Phantom of Chinatown

As Boris Karloff moved on to bigger and better things in the horror film genre, the Mr. Wong series from Monogram got a final run with an actual person of Oriental heritage in the title role. Fascinating the mind set of Hollywood in those days.

And who would it have to be for, but a poverty row outfit like Monogram in one of their series films. Keye Luke who moviegoers knew better as the number one son of that other Chinese detective Charlie Chan, gets to play a younger version of that noted scholar and criminologist James Lee Wong. Luke plays him just as Boris Karloff did as a man who went to both Oxford and Heidelburg and did not speak in fortune cookie aphorisms.

But I'm sure it must have confused the living daylights out of the Mr. Wong audiences when the relationship between Wong and homicide police captain Street of the SFPD was so different. Grant Withers played Street in all the Wong films and he was not at all resentful about deferring to the older man's knowledge. The same way Captain Stottlemeyer defers to Adrian Monk on that show.

But with Luke, Withers is at first downright hostile, in fact this film of necessity is set back to when they first meet and Withers most reluctantly bows to Luke's skill for investigation.

The leader of an expedition to China where an ancient scroll was taken from a Ming Emperor's tomb is murdered while giving a lecture. And the scroll goes missing as well. There are a whole host of suspects, including a pilot that had been lost in the desert, but he turns up rather early in the film.

It might have been nice if Keye Luke had inaugurated the series instead of an Occidental like Karloff, good as he was. History could have been made.

Asian detectives were usually played by Caucasian actors at the time this movie was made, but Phantom of Chinatown is an exception and features Keye Luke in the role of Mr. Wong. Luke makes a likable and younger version of Wong and it's great fun to see how Wong and Captain Street first met. Grant Withers as Captain Street is one of my favorites elements of the Mr Wong movies. Withers is exceptionally good in this one. Some have said that Withers should have been replaced with a younger actor for this "prequel", but I don't agree. Luke and Withers make a fun pair. I enjoy all of the Mr Wong series, but Phantom of Chinatown is one of my absolute favorites.

Pretty good who-dunnit thriller about the death of an archaeologist. After he returns from the Orient. The archaeologist presents a lecture about his findings, a hidden tomb. Funny thing, is that he points out certain people in the room that went with him during the expedition, so right then and there you know that the archaeologist is toast and the people he just introduced are suspects ha ha. Mr Wong, smoothly played by Keye Luke, gets to the bottom of things. I really like how he solved this, using calm logical ways instead of having obvious clues thrown at us. I also liked the clueless homicide detective who sort of played a foil to Wong's character who essentially just followed Wong while he went on his crime-solving ways. Nifty little movie here.

Smilin' Leonard Maltin rates this one a bomb, but he couldn't be more wrong. It's a real forgotten gem and the best of the Mr. Wong detective series. Why? For whatever reason, the producers decided to cast Keye Luke--an Asian actor--in the role of the cinematic sleuth. Many similar films were made throughout the 30s and 40s, with Warner Oland and Sidney Toler cast as Charlie Chan and Peter Lorre as Mr. Moto. Luke was preceded by Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff as Wong. This seems to be the only example of an Asian detective being played by an Asian actor, and I'd love to know how Luke's casting came about. He's merely adequate as an actor, but his work gives the film an appealing realism (albeit as much as a film about an eternal flame and a lost scroll can be realistic). There are also reasonably good supporting roles for Asian actors, including Lotus Long as the leading lady, Lee Tung Foo in a comic role, and other uncredited actors. Series regular Grant Withers is on hand, wearing a rather unattractive and ill-fitting hat, as the bumbling police detective who needs Wong's help to crack the case. The film actually seems to take place in a somewhat realistic world, San Francisco's Chinatown, where Asian-Americans miraculously man and operate the telephone exchange! At 61 minutes the film is brisk entertainment that will keep your attention. It also manages to feel fresher than better acted and better budgeted genre films of the same period. Strongly recommended to sleuthing fans.

Theoretically, "Phantom of Chinatown" is the last one of the "Mr. Wong" detective series that had been starring Boris Karloff, where Monogram had tried in a rather mediocre way to 'copy' 20th Century-Fox' hugely successful 'Charlie Chan' series. But, even in story, directing and acting this movie is way above the 'British Chinese detective' films - and what's much more, it stars not only a REAL Chinese as the detective, but someone known VERY well to fans of the genre in general and to fans of the 'Charlie Chan' movies in particular: Keye Luke, who had played Charlie's 'number one son' Lee in the Warner Oland Charlie Chans...

And now he becomes a detective 'in his own right' at last - and a very clever one, too! He does some nice teamwork with the typically American 'flatfoot' Captain Street (Grant Withers), but there's no doubt that the Chinese is smarter - which was a pretty unusual thing at the time: an Asian as protagonist, and being more intelligent than the average US policeman; and on top of it all, 'Jimmy Wong' even makes QUITE a daring remark about all the archaeological excavations being done in China by Americans, suggesting that maybe Chinese archaeologists might dig up George Washington's grave for a change!!

Generally, this is a very neat and unusual little 'flag waver': Chinese and Americans work hand in hand for a HUGELY important purpose - the 'Eternal Fire' that the leader of the archaeological expedition had discovered in Mongolia is of such vital importance that it must not under ANY circumstances fall into the hands of both countries' enemy...

But it's also a VERY entertaining, suspenseful mystery thriller, where nothing's missing, neither a creepy atmosphere nor some REAL good jokes nor a beautiful romantic element; it can surely compete with almost any of the best crime movies of its time (and especially taking into account that it was made on a budget incomparably smaller than that of the big studios' productions) - and it owes the biggest part of its liveliness and freshness that remains until this day to its wonderful cast; with first and best Keye Luke.