Mr Wong
The Mystery of Mr Wong (1939) 6.5/10
Mr Wong, Detective (1938) 5.5/10
Phantom of Chinatown (1940) 5/10
The Fatal Hour (1940) 4.5/10
Mr Wong in Chinatown (1939) 4.5/10
Doomed to Die (1940) 4/10
Mr Wong, Detective (1938) 5.5/10
Phantom of Chinatown (1940) 5/10
The Fatal Hour (1940) 4.5/10
Mr Wong in Chinatown (1939) 4.5/10
Doomed to Die (1940) 4/10
List activity
16 views
• 0 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
6 titles
- DirectorWilliam NighStarsBoris KarloffGrant WithersMaxine JenningsIn San Francisco, Simon Dayton, the senior partner in a chemical company, visits famed detective James Lee Wong as Dayton fears for his life stemming from a series of unexplained events in both his personal and professional life. But before Wong can meet Dayton at his office the next morning to follow up, Dayton is found dead in his locked office, the cause eventually discovered to be by poison. Captain Sam Street with the SFPD leads the investigation. The primary suspect is Carl Roemer, the scientist who developed the poison which he accused Dayton of stealing from him as he was never paid for the formula. One of the initial questions is how Dayton was poisoned behind the locked doors of his office. While Street takes the path of least resistance in the investigation in believing Roemer the obvious killer based solely on circumstantial evidence, more thoughtful Wong takes a broader approach in trying not only to discover other suspects, but how whoever the killer was able to administer the poison. Two of those other primary suspects are Dayton's partners, Theodore Meisle and Christian Wilk, who stand to profit substantially from Dayton's death, in addition to Dayton, Meisle and Wilk's many employees and associates. Adding to the investigation is Street's sometime girlfriend, Myra Ross, who nonetheless respects Wong's take on the investigation more than Street's in looking out for the proverbial little guy.Following the success of the Charlie Chan films and (perhaps less so) of the Mr Moto films, it was only a matter of time before one of the so-called "poverty row studios" got into the business of Oriental detectives. It finally happened in 1938 when Monogram Pictures made the self-explanatory "Mr Wong, Detective" in which Boris Karloff plays the titular Oxford-educated Chinese genius. The series went on for six films and, in a way, served as a testing ground for future Chan films which would also be made by Monogram Pictures after Fox tired of them in 1942.
The poverty of "poverty row" is immediately obvious. Pretty much every scene plays out in long, plain, wide shots unencumbered by stylish photography or even background music. The sets have also apparently been recycled from a variety of films so we end up with a police station which looks like a forest cabin, a San Francisco mansion which looks like a Victorian townhouse, and some kind of a clinic in which doctors interrogate their patients against black drapes.
Still, the film is lifted out of its low-budget rut by a better-than-expected mystery and a terrific performance from Boris Karloff whose mellifluous politeness gives Charlie Chan a run for his money. It's great fun watching Karloff play a detective. He brings so much elegance and style to the part. Especially enjoyable are the scenes in which Mr Wong, erudite and polite as ever, slowly leads his suspects into fiendish logic traps.
The mystery, which I enjoyed a lot more than any of the Mr Moto stories, begins one night when an industrialist (John Hamilton) knocks on Mr Wong's door. He is terrified that someone is out to kill him and begs Mr Wong to find out who. Wong agrees but the next morning the industrialist turns up dead in his office.
A neat locked-room aspect is introduced here as no one came into the office and yet the man was clearly murdered by poisoned gas. When a second person is killed in the same way, Mr Wong has a real enigma before him.
"Mr Wong, Detective" works very well in its first half. The story is engaging, the suspects plentiful, and there's even a better-than-average comic relief in the form of Captain Street (Grant Withers), a blustering policeman who somehow always gets the facts wrong. I like how he's never played for a fool. Sure, he's not as clever as Wong and he's quite brutish in his methods but much like Harold Huber in "Charlie Chan on Broadway" he provides capable support to his smarter colleague.
The second half of the film begins to drag, however. Especially egregious is the complete lack of music which is especially felt in long, drawn-out scenes of people sneaking around dark rooms. The plot slows down considerably in the last 30 minutes as well and not much of importance happens after the second body is discovered.
Still, an entertaining climax nicely rounds out the story with a fiendish (if not entirely plausible) solution to the mystery.
