THE FATAL HOUR

US, 1940, 68 minutes, Black and white.
Boris Karloff, Grant Withers, Marjorie Reynolds.
Directed by William Nigh.

The Fatal Hour is the fourth of the Mr. Wong murder mysteries featuring Boris Karloff as the very polished but enigmatic detective in San Francisco. There were five films in all, from 1939 to 1941.

Asian detectives were very popular in series at this time, the Mr. Moto series as well as the Charlie Chan series.

The film is topical, a murder mystery set on the San Francisco waterfront, involving smuggling of Chinese jade pieces. Mr. Wong is an expert on Chinese art history.

The film focuses on a club near the waterfront and its owner and sinister goings on. A femme fatale is involved, liaising with the son of a dealer in jewellery, who is suddenly murdered. He had been in arrangements with the owner of the club for smuggling.

The young man is under suspicion for killing his father. A lot of meetings take place in a hotel room, with Detective Street, Grant Withers from the other Mr. Wong films, as well as Mr. Wong himself. As in all the films, there are plenty of suspects. However, Mr. Wong uses in his ingenuity, working with remote controls, interruption of phone calls and other 1940 technology. And the villain turns out to be the suave manager of the hotel. Jason Robards Sr. Has a role as a radio personality, one of the characters who is murdered.

Detective Street tends to rant, rave and bluster over much this time. And Marjorie Reynold’s as Roberta Logan is there to help solve the crime, and have the
courtesy of Mr. Wong phoning in her article and her heroism to her newspaper.

The film is interesting of its kind, but a modest small-budget supporting film, of historical interest. San Francisco police headquarters must be the smallest and barest offices in cinema history.

But the film will be of particular interest to followers of Boris Karloff’s career. This performance is quite far from his many appearances in horror films, a much more urbane and intelligent performance than many of his fans might be used to.