Mr. Wong in Chinatown

When the Princess "Lin Hwa" (Lotus Long) is killed by a poisoned dart in the home of our eponymous San Francisco detective (Boris Karloff) she leaves him one, singly enigmatic, clue which he must utilise to thwart a gang involved with the Japanese occupation of China. Local plod "Capt. Street" (Grant Withers) bucks the trend of many similar style adventure films, and demonstrates some competence as the pair soon discover the foggy docks of their city harbour much more than just ships. There is never any doubt who will come a cropper in the end, but William Nigh gets a lot from his star, a limited script and an even more limited budget and presents us with a basic, but acceptable murder mystery with shades of political intrigue.

There was a documentary on public television some time ago about the Chinese in the movies. It was short because they were mostly background in early films. God forbid a Chinese person was ever cast as a Chinese person in a movie.

Boris Karloff, who was a wonderful actor, is Mr. Wong. I'm not sure where this comes in the series but I'll give you two words to describe it - Monogram Studios.

A woman visits Mr. Wong, but before she can speak to him, she is killed with a poison dart. She has time to write a partial note with the words "Captain J." Naturally there are two Captain Js here.

The film has to do with airplanes she was buying for her brother, an important person with the Chinese air command, and the apparent smuggling of them. Don't ask me how one does that. Aren't they kind of large? It also has to do with stealing money.

It's just okay but it's nice to see Karloff as someone other than Frankenstein.

The extended scene of Wong and a banker talking about paperwork gives you an idea of the pace of this one. Marjorie Reynolds brightens up the proceedings as she is known to do, but that's about all there is to say about this lesser entry. And dog lovers beware: 2 dogs are shot offscreen and their bodies are shown later in the film.

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.

Once again, Boris Karloff solves a case, as James Lee Wong, the Chinese amateur detective in San Francisco. There are plenty of villains again as usual, and this time the fact that there is a war going on in China is the background to a desperate plan to buy war planes in California for shipping to a general in China. But the plan goes seriously wrong due to corruption and murder in San Francisco. Grant Withers plays the Detective Inspector again, but this time he overacts a bit less, though he continues shouting too much. In fact, he shouts so much that Mr. Wong drolly remarks to him: 'I absolutely assure you I am not deaf.' So clearly Withers had been instructed by the director to behave like this. Marjorie Reynolds plays a young woman reporter for a local newspaper who is after a story, and another story, and another story. She interferes and will not go away, but she ends up by saving Mr. Wong's life when he is trapped in a car about to explode. More than a million dollars has been stolen, and several people have been murdered. Who is behind this? Is it the mysterious Chinese dwarf who cannot speak? Is it one of the two captains whose name begins with 'J'? Is it someone from Chinatown? Is it the banker? There is plenty to figure out.