Tonight's Movie: Phantom of Chinatown (1940)

Keye Luke stars as amateur detective James Lee "Jimmy" Wong in PHANTOM OF CHINATOWN (1940).

The Mr. Wong mystery movies were based on Saturday Evening Post stories by Hugh Wiley. The first five films in the series, released by Monogram Pictures from 1938 through 1940, starred Boris Karloff as Mr. Wong. All five films were directed by William Nigh.

In 1940 the sixth and final film in the series was released with Keye Luke as the detective. The movie, directed by Phil Rosen, was a "prequel" to the other films, inasmuch as Wong meets Police Captain Street (Grant Withers) for the first time in this film. Withers had played the same role in all of the Karloff films.

PHANTOM OF CHINATOWN was Luke's only time to play Mr. Wong, and it's a shame, as both he and the movie are quite enjoyable. It may be a low-budget 62-minute Monogram Pictures film, but it delivers a solid hour of "B" mystery entertainment.

Dr. John Benton (Charles Miller) dies suddenly while giving a presentation at "Southern University" in San Francisco. Dr. Benton had recently returned from an expedition into the Mongolian Desert where he located an ancient tomb holding an important secret. His reveal of further details is thwarted by his assassination.

Jimmy Wong (Luke), one of Benton's students, works with Police Captain Street (Withers) and Benton's secretary Win Len (Lotus Long) to solve the murder and return an artifact which had been in Dr. Benton's possession back to China.

This is a well-done little movie which keeps up a good pace and maintains viewer interest. Luke is engaging as the sleuth, and while Long's line deliveries are a bit stiff, she's also appealing and certainly a unique leading lady for the era; I liked her. It's refreshing having Asian-Americans play leading roles and made me wish Hollywood had made more of this type of film.

Luke, who had already appeared in numerous entries in the Charlie Chan movie detective series, would soon begin playing ebullient intern Dr. Lee Wong How in MGM's Dr. Gillespie series, starting with DR. GILLESPIE'S NEW ASSISTANT (1942).

The Withers character is pretty well done in that he walks a line between playing the stock "B" mystery role of the buffoonish police sidekick with someone more intelligent who forms a solid partnership with his new friend.

Last year in a column for Classic Movie Hub I wrote something about "B" Westerns which also applies here: "A 'B' Western may have moments which give me a unique insight into history or the culture of the times in which the film was made..."

In the case of this movie, it sent me to Google to learn all about the Chinese Telephone Exchange, a key plot device in the film. The operators of this San Francisco exchange knew thousands of names and phone numbers by heart.

According to the article I read, the Chinese Telephone Exchange also plays a significant role in CHINATOWN AT MIDNIGHT (1949) starring Hurd Hatfield and Jean Willes for Columbia Pictures. The exchange closed the same year CHINATOWN AT MIDNIGHT was released, when dial phones were introduced.

Another interesting nugget, this time from IMDb, is that the car chase in the movie was filmed on La Cienega Boulevard in L.A.

The screenplay was by George Waggner, writing under the pseudonym of Joseph West. The black and white cinematography was by Fred Jackman Jr.

This film was recently shown on Turner Classic Movies. The title card curiously had replaced Monogram Pictures with the words Monarch Film Corporation, as seen here. I assume it must have been some sort of TV syndication company. I was particularly impressed with the film's soundtrack which was extremely crisp and clear. Watch for it to turn up on TCM again in the future.

For more on this film, please check out a 2014 review by Steve at Mystery File.