Linkshoch Wonderful Movie

Dotbankey A lot of fun.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Kayden This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

mark.waltz A great opening sets up Boris Karloff's last appearance as the Chinese detective who isn't a thorn in the side of police investigator Grant Withers. That would be reporter Marjorie Reynolds who continues to taunt Withers for her abilities (and his apparent disabilities) in crime solving. In this case, it's the murder of a wealthy businessmen with the main suspect being young Guy Usher who wanted to marry the man's daughter (Catherine Craig) which her father violently opposed. Of course, there's other suspects, of the business rival variety, and those aren't as interesting as the family aspect of the case. This is the one time in the series where Wong gets a bit too close for someone's comfort, resulting in a few close calls for him, the only real notable element in this film. The Reynolds/Withers antagonism here goes a bit too far, with Reynolds becoming so obnoxiously annoying at one point that it wouldn't be beyond reason for Withers to stuff something in her mouth and lock her in a closet, or dispatch her himself and gladly turn himself in for the crime. Karloff ends his participation in the series seemingly relieved, and never worked at Monogram studios again.

Byrdz This about sums up what there is of a plot. "Mr. Wong and a girl reporter investigate a shipping magnate's murder. " BUT there is more. It's got lots of atmosphere... foggy nights and dimly lit buildings. It's got Karloff as University educated Mr. Wong. It's got a collection of stereo-typically Hollywood variety Chinese. It's got a funny girl reporter and a rather clueless cop who banter back and forth in really snappy dialogue. She wears an astonishing variety of hats including one with a particularly annoying feather. It's got plot holes galore and things get rather confusing here and there but in the end it doesn't matter one iota .. it was a fun movie and it has the voice of the Grinch .. who can ask for anything more ?

sddavis63 I confess to not being familiar with the character of James Lee Wong, and since there had apparently been several Wong movies made prior to this one, I'm at a bit of a disadvantage. The character is what seems to have been a fairly standard cliché of the era - the brilliant Chinese (or at least Oriental, in the language of the day) detective. There's Charlie Chan, Mr. Moto and apparently James Lee Wong, whom I had never heard of. He was played by Boris Karloff, who really didn't look Chinese, but there don't seem to have been a lot of high profile Asian actors available back in the 30's.Mr. Wong in this movie is hired to find out who killed shipping magnate Cyrus Wentworth (Melvin Lang.) There's an obvious suspect - the son of one of Wentworth's bitterest rivals who also wants to marry Wentworth's daughter, and who was alone with Wentworth just before the shot was fired, but we know that would have been too easy and that there must have been another killer. That's the mystery to be unravelled. There are a lot of possible killers, and it's a bit hard to keep track of at times. There's some humour rolled into this, portrayed in the relationship between police captain Street (Grant Withers) and intrepid reporter Bobbie Logan (Marjorie Reynolds.)There's nothing really wrong with this. It confronts the viewer with a pretty good guessing game, but as someone who has never before been exposed to the exploits of James Lee Wong, there was also nothing here that would make me desperate to see any of the other films in the series. (5/10)

zboston3 I'd heard of these Mongram potboilers but never seen one before, and while Karloff is the marquee attraction, several of the other actors steal large chunks of the show. There's a wise cracking chauffeur who's always climbing up fire escapes, and then there's the thick headed police captain and the chirpy news reporter - are they sleeping together - they sure bicker like a married couple. The mystery isn't too involving, and the flick suffers from the shoestring budget - the sets, the music, some of the other actors, all could have been better if more money had been spent. It's too bad for Karloff to be stuck in such a film, but everybody's got to eat.