Mr. Wong en el barrio chino

As a fan of 1930s-1940s movies with an "Oriental" protagonist, I have collected all of the Charlie Chan, Mr. Moto, and Mr. Wong movies. However, this movie would have been much better had the all-too-frequent, painfully annoying, and downright noisy cat-fights between Captain Bill Street and Reporter Bobbie Logan ended up on the editor's cutting-room floor.

Another problem with this film is that Mr. Wong plays a much too passive role. All he seems to do is follow the lead of either the Captain or the Reporter. Bottom line: one quickly begins to wonder why Mr. Wong is in this movie, because he doesn't seem to be necessary to the plot.

Poor Lotus Long the oriental actress who got murdered in two Mr. Wong vehicles. In Mr. Wong In Chinatown she no longer arrives at Boris Karloff's home when she's killed with a poison dart fired through the window of his study.

Probably because the victim was Chinese, Mr. Wong would have gotten involved in any case, but won't these movie villains ever learn? Doing it that way was an open invitation.

Lotus lives long enough to leave a written cryptic clue and Karloff and police captain Grant Withers go chasing leads. The victim was a Chinese princess in town allegedly to buy airplanes for her country during war time. The clue itself by the way turns out to be a bit of a red herring.

Mr. Wong In Chinatown marks the first appearance of Marjorie Reynolds in this series as Withers's pesky reporter girl friend. Reynolds is in the snoop and scoop Lois Lane school of journalism. She actually does prove useful, more at times than Myrna Loy was to William Powell.

But this is Monogram, not MGM so the production values are really on the cheap here. Still for that studio this isn't a bad film.

Mr. Wong in Chinatown (1939)

** (out of 4)

Princess Lin Hwa frantically rushes to Detective Wong (Boris Karloff) but before he can see her she is dead. It turns out that she was shot with a poisonous dart so Wong investigates and finds that the Chinese woman was in America trying to buy warplanes. Pretty soon more bodies are found so Wong and Captain Street (Grant Withers) must try and figure out what's going on.

MR. WONG IN CHINATOWN was the third film in the series and it was certainly a step down from the previous two entries. The first two films were obviously cheap "B" pictures but they at least featured decent stories and benefited from having someone like Karloff in the lead. This film has a fairly bland story and there's just not much life to it.

The biggest problem with the film is that the screenplay just doesn't offer us anything we haven't seen countless times before. This time out we have a female reporter thrown in who of course is the girlfriend to Captain Streets, which leads to a bunch of arguing between the two. None of the dialogue is overly clever or charming so the fighting just comes across as annoying.

Karloff is once again good in his role, although, as with the first two films, he doesn't even bother trying to act or loo Asian. He at least keeps the film mildly amusing and I'd also say that Withers gives the film a little entertainment as well. Marjorie Reynolds does what she can as the reporter and come off mildy charming at times.

MR. WONG IN CHINATOWN isn't a horrible movie but at the same time it's just too routine and bland to make much of an impression.

A Chinese princess coming to Mr. Wong for help is killed in his home by a poisoned dart. This movie introduces a clichéd nosy reporter character, Bobbie Logan, played by the beautiful Marjorie Reynolds. She would appear in the rest of the Wong films. I take it as a sign they knew the Wong series wasn't working quite right and felt it needed some more side characters. Perhaps they just wanted to rip off Torchy Blane. Who knows? Grant Withers returns as Captain Street. He doesn't bark as much as he usually does, except when Bobbie's around. She's his girlfriend and he wants her to stay out of trouble. Another Torchy Blane similarity. Curiously, 1939 was also the year Torchy Blane in Chinatown was released. This is a watchable movie, as all the Wongs are, but nothing special.

For Boris Karloff fans Mr Wong in Chinatown makes for good curiosity value and has good things that makes it a little more than that. Mr Wong in Chinatown is far from bad and Karloff has certainly done worse(look at the Mexican films he did) but he has also done better and deserved better. If asked whether Mr Wong in Chinatown is recommended, I'd say yes but only partially. There are some good things, Karloff is still commanding and gives a very good performance(as said many times by me one of those actors that gave his all regardless of the material). Marjorie Reynolds is the other, and in a way only other, standout in the cast, she brings a great deal of sass to Logan and really spices things up but deserved better material to do so more. Some of the sparring-constant- between her and Grant Withers is entertaining. The closing gag is great. The music has its jauntiness and eeriness. The sets are appropriate and nicely done. And Lotus Long while killed off quickly, perhaps too quickly, she makes for a sensual presence and makes things promising to begin with. However, while the sparring between Reynolds and Withers is fun their chemistry could have been better, aside from their dialogue the chemistry doesn't gel. And Withers to me is the problem, his performance more scenery-chewing rather than subtle and often of the worst kind, the shouting and frozen facial expressions did get annoying after a while. The photography is serviceable but could have been more fluid, the low-budget does show. Outside of the verbal sparring and the closing gag, the dialogue does come across as stilted and could have developed things more. The story shows good potential but peters out after the beginning but picks up at the final solution, which is a nice surprise, the mystery did feel weak because of the dull pacing(the film did feel longer than it was), lack of suspense and tension, the lacking dialogue and that really only two performances stood out. It also got very routine and didn't contain that many surprises. In conclusion, a watchable film with interest points but not great, one of the weaker entries of the series. 5.5/10 Bethany Cox