"Mr Wong, Detective" is definitely harmed by its impoverished origins and the supporting cast is ropey at best. Some slightly more stylish direction would have helped as well as a bit of background music. But the script by Houston Branch inspired by Hugh Wiley's short stories is very good as is the performance of Boris Karloff who more than capably carries the picture.
There is little point in comparing this film to the best of Charlie Chan but for my money, there's plenty of charm and entertainment in "Mr Wong, Detective" to make it a pleasant watch.
5.5/10 - DirectorWilliam NighStarsBoris KarloffGrant WithersDorothy TreeDetective tries to solve the murder of antiques collector who was in possession of a famous jewel known as "The Eye of the Daughter of The Moon."Production-wise, "The Mystery of Mr Wong" which is the second film in the Monogram Pictures' Charlie Chan imitator series, is a massive improvement over the first. Sure, an occasional creak can still be heard courtesy of the film's low budget (this is a "poverty row studio" production after all) but the atmospheric photography, some nice (if not exactly lavish) sets, and an actual musical score do wonders for this surprisingly entertaining mystery film.
Boris Karloff is back as the mellifluously polite Chinese detective whose Oxford education has left him with impeccable manners and an English accent. The character is so distinctively English in fact that it seems the only reason Mr Wong is Chinese is so that he could be seen as a rival to Charlie Chan.
The story this time 'round is a classical country house mystery transported to a San Francisco mansion owned by Brendan Edwards (Morgan Wallace), a vicious collector of Chinese antiques. He has just come into possession of The Eye of the Daughter of the Moon, a priceless and allegedly cursed diamond whose chequered past contains more murder and bloodshed than can be described in a 70-minute B-movie.
Mr Wong is an unlikely friend of the otherwise abusive Edwards and is invited to a weekend party given by the collector's young and unhappy wife Valerie (Dorothy Tree). During a humorous playlet in which Edwards is assigned the role of a furtive lover, he is shot with a prop gun. However, his performance turns out to be far too good for when the lights are turned on, the man is really dead.
I didn't find the mystery in "The Mystery of Mr Wong" as inventive or as engaging as the one in the previous film but there is an undeniable charm to its straightforward, nostalgically classical nature. We get the usual shady butlers, thieving maids, secret lovers coming through windows in the night, and people getting murdered just as they are about to identify the killer. The neat conclusion seems to have been inspired by an Agatha Christie classic which I won't name for fear of spoilers. Even though I predicted the killer's identity before the murder had even happened, I found the reveal to be pleasantly different and more affecting than those usually encountered in Charlie Chan films.
The director is once again William Nigh who comes back with a vengeance proving himself a more stylish and capable director than I gave him credit for being. His work here is a whole lot more dynamic and atmospheric than in the previous film even if the low budget and hurried production can still be felt in a distinct lack of coverage. Everything seems to play out in long takes but at least they're nicer to look at than in the first film.
The presence of a score also makes things flow smoother even if the music is rather corny and probably culled from Monogram's sound library.
The big attraction of the Mr Wong series is undoubtedly Boris Karloff who makes for a terrific detective here. He brings a great presence and elegance to the part of Mr Wong, the kind of detective who will ensnare you in a devious logic trap with pure kindness and politeness. I appreciate his restraint in the part of not making Wong into a Chinese stereotype. He imbues him with humanity and warmth that was sorely lacking in the similar Mr Moto films.
The supporting cast does not come across quite as well and there is a lot of overacting going on here, particularly from Dorothy Tree who does not seem to be able to deliver a single line without going into hysterics. They are a varied bunch, however, with fine performances especially coming from Lotus Long as a mysterious maid and Holmes Herbert who ironically plays Dr Watson to Wong's Holmes.
The recurring character of Captain Street is once again played by Grant Withers who has toned down some of his character's more annoying blustering characteristics. He is now a worthy and likeable assistant to Mr Wong even if he fades into the background somewhat.
But what really surprises me about the two Mr Wong films I've seen is the clarity and quality of the plotting. Scott Darling's script has the kind of clutter-free focus that even some of the better Chans and pretty much all of the Motos lack. Even if the mystery is fairly basic, I still enjoyed it a great deal and found "The Mystery of Mr Wong" to be an entertaining and atmospheric little mystery that rises above being a mere Charlie Chan knock-off.
