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THE MYSTERIOUS MR. WONG

Keeler, whose popularity in America had peaked by the time WONG was released, wrote dozens of novels in a style unlike any other. He invented a system of writing he called a "webwork," in which he developed a novel using complex diagrams that linked characters, props and locations into a semblance of order - though often the links in his webs were forged with outrageous coincidences and meandering, multi-chapter explanations. The raw material for these novels came from a huge file of strange news stories and odd tidbits of information chosen at random, then combined with hunks of Keeler's short stories and ideas cut out of earlier novels. Making the novels even more mind-bending is Keeler's delight in bizarre character names, near-indecipherable stretches of ethnic dialect, and stories set several years in the future (which allowed him to have his plots hinge on imaginary events, sci-fi gadgets and weird devices). Not knowing how else to classify his work, publishers marketed these works as mystery novels - though they're the kind of mysteries where the murder and the guilty party are only introduced in the last chapter.

Books by Keeler have been out of print since the 1940s in the USA (though his new works continued to be published in Spain until his death in the mid-1960s), but the last decade has seen a growing cult of Keeler fans develop, sending the prices of his old books skyrocketing. One of his best selling titles was 1928's SING SING NIGHTS, in which a trio of condemned men tell stories to compete for a pardon. Rights to SING SING NIGHTS were purchased by Monogram, who produced a film version of part of the novel in 1934. A second part of the book became THE MYSTERIOUS MR. WONG. Evidence suggests that a third film based on the section entitled "The Gorilla's Brain" was produced as well, though nothing concrete has turned up.

In the '30s, pulp-based Yellow Peril stories were still considered inoffensive by the general public. MGM had a hit with THE MASK OF FU MANCHU in 1932, and Monogram looked to WONG to be their own thrift store version of the famous Sax Rohmer villain. While Boris Karloff starred as a Fu Manchu seeking world domination by obtaining certain historical artifacts, Wong apparently only wants to be a big shot back in his old neighborhood in China.

Bela Lugosi suffered one setback after another after starring in DRACULA. While his rival Karloff was making a triumphal return in BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, Universal shut Lugosi out of the DRACULA sequel, and so Bela found himself curling his Hungarian accent around Cantonese dialogue as an ