Mr. Wong, Detective
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
William Nigh
Boris Karloff
Grant Withers
Maxine Jennings
Evelyn Brent
George Lloyd
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Soon after San Francisco businessman Simon Dayton asks for help from famous detective James Lee Wong to prevent his murder, Dayton is found dead in his office. The logical suspect is Carl Roemer, an inventor who had just threatened Dayton with a gun for stealing his formula. Because the police had been summoned after the threat, Captain Sam Street is on hand to arrest the scientist, but Wong is not convinced that Roemer is guilty. He finds thin particles of glass in Dayton's office, which lab experts tell him were originally shaped like a sphere and were made of extremely brittle Bavarian glass. Dayton's autopsy also reveals that he died from poison gas. Later Wong discovers that a duplicate he has made of the sphere shatters when certain sounds are emitted. As Street tries to build his case, his girl friend, Myra Ross, who was also Dayton's secretary, helps Wong because she is certain Roemer is innocent. When one of Dayton's partners, Christian Wilk, is also found murdered in a locked room beside the glass particles, Wong's suspicions turn to a baron and his companion, Olga, also known as the Countess Dubois. Next, Devlin, Roemer's other partner, is found murdered the same way. Because Roemer was in jail at the time, he is released and is invited by Wong to come to his home. The mystery is unfolded through a trap when Wong reveals that the glass sphere cracked at the sound of a police siren and that the sphere contained poison gas, which was to be sold to a foreign power through the agents, Olga and the Baron. Dayton's company was used to smuggle the poison out of the country. As a siren is heard in the background, Roemer jumps up and tries to flee, but Wong has used an empty sphere as a decoy. It is finally revealed that Roemer killed all of the men by planting the sphere, then much later, arranged for situations in which the police had to be summoned, thus causing the sphere to break.
Director
William Nigh
Cast
Boris Karloff
Grant Withers
Maxine Jennings
Evelyn Brent
George Lloyd
Lucien Prival
John St. Polis
William Gould
Hooper Atchley
John Hamilton
Wilbur Mack
Lee Tong Foo
Lynton Brent
Grace Wood
Frank Bruno
Crew
C. J. Bigelow
Houston Branch
Scott R. Dunlap
W. B. Eason
E. R. Hickson
William Lackey
Abe Meyer
Harry Neumann
Russell Schoengarth
Karl Zint
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Some reviews incorrectly list actor Lee Tong Foo as Tchin, the name of the character he played. This was the first film in Monogram's "Mr. Wong" series. Five additional films were made in 1939 and 1940, ending with Phantom of Chinatown in 1940. The first five films, all directed by William Nigh, starred Karloff as "Mr. James Lee Wong," and Grant Withers as "Street," whose first name and rank changed from film to film. Three of the films co-starred Marjorie Reynolds as "Street's" girl friend. The last film starred Keye Luke as "Jimmy Lee Wong," a college student studying criminology. For additional titles in the series, consult the Series Index. The 1947 Monogram film, Docks of New Orleans, directed by Derwin Abrahams and starring Roland Winters, was a partial remake of Mr. Wong, Detective, substituting the fictional detective "Charlie Chan" for "Mr. Wong" and moving the action to New Orleans.