6.5/10 - DirectorWilliam NighStarsBoris KarloffMarjorie ReynoldsGrant WithersA pretty Chinese woman, seeking help from San Francisco detective James Lee Wong, is killed by a poisoned dart in his front hall, having time only to scrawl "Captain J" on a sheet of paper. She proves to be Princess Lin Hwa.After the engaging country house murder mystery in the style of Charlie Chan that was "The Mystery of Mr Wong", the third instalment in the series, "Mr Wong in Chinatown" feels like a major step back. It seems that what the writer Scott Darling tried to craft here was a Motoesque spy yarn in what I can only presume was an effort to cover the fortes of both of Wong's Asian competitors. But the two-fisted style of those stories doesn't mesh well with either Mr Wong's polite, brainy methods or Monogram Pictures' minuscule budgets.
The story begins intriguingly enough with a woman being murdered in Mr Wong's front room. She was killed through an open window with a Chinese blow dart. Her identity is soon revealed as Princess Lin Hwa (Lotus Long) who was in San Francisco on a secret weapons-buying mission for the government.
From here on in, the story gets into a serious rut. There is a lot of wheel-spinning as Wong goes to the Tongs for information he could have easily acquired elsewhere while Police Captain Street (Grant Withers) searches in vain for a mute dwarf he suspects of being the murderer. Yeah, it's that kind of movie.
The problems are manifold. For one, the script is rather thin and unengaging. The big clue at the beginning of the film is a note scribbled by the dying princess which reads "Captain J". We are then introduced to two different captains with names which begin with J. So far so good. The thing is that the film then immediately reveals to us that both of the captains are bad guys making the clue and the presence of two Js entirely superfluous.
The second big problem is that the film just lacks energy. It is a curiously limp affair full of padded dialogue scenes, unexciting action, and a hell of a lot of sitting around in front rooms. Some of the amateurishness of the first film is back as well. Why, for instance, are Captain Street and his partner sitting in his office wearing hats and primed for action at all times?
In an effort to make the films more dynamic, a comic relief character is introduced in the form of Bobbie Logan (Marjorie Reynolds) intrepid reporter and Street's girlfriend. They share many scenes together in the film which are simply not all that funny. The lines they have to say are not particularly witty nor memorable and the pace at which their dialogue is played is sluggish. They lack the patter needed to sell their supposedly screwball relationship. Reynolds does a fine job of playing a comic relief character but Withers looks ill at ease with comedy.
Boris Karloff, on the other hand, is as superb as ever. I really like Mr Wong as a character. I enjoy watching his polite, relaxed methods of investigation. He is particularly good in the big summation scenes when he suddenly pounces on the killer with irrefutable logic and facts.
But not even Karloff can make "Mr Wong in Chinatown" come to life. With its dull story, slow pace, and listless attempts at comedy, this instalment is a real disappointment, especially after the two solid films that preceded it.
4.5/10 - DirectorWilliam NighStarsBoris KarloffMarjorie ReynoldsGrant WithersWhen Captain Street's best friend Dan Grady is murdered, Street receives help from Chinese detective James Lee Wong and local newspaper reporter Bobbie Logan.As I said in my review of "Mr Wong in Chinatown", I don't like Mr Wong in these two-fisted gangster/spy yarns. His character which is very much based on those classical gentlemen detectives doesn't mesh very well with the gun-toting, brawling tough guys from those kinds of stories. Wong's comfort zone is the parlours of mansions and dinner parties. He is at his best when he's meticulously, politely questioning his suspects slowly leading them towards a logic trap. When the going gets tough, however, Wong is simply not a convincing hero. There's a scene in "The Fatal Hour" in which he holds a perp at gunpoint which absolutely rings false. It's like seeing Hercule Poirot Google something.
The first twenty minutes of "The Fatal Hour" are excellent. The film begins with the discovery of a corpse identified as Police Officer Dan Grady, the best friend of Wong's partner in crime-solving Captain Street (Grant Withers). Street's grief and angry determination to capture the killer are sensitively and poignantly portrayed and the scene in which Wong volunteers his help is beautifully played by Karloff and Withers. There is even some surprisingly well-integrated comedy from the overenthusiastic reporter Bobbie Logan (Marjorie Reynolds) whose eagerness to help and get the scoop always lands her head-first in trouble.
