Mr. Wong in Chinatown

Poor Lotus Long the oriental actress who got murdered in two Mr. Wong vehicles. In Mr. Wong In Chinatown she no longer arrives at Boris Karloff's home when she's killed with a poison dart fired through the window of his study.

Probably because the victim was Chinese, Mr. Wong would have gotten involved in any case, but won't these movie villains ever learn? Doing it that way was an open invitation.

Lotus lives long enough to leave a written cryptic clue and Karloff and police captain Grant Withers go chasing leads. The victim was a Chinese princess in town allegedly to buy airplanes for her country during war time. The clue itself by the way turns out to be a bit of a red herring.

Mr. Wong In Chinatown marks the first appearance of Marjorie Reynolds in this series as Withers's pesky reporter girl friend. Reynolds is in the snoop and scoop Lois Lane school of journalism. She actually does prove useful, more at times than Myrna Loy was to William Powell.

But this is Monogram, not MGM so the production values are really on the cheap here. Still for that studio this isn't a bad film.

Karloff as a chinese person would always be tough to believe but he does it so well, and his performance is so straight, classy and self-effacing that I ended up forgetting that aspect and I just took it as is.

Good decision, too, in that it allowed me to really enjoy this whodunnit. William Nigh's direction is sound, the screenplay cleverly hands out red herrings, photography is smooth - a lot of it inside gorgeous cars - and acting is quite good, especially from Karloff, Reynolds and Gordon, as the chief villain.

Well worth watching B pic.

James Lee Wong (Boris Karloff), the great Chinese detective, returns for another mystery in San Francisco. This time, his case is in Chinatown. Wong is asked, once again, to protect another person (this time a beautiful, Chinese Princess, named Lin Hwa, who is portrayed by Lotus Long, who was actually in the last Mr. Wong film, as a different character). As usual, before Wong can even meet with her in his own house, she is killed. The murderer's method of killing is with poison blow darts. Wong's buddy at the San Francisco Police Dept., Inspector Street (Grant Withers), is back too. In the first two films, Withers was referred to as, Police Captain Sam Street, but that has morphed into Captain Bill Street, for this film. There also is a strong female character, with Bobbie Logan (Marjorie Reynolds), the local news reporter, who gives Street all kinds of headaches. Reynolds was the best character in the film. Mr. Wong eventually enlists the aid, from the leaders of Chinatown, which sets up Mr. Wong in Chinatown (1939).

As you know, Boris Karloff was a British actor, who was made universally famous doing classic horror films. He made the Frankenstein monster and the Mummy household names. He was, somewhat, following in the footsteps of Lon Chaney SR., who was part of the first generation of classic movie monster actors before Karloff. Plus, the original Chaney was famously known as "The Man of a Thousand Faces". Chaney also played Asian characters, a few times, in a couple of films. It was normal practice during the golden-age of film, for actors to play different ethnic characters. For both Lon Chaney and Karloff, that is what acting was, which was being someone completely different than you. They were only judged on their acting ability. Karloff ended-up being a legend, so pretending to be an Asian man, was handled as well as, any of his other great characters. Another interesting thing I noticed, was this time, Wong barely wears his glasses in this film. My guess is, producers might have felt, that moviegoing audiences, not totally familiar with the characters, were getting Mr. Wong confused with Peter Lorre's Mr. Moto series over at Fox Film Productions. To add to the confusion, the Charlie Chan movies were popular too, so you can understand the need for clarification. Asian detectives, solving crimes, was very popular during those early decades of cinema.

Mr. Wong in Chinatown (1939), compared to the last two films, is less on detail and more on action. This film is slightly thin on the plot, but stronger on the action. Some audience participants might like the detailed stuff and less flash, while I enjoyed the balance of the two, with the extra energy. The production values do look like they've gone up a little bit. The producers must have been feeling good about the popularity of the character and added some extra cash for this film. They even blow up a car in this one. There even was some fisticuffs too. There are more outdoor scenes, multiple set-pieces and better filming locations. In the first two films, the stories stayed mostly inside a house or at Street's office. We even take a trip down to the San Francisco boat docks and shipyard, albeit, in part, shot on a soundstage. The filmmakers definitely tried to turn up the action and energy, for this third installment. Mr. Wong in Chinatown (1939), is no better or worse than the first two Mr. Wong films.

PMTM Grade: 6.9 (C) = 7 IMDB.

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).

Once again, Boris Karloff solves a case, as James Lee Wong, the Chinese amateur detective in San Francisco. There are plenty of villains again as usual, and this time the fact that there is a war going on in China is the background to a desperate plan to buy war planes in California for shipping to a general in China. But the plan goes seriously wrong due to corruption and murder in San Francisco. Grant Withers plays the Detective Inspector again, but this time he overacts a bit less, though he continues shouting too much. In fact, he shouts so much that Mr. Wong drolly remarks to him: 'I absolutely assure you I am not deaf.' So clearly Withers had been instructed by the director to behave like this. Marjorie Reynolds plays a young woman reporter for a local newspaper who is after a story, and another story, and another story. She interferes and will not go away, but she ends up by saving Mr. Wong's life when he is trapped in a car about to explode. More than a million dollars has been stolen, and several people have been murdered. Who is behind this? Is it the mysterious Chinese dwarf who cannot speak? Is it one of the two captains whose name begins with 'J'? Is it someone from Chinatown? Is it the banker? There is plenty to figure out.