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.

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.

1939's "Mr. Wong in Chinatown" was Monogram's third entry in their six picture detective series, its May shooting introducing a new character to the dynamic between Boris Karloff as James Lee Wong and Grant Withers as Capt. Bill Street, Marjorie Reynolds as Roberta 'Bobbie' Logan, blonde reporter and new wisecracking sweetheart of the increasingly downtrodden captain. Less complicated than its predecessors, it begins with Lotus Long's second series appearance, making a late night call upon Mr. Wong, who soon discovers her dead from a poisoned dart fired from a Chinese 'sleeve gun' like one he himself owns. Bobbie Logan identifies her as Lin Hwa, a princess who has spent the previous three weeks in San Francisco attempting to secure airplanes for her brother's fight against the Japanese. A dying clue was scribbled down before she expired, identifying 'Captain J,' of which two men made her acquaintance, the captain of the ship that brought her from China (William Royle), and the man whose Los Angeles company was negotiating to sell her the planes (George Lynn). A search of Lin Hwa's apartment reveals two faithful companions, Lilly Mae (Bessie Loo) and a mute dwarf (Angelo Rossitto), neither of whom are destined to live long, while Wong's inquiries with bank president Davidson (Huntley Gordon) ends up with a ride in a booby trapped taxi cab. Having learned that every penny deposited by the princess has been withdrawn through forged checks, the irate captains kidnap both Wong and Davidson to learn the whereabouts of the missing money, but the actual killer is tripped up by a little sleight of hand (this would be the last time seeing Karloff's Wong in his home). As obnoxious as reporters generally are in such films, it's a pleasant surprise to find Bobbie Logan better able to protect Mr. Wong than her police captain boyfriend, though their bickering only slows the picture to a crawl. Like first entry "Mr. Wong, Detective," this too would become a Charlie Chan remake for Monogram in 1947, "The Chinese Ring" not only marking the debut of 42 year old Roland Winters as Chan but also retaining the pretty reporter character in the person of Louise Currie, while the dwarf is rewritten as a Chinese boy. In for just one scene as an aged tong leader, Richard Loo previously played Karloff's lieutenant in "West of Shanghai," and would also feature in the next two entries (before filming the next series title, Karloff would complete "The Man They Could Not Hang" at Columbia and "Tower of London" at Universal).

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