But as the set-up is revealed, the story becomes more and more obvious and prosaic. The case Grady was working on revolved around a smuggling ring which he tracked down to a swanky nightclub. Mr Wong and Street case the joint and discover that a regular at the club is one Frank Belden Jr. (Craig Reynolds), son of a big-time jeweller and fiancee of a shady femme fatale Tanya Serova (Lita Chevret).
The screenplay by Scott Darling frequently shifts gears between the gangsters running the night club and the troubled Belden family who are nowhere near as well-off as they appear to be. Is that motive enough for murder, however? All will be revealed but not before an absolute massacre takes place as a major character is offed at regular intervals.
"The Fatal Hour" is not really a bad movie it's just not a particularly notable one. It has none of the atmosphere or the entertainment value of the best Wong movies nor does it ratchet up any real excitement or suspense. For the most part, it plods along amiably through its predictable and simplistic story evoking a few laughs but no real interest.
The real draw is the performances. Boris Karloff is excellent as usual in the role of Mr Wong, a gentleman detective who has really grown on me over the past four films. Also good are Marjorie Reynolds and Grant Withers whose chemistry and comedic rhythms have greatly improved since the last film. The supporting cast is also unusually good for a Wong film especially Charles Trowbridge as a rather menacing banker.
William Nigh's direction is workmanlike and unexciting. Still, the pace is kept going at a decent clip and at 66 minutes the film doesn't overstay its welcome.
There's not much to say good or bad about "The Fatal Hour". Compared to "The Mystery of Mr Wong", surely the high point of the series, it's a disappointingly flat and uninspired movie that does a bad job of putting Mr Wong's peculiar talents to good use.
Despite a clever (if improbable) solution, this mystery didn't really test my little grey cells. The bad guy is immediately obvious and the journey to the solution is not all that entertaining. Overall, a middling effort.
4.5/10 - DirectorWilliam NighStarsBoris KarloffMarjorie ReynoldsGrant WithersMr. Wong and a girl reporter investigate a shipping magnate's murder."Doomed to Die" is a portentous title for Boris Karloff's final Mr Wong film. Monogram Pictures decided that they would be better served making a horror film with the star than a sixth Wong mystery so they cast him in "The Ape" and the series indeed died. There was, nonetheless, one more Wong film without Karloff but more on that later.
Having now seen all five of the Karloff Wong films, I'm of the mind that at this point the series truly was doomed to die. After two promising and engaging classical whodunnits, the Wong films dipped into a rut of unconvincing gangsters, complicated spy plots, and horrifically cheap sets it never recovered from. The last three Wong films are utter disappointments. Listless trudges through familiar formulas without inspiration or style.
"Doomed to Die" is no exception. The cheapness of it and the lack of care hit you immediately like a bad smell. The cardboardy sets are overlit and the dull longshots always seem to somehow be off-center. There's a two-shot in the film in which Wong is seated on a couch talking to a man standing by a desk and neither of them is centred on the screen. It's a terrific display of negative space, however, but I'm not sure that's what director William Nigh had in mind.
The fact that most of the story is set in drab offices is not helpful at all. There is little variety in the sets in "Doomed to Die" and by the end, I was sick and tired of looking at grey walls and cheap office furniture.
The budget must have well and truly run out by this point because they've started reusing scenes from previous films. In a truly hilarious example of cost-cutting, the scene of Wong visiting the Tongs is reused from "Mr Wong in Chinatown" except for a couple of new close-ups in which the leader of the Tongs gives Wong new information. The only problem is that the leader of the Tongs is played by a different actor so every time we cut to a close-up of him we're looking at a different man! It's a screw-up of Ed Wood proportions.
The story revolving around the death of a shipping magnate sounds interesting but isn't. The death looks like a suicide but the gun is missing. There is a slew of possible suspects but most of them are poorly profiled and forgettable. Despite the usual gun-toting antics of the villains, there's no real sense of danger here and the mystery is curiously uninvolving. The plot unravels at a glacial pace and Michael Jacoby's script based on a story by Ralph Gilbert Bettison grows duller by the twist.
