Leaping into the breach after Warner Oland’s made his last Charlie Chan in 1937* (dead the next year), penny-pinching Monogram Pictures came up with their own ace YellowFace detective to fill the void starting in 1938 . . . at one-fifth the cost. (The 20th/Fox Chan pics were both well-produced and hugely profitable.) So, here’s Boris Karloff, sinking from Universal & Warners to Monogram as the Caucasian star playing Mr. Wong, yet hardly touching the makeup box. A bit of eye makeup (?), otherwise acting and speaking more like a British Prep School Don than a brilliant ‘Oriental’ crime solver. (Sly revenge or just budget conscious?) In any event, by the time the five Wong titles had run their course, there was a new Chan (Sidney Toler) installed at FOX who would, ironically, soon move over to Monogram, to replace WONG, but now on a starvation budget. The Wong films, at their best, harmless; this final entry doesn’t even bother to put WONG in the title. Plot? A shipping disaster leaves 400 dead and the company owner a probable suicide. Or did his daughter’s fiancé, scion of a rival ship company shoot hm? Enter Wong who naturally finds both explanations wong . . . I mean wrong! There are bickering cops & reporters, a car chase for some rare movement and a modicum of gunplay. Elsewise, journeyman director William Nigh seems to be watching the budget and not the dailies. Still, Karloff fans will want to see one of these. This was my second.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: For Karloff in full Asian war paint & Eastern wickedness, THE MASK OF FU MANCHU/’32 is unbeatable. (Politically correct blinders a must.) https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2010/01/mask-of-fu-manchu-1932.html
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Peter Lorre’s superior MR. MOTO series continued to serve this audience niche before politics ended its run with its two weakest entries out in ‘39. One of them, an unused, repurposed Charlie Chan script originally written for Warner Oland.
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