When Were You Born

When Were You Born? (1938)

An interesting angle on the murder mystery genre adding astrology to the caper flick. It's a simple B movie, but very entertaining. It comes off kind serious with a mysterious Manley P. Hall telling us about astrology (sort of like Ed Wood style). Naturally, all twelve characters of the zodiac will be featured in this film.

Beautiful Anna May Wong is the Chinese-American astrologer, Mei Lei Ming, who has a lot of insight to the people she meets. She meets Phil Corey (James Stephenson) on board a ship from China to San Francisco, U.S.A. and predicts that he will die within a couple of days. When Corey is killed, Miss Ming is one of the prime suspects.

Soon a very doubting taurus, Inspector Jim Gregg (Charles C. Wilson) considers having Miss Ming hang around just to give her insights over the various suspects.

Love this time period especially the murder mysteries. Caught this movie recently and watch it over and over. It's addicting!! It's fascinating. I really love it!! Mei Ling is a wonderful character & so interesting. I don't believe in Astology but this is just a fun and intriguing movie! It has a good cast of characters and keeps you guessing until the very end about who committed the crime. The pieces of evidence as presented keep you fascinated as the police attempt to solve the crime. I loved the Mei Ling character and wish there were many more movies made like this. A series like they did with Charlie Chan would have been nice!! I highly recommend it for a good flick.

Oh heck...I gave it practically a rave review because I was not bored for one minute. Those that stated the astrological slant being ridiculous due to so few facts to cast a chart...well...the movie is for astrology semi-buffs that do nothing more extensive zodiac-wise than read their daily horoscope.

It was a neat tale supported on GENERAL characteristics of each of the zodiac signs. All the actors were great and seemed to be treating the material with respect.

For the plot read the others' reviews.. I just had to put my two-cents in by saying, PLEASE do not take this fun short film too seriously.

Or, at least, the story's the thing, and this is a murder mystery - and the story is pretty good. At 65 minutes it goes by quickly, so the viewer must pay attention or something will be lost. Nowadays, we have DVR's and can rewind if needed - and it's needed. The solution hinges on a specific time frame and several characters give the times of their alibi, and it's hard to keep them straight.

The plot is a good one, but much is made of the fact that Anna May Wong's character is an astrologist, which was very popular around the time this was produced. She has a habit of giving people the pros and cons of their zodiac sign after asking the title question, and it becomes tiresome. Her acting seems stilted, as though reciting from memory and not natural.

In any case, you won't guess the murderer; as I said, the story is a good one. Two things; it is told at breakneck speed, and the time frames of the alibis are crucial to solving the murder. As I said in the beginning, pay attention, especially towards the end.

Nine out of ten films that make use of metaphysical matters such as palmistry or crystal gazing in their plots employ them merely as gimmicky window-dressing. This movie is different in that every bit of astrological business mentioned is accurate according to the principles of Western astrology -- which is odd, because Anna May Wong, the film's astrological expert, is Chinese-American and could have been expected to employ Chinese astrology.

What was most interesting to me was not that all of the actors were portraying people of zodiacal signs other than their own, or that the characters they portrayed were virtually stereotypical of Sun-sign astrology, but that there were many throw-away lines that only an actual astrologer would recognize.

For instance, when Wong is reading the chart of Miss Kenton, the Cancer, she speaks of her having "certain habits." The woman admits to drinking, but a glance at her chart shows Saturn square Neptune, which can also imply drug addiction. Likewise, when the Pisces policeman says he's been having a hard time lately, Wong mentions that Saturn is currently in Pisces -- which it actually was during both 1937 and 1938.

In the end, however, despite such wonderful touches, and the delightful introduction by Manly P. Hall, a Pisces, whose feet doubtless hurt him, i could not rate this movie higher than 6/10 because the directing was set-bound and stodgy and much of the acting was wooden. In fact, aside from Miss Wong's pet monkey, the only character with any life in him was Dr. Fenton, the eccentric little Jewish crime expert -- but although Fenton was said to be a Capricorn, Russian-born Maurice Cass, who played him, was actually a Libra.