Phantom of Chinatown (1940)

Phantom of Chinatown was the sixth and last of the Mr Wong crime B-movies made by Monogram Pictures between 1938 and 1940 (although the print credits this one to Monarch Films).

The five earlier movies all starred Boris Karloff as Mr Wong and all were directed by William Nigh. For this sixth movie Phil Rosen took over as director. Keye Luke took over the role of Mr Wong and this was a significant change. Karloff’s Mr Wong was an avuncular middle-aged English-educated Chinese gentleman. Keye Luke’s Mr Wong is a much younger man (Keye Luke was seventeen years younger than Karloff) and he’s very Americanised. This is a totally different Mr Wong. And there’s a change in tone - this movie begins with some touches of both horror and adventure as an archaeological expedition searches for fabulous treasures in a lost tomb in Mongolia. The tomb is reputed to be protected by a curse.

In the earlier movies everyone calls Mr Wong Mr Wong. In this movie people call him Jimmy (Mr Wong is James Lee Wong). In this movie he seems to be strictly an amateur detective.

Captain Street of the Homicide Squad appears in all the earlier movies but in this movie he and Mr Wong have never met before. One explanation is that this movie is a sort of origin story, showing us Jimmy Wong at the start of his career as a detective.

Today we would describe these changes as representing nothing less than an attempt at a reboot of the franchise.

Sadly the attempt failed. Keye Luke was a fine actor but he lacked Karloff’s huge box-office drawing power and distributors were not interested in Mr Wong movies without Karloff.

Phantom of Chinatown begins with an audience listening to a lecture from Dr Benton, the leader of the expedition that had sought to find the Temple of the Eternal Flame in Mongolia. Dr Benton suddenly keels over in the middle of the lecture, dead. And it was murder. He was poisoned.

Jimmy Wong, who been one of Dr Benton’s students, is on the scene.

Jimmy spots a couple of clues that the police have missed. Captain Street decides to bring Jimmy in on the case.

During his lecture Dr Benton had shown film footage shot during the expedition and Jimmy Wong suspects that there’s a clue in that film.

The story is quite good but I found the ending to be just a bit of a letdown.

Grant Withers once again plays Captain Street of the Homicide Squad but he’s a very different character to the one we saw in the previous movie. He’s much more easy-going and much less hardbitten.

Casting a relatively unknown Chinese male lead was a commercial risk and just as risky was the decision to have an Asian female lead. Lotus Long plays Dr Benton’s Chinese secretary although the actress was in fact half-Japanese and half-Hawaiian. She’s OK but her performance is just a little flat.

Once you get past the fact that this is not the Mr Wong of the earlier films Keye Luke’s performance is pretty good.

VCI’s Mr Wong Collection offers all six movies on two DVDs. Phantom of Chinatown gets a pretty decent transfer.

Phantom of Chinatown is lightweight but quite enjoyable although Karloff’s star power is sorely missed. Recommended.

I’ve reviewed the Mr Wong short story collection by Hugh Wiley, Murder by the Dozen. I’ve also reviewed most of the earlier Mr Wong movies - Mr Wong, Detective (1938), The Mystery of Mr Wong (1939), Mr Wong in Chinatown (1939), The Fatal Hour (AKA Mr Wong at Headquarters, 1940).