PHANTOM OF CHINATOWN

US, 1940, 62 minutes, Black-and-white.
Keye Luke, Lotus Long, Grant Withers, Charles Miller, John Dilson.
Directed by Phil Rosen.

Phantom of Chinatown is the sixth in a series featuring Jimmy Lee Wong, Detective Wong. He was played in five films by Boris Karloff whose contract ran out and Keye Luke was called in. He is very serious in this role, efficient in his work – something of a contrast between his comic turns as Charlie Chan’s son in the Warner Oland films in the series.

The film has an interest in exotic China, opening with some footage of an expedition to discover a sacred temple. Information is given about the members of the expedition, the professor, his daughter and her fiance the pilot, the cinematographer, the co-pilot who disappeared.

At a lecture in San Francisco, the professor collapses, having been poisoned. There are various suspects including the professor’s Chinese secretary. Researcher Jimmy Wong arrives, interacts with the detective, a sympathetic and gruff performance by Grant Withers, discovers the means of the poisoning.

Quite a number of interrogations, the audience learning that the co-pilot had survived and was plotting against the professor. Then there is the revelation that the young woman works for the Chinese government, that the scroll from the temple contains residue of oil – which means then that the criminals want to capitalise on oil exploration in China. There are several murders – and the revelation that the cinematographer was in cahoots with the co-pilot and was betraying him.

Detective Wong is the hero and the case is solved. Direction is by Phil Rosen, who worked with Thomas Edison, directed a number of small budget features including Charlie Chan films.