The supporting cast is back to being poor as well. Melvin Lang who plays the magnate doomed to die must be the worst actor in all the Wong films. His line delivery is criminal and I wish someone got Mr Wong to investigate how he even got the part.
Boris Karloff also seems a tad checked out here as well. His part is smaller than in the previous films and he's not given much to do. Still, he brings that easy charm and a commanding presence to the role which make him stand out even when he's not trying all that much.
The bulk of the investigation is carried out by Wong's friend on the force Captain Street (Grant Withers) and his ladyfriend the intrepid reporter Bobbie Logan (Marjorie Reynolds). Reynolds and Withers have shown that they can be funny together but the lines that Jacoby has written for them just don't spark. I didn't find their antics very funny at all.
"Doomed to Die" is a sad goodbye to what started as a promising series. The first two films which had Mr Wong investigating classical whodunnit mysteries were charming and entertaining but once the gangsters started seeping into the films and the budget started to seep out, the films grew worse and worse.
4/10 - DirectorPhil RosenStarsKeye LukeLotus LongGrant WithersDetective James Lee Wong is on the scene as archaeologist Dr. John Benton, recently returned from an expedition in China where a valuable ancient scroll was recovered, is murdered while giving a lecture on the expedition.With Boris Karloff busy shooting "The Ape" and Monogram Pictures contractually obliged to make another Mr Wong film, the studio made an almost unprecedented move. They cast a Chinese actor to play the film's Chinese lead making "Phantom of Chinatown" the first of these Oriental detective movies to star an actual Asian actor since 1929's "Behind That Curtain".
The actor chosen for the part was Keye Luke, best known to fans of Charlie Chan as his overenthusiastic number one son Lee. In those films, Luke was probably the finest comic relief actor I've ever seen. He perfectly juggled the film's more serious moments with the goofy antics he was given to perform and had real warmth and chemistry with his on-screen father Warner Oland.
I have always been sad that the speculated Lee Chan spin-off series of films never happened, so "Phantom of Chinatown" was of particular interest to me. Unfortunately, I don't think this film is a great taster of what that series could have been like since Keye Luke plays a very straight and serious character here.
"Phantom of Chinatown" is a prequel to the Boris Karloff Wong films made long before the word prequel was even invented. It shows the much younger and a little brasher Wong investigating his first case - the mysterious death of an archaeologist who recently returned from an expedition to China. The archaeologist is said to have been a mentor and old friend to Wong but this angle is very quickly forgotten.
While I'm absolutely certain that the charismatic Keye Luke could have easily carried a film of his own, he struggles here to play Mr Wong with the seriousness and level-headedness the part requires. He seems to be deliberately toning his comedic instincts down, lowering his voice, and stiffening his otherwise rather animated face. This and the unfortunate moustache he is forced to wear frequently make him appear like a gawky teenager pretending to be an adult.
Instead, it is Lotus Long who is the real star of the film playing the archaeologist's mysterious secretary Win Len. It's a real shame that Long didn't have a better and more varied career since she has a natural charm and air of mystery about her. She was wonderful in the previous Moto and Wong films and it's a real delight seeing her in a bigger part here. If the 1930s and 1940s were a more enlightened time, I'm sure she could have easily broken out of these "exotic" parts and played some iconic femmes fatale.
The only returning cast member from the previous Wong films is Grant Withers as Police Captain Street and it's a lot of fun watching Wong and Street's friendship develop throughout the film. The best moments in the film are the jokey, lighthearted interactions between Luke and Withers who play off of each other superbly.
The script, written by George Waggner based on a story by Ralph Bettinson, is a rather average mystery which takes some decidedly silly turns towards the end. Most of the plot is quite predictable, especially the killer's identity, and the twists which come at a saggy pace do little to excite.
Production-wise, however, "Phantom of Chinatown" is a few notches above the last two Wong films. The sets, although far from lavish, are a lot more convincing than the cardboardy ones we got in "Doomed to Die" and Phil Rosen's direction is more dynamic if no more stylish than William Nigh's.
Overall, "Phantom of Chinatown" is a perfectly decent "poverty row" mystery flick which is only notable for the casting of an Asian actor in a lead role. Otherwise, it is yet another in a slew of mediocre offerings made in the late 30s and early 40s by studios still hanging on to the classical mysteries which were rapidly going out of style.
5/10