan is seen assisting his illustrious father while being called Tommy, have only recently been declassified under the Sunshine Act and can be revealed to an eager public. You’ll notice in “Charlie Chan in the Secret Service” Charlie has two portraits hanging on his office wall. One is of President Franklin Roosevelt and other is of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. In February, 1943, Madame Chiang became the first Chinese national, and the second woman, to ever address a joint session of the U.S. House and Senate. With this and many other appearances she endeared herself and her cause to the American people. There that day to hear her speak was Charlie Chan and two of the Chan family, young Tommy and Frances Chan. It was not long after that speech that Charlie went to work for the Secret Service to do his part. Tommy and Frances considerably affected, begged their father to allow them to at least provide some support to the war effort in total and in particular the cause of Chinese freedom from the Imperial Japanese yolk They stayed with him for a while and helped him on a couple of cases before Frances sought more serious and practical ways to aid the cause. She entered nursing school and upon graduation was commissioned a WAC lieutenant and was stationed in the far east working alongside famed nurse extraordinaire Cherry Ames. After the war she was stationed in San Francisco at a veteran’s hospital. She eventually became a doctor opening a practice just outside the city. One of the first WAC nurses ever to do so. She married a fellow named Jimmy Woo and had eight children. None were named Confucius Junior. Tommy learned to fly while continuing to assist his farther on a number of cases. After the war, in between assisting Charlie, Tommy met retired Gen. Claire Chennault, a Chiang family friend and supporter and learned of his plans to continue to work with Chiang. After a couple of more years of assisting his father Tommy was convinced by Gen. Chennault to join him in post war China and become a pilot in Chennault’s Civil Air Transport, (later known as Air America) a CIA-owned airline that supported United States covert operations throughout East and Southeast Asia. In an effort to conceal Tommy’s involvement in several very secret and dangerous missions, Jimmy assumed his brothers identity in order to make it appear he was present in the United States and not “elsewhere”. It was through his association with Claire Chennault that Tommy became a close friend and confident of General and Mrs. Chiang eventually marring their daughter young Soong May-ling, known as Martha, in the early 1950s. The service was held in Taipei and attended by Charlie, Mrs. Chan and all of the multitudinous family members of the Chan family. By this time Tommy had retired from the Civil Air Transport and it was no longer necessary for Jimmy to maintain the fiction that his brother was in America. Through his important father-in-law Tommy was able to get into the growing Taiwan toy market, starting a company that made battery operated tin robots. After a few years of establishing his toy company and the desire to start a family of his own Tommy returned with his wife to the U.S. and managed his company’s operations from it’s San Francisco headquarters. He eventually sold his interest in the business opening a series of very successful restaurants called Ah Fooey! Perhaps some time I will be able to tell you the tale of Mrs. Chan and Charlie’s seeming relocation to California.

Opps, I meant Iris Chan, not Frances

Dear Russell,

Thank you SO MUCH for filling us in on what really happened with regard to Number Three Son Tommy! Incredible, but, is not "truth" so often seemingly so? And it was great learning more about his sister, Iris (as you so aptly corrected in your subsequent post!), as well.

Sincerely,
Rush

You may ask yourself however did he mix up Iris and Frances Chan. They look nothing alike. That is quite true. The two Chan daughters do not resemble each other, but in other ways they are quite similar, their stories are intimately intertwined and it is not so unbelievable that they might be confused. You see, I forgot to mention that there was one other Chan sibling in the audience that day along with her father to hear Madame Chiang speak. It was Charlie’s daughter, “the beauty of the Chan family” Frances Chan. Being younger and also being much needed by her mother to help with the numerous little members of the clan she returned home and her duty to her family. But as time marched on and she heard of her older brother’s and sister’s war-time efforts she felt the call to duty. Duty to her country. And so she followed her older sister Iris into the WAC Nursing Corp and to a station overseas. After the war she was assigned a place at a Veteran’s Hospital, this one in Los Angles. After she was released from service she too decided to continue her medical studies with the idea of also becoming a doctor. By this time Iris had married, but she had not given up her dream of becoming a general practioner, nor did her supportive husband ask her too. Frances relocated to San Francisco and moved in with the Woo family (Iris’ married name) and helped out while also continuing to pursue her own degree in pediatrics. Then disaster struck. The sisters were out together one fateful afternoon when a drunk driver struck their car. Both were injured. Their injuries were not so severe as to keep them hospitalized, but were lingering, delaying their studies and making it impossible to nurse themselves back to health and look after Iris’s family. Mr. Woo, Iris’s husband, worked in a sensitive position with the government and was often on the road. The situation was dire. Outside help was needed. This is when Mrs. Charlie Chan stepped in. She moved from Hawaii to San Francisco and looked after the weakened Iris and Frances while taking charge of the household and Iris’ children. Recently retired from the Honolulu force Charlie decided to rent a home near the Woos and transplanted his family temporarily nearby. The next eldest girl in the Chan family took charge of the new home with Mama Chan looking in from time to time. Charlie now famed the world over as a brilliant and able detective opened a consulting office in the city where he often provided his services to private individuals, insurance companies and law enforcement agencies. Jimmy (calling himself Tommy) took care of the financial end of the concern discreetly, but firmly. In this way Charlie earned substantial funds. More then enough to maintain the California residence, office and his original home back on Punchbowl Hill, left in the able care of relatives until his return. Even after Iris and Frances had recovered Mrs. Chan stayed on until the two were able to complete their studies and open a joint medical practice. When Frances married and began her own family with a fine fellow named Jack Eng, Charlie presented her with the gift of his San Francisco home, closed his office and returned to Hawaii and Punchbowl Hill still taking on occasional cases well into his old age. His detective’s mind ever keen, his wit ever sharp.