Our Monday Evening Chat/Film Viewing: "Mr. Wong in Chinatown"
Our film for this week’s Monday Evening Chat/Film Viewing feature will be the film that provided the plot for the first Roland Winters Chan film, “The Chinese Ring,” which we viewed together last week. “Mr. Wong in Chinatown,” starring Boris Karloff as Detective James Lee Wong, a San Francisco based sleuth. This film has a couple of connections with the Charlie Chan film series, First, Mr. Karloff appeared in a notable entry in the series, “Charlie Chan at the Opera,” as a worthy nemesis to Warner Oland’s Chan. Karloff also appeared in “Behind That Curtain,” a “proto-Chan” film from Fox Films from 1929. We also see Lee Tung Foo, an actor who would show up in three Charlie Chan movies, most memorably as the mysterious ship’s cook in “Dead Men Tell.” James Flavin, who plays a police Sergeant in our Mr. Wong picture also appeared in three Chan films, “Broadway,” “Honolulu,” and “Shanghai Cobra.” Richard Loo, a Tong Chief in our film, would have appeared in “The Golden Eye,” but his scene was cut from the final version. Finally, you may recognize I. Stanford Jolley from “The Chinese Cat” and “The Scarlet Clue.”
So, please join us in our Chat Room which is located HERE at our Charlie Chan Family Home. Please use any of the “Chat Room” links to join us. We begin with arrivals and greetings at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, and we roll our personal copies of our film exactly 30 minutes later.
Even if you cannot access a copy of the above-noted film, please do join us anyway, as you will NOT be left out of our ongoing chat and festivities. Also, as is our custom, newcomers are offered the seat of honor at our humble table. (Many of our films, such as this week’s entry, may be found available for viewing online through such outlets as YouTube, etc., although of late, the number has decreased markedly due, understandably, to copyright issues. Happily, a check just now reveals that “Mr. Wong in Chinatown” IS available at YouTube…!)
Thank you so much, and let’s meet for yet another fun Monday evening as we gather to watch “Mr. Wong in Chinatown.”
(PLEASE NOTE: If you would like to receive weekly email announcements regarding our Monday Evening Chats, as well as receive high-quality scanned movie still images (one per week) from our films of the week, please email us at: charliechanfamily@yahoo.com.)
