The Fatal Hour

Now here's a good mystery film starring Boris Karloff as Inspector Wong, 'the Chinese Copper' as one non-PC character calls him. Here, he's helping out the San Francisco police track down the killer of an undercover cop, who's been killed while working for a smuggling racket. Wong teams up with Detective Street and a journalist named Logan (well, she always snooping around at least) and heads off to the place the copper was last seen – The Neptune Bar.

The owner of the bar, Hard Way Harry, is a wise guy who looks like he did for the copper, but there are other spanners in the works – A piece of jade Wong finds leads him to a jeweller who's in debt, and who's son is hanging around the Neptune Bar with a piece of skirt Hard Way Harry knows. At first I was scratching my head trying to understand what was going on (and spending a lot of time wondering what age Jason Robards would be when he appeared – turned out it was his dad…I'm so stupid), but then things start to gel as the killer started taking out some witnesses and what not.

So Wong's got a race against time to find out who the killer actually is (the killer even kills a guy at the police station) - eventually he figures it out, but even then he might be too late as the killer has figured him out too! This quick moving thriller was a lot of fun to watch, as there's plenty of red herrings, twists, and suspenseful noir-ish set pieces to enjoy. A nice surprise, this one, as I expected to be a bit bored (it's another non-horror included in Mill Creek's 50 Horror Classics - essential for folks curious about old films).

There's your plug, Mill Creek - send money to Bezenby, 12 Biscuit Island, Button Moon.