Shadow of Chinatown

Bela Lugosi is one of my favourites of the first stage of horror presences (not including silent cinema), but compared to his contemporaries (Boris Karloff, Vincent Price and Lon Chaney Jr.), he had more than his share of turkeys. The atmospheric, Hungarian-born, quite charismatic actor starred in one of them here, in this 'Charlie Chan'-knockoff serial. I tend to love them, but this is a minor, 70-minute editing of the 15-episode, 281-minute edition. It has decent supporting players, in Joan Barclay and Bruce Bennett, a woman trying to become an exciting news reporter, rather than simply the newspaper's society column editor, and her boss, respectively, who end up, predictably enough, romantically entangled as they try to discover what and who's behind raids threatening competitor merchants in San Francisco's Chinatown from the business interests of Lugosi's employer, the gorgeous Dragon Lady (Luana Walters). Lugosi gives your money's worth as the despicable and ruthless villain.

My copy came from my legendary Mill Creek 50-pack 'Nightmare Worlds', and if you enjoy serials, Lugosi or 30's detective films such as the 'Charlie Chan' series, it's a decent poor-boy's version and worth a watch. I would prefer to see the full version, but that's just me. If you're just marginally interested in them or prefer Lugosi in his more horrific fare, this may prove boring for you, and I would suggest that instead, you stick to his better-known projects with more money behind them and better directors--they offer you much more meat to sink your *ahem* teeth into.

Originally, "Shadow of Chinatown" was a four hour plus serial and was then condensed to the length of a full-length film...much, much shorter at only 71 minutes. Now you would THINK this would make the film fast- paced and interesting...and you'd be thinking wrong! It still manages to be sluggish and dull...and probably not worth your time. Imagine how bad it would be watching the UNCUT serial version!

The Dragon Lady wants to ruin the local Chinese-American merchants in order to get rich. So, she hires the crazy Eurasian chemist/inventor, Poten (Bela Lugosi) to do his evil best and create a tong war.

The film is filled with faux Chinese folks who are obviously just American actors made up to look kinda Chinese. This was sadly the norm at the time but doesn't help the film at all. It also is full of terrible acting...so bad that leading man(?) Herman Brix ('Bruce Bennett') is far less wooden than the rest. Overall, a difficult to watch and impossible to enjoy film. You could EASILY do better!!

In this ultra-condensed, 71 minute version of the original 15-part, 440 minute (!) serial, Bela Lugosi plays the maniacal Eurasian mastermind, Victor Poten, who plots to destroy both European and Asian people in Chinatown.

Astonishingly, even after being cut down by 80%, SHADOW OF CHINATOWN is a real chore to watch. Lugosi is his old, reliable self, but there's just not enough plot or action to keep things interesting.

There are other serials starring Lugosi (THE PHANTOM CREEPS, WHISPERING SHADOW) that are far superior to this...

Luana Walters comes to Bela Lugosi with a plan to destroy Chinese merchants and, I guess, take over their businesses. Bruce Bennett -- still called Herman Brix -- and Joan Barclay are their opposition.

The first thing I noticed about this feature version of the serial directed by Robert Hill for Sam Katzman was that the sound seems to have been recorded in an echo chamber by Hans Weeren. His was a name new to me. He was the sound man for 140 movies between 1932 and 1943, when he seems to have died at age 49, or perhaps he was assassinated. If so, I don't approve, but I understand. His list of films is not distinguished by anything except being almost entirely B westerns of which I have never heard.

Given this is Hill directing, I was mildly pleased by the decent movement and speed of editing; even if you could see that the clip of the guy who leaps over a fence begins while he's standing around waiting for his cue, editor Charles Henkel Jr. Seems to have made an effort to cut down the 280 minutes of the serial to a manageable length, and largely succeeded, even though Bennett does not know how to throw a punch. The modern crowd might be pleased that they actually used ethnic Chinese for the appropriate roles. I suspect that is because they were cheaper to hire and make up than otherwise.

Feature version of a serial of the same name has Bela Lugosi turning tables on a woman who hired him to help with her evil plans in Chinatown while a reported and her beau hunt down the villains.

One of the few things worse than this movie is the full length serial version. That monstrosity put me to sleep with its wild over length (15 chapters with enough plot for 2) and the same poor production values that make this film just as bad. I've seen almost every sound serial ever made, but the original serial was a chore and a half to get through and I never finished it (its one of the few). I have no idea what possessed me to try the feature version other than, perhaps selective amnesia about the original. Here the story unfolds in approximately one fifth the time but its a hopeless mess with an attempt to get a good portion of the "good bits" into it. Making matters worse is the cheapness of the film, this was an independent production and had a limited budget. There's tons of stock footage, almost no music and a technical quality (especially the sound) thats lacking.

In the "of note" column, and its not really a good thing, is the fact that this stands as one of the worst performances Bela Lugosi ever gave. I'm not even sure its a performance. Even in the final days Bela was never this disconnected to what he was doing. Its mind numbingly awful. Fortunately he's not alone since a good many of the other actors are clearly collecting a pay check not to act. Herman Brix, who would soon change his name to Bruce Bennett and move on to better things does give a performance, even if its phoned in.

Bad film lovers may want to see this on fast forward, but otherwise I'd avoid it at all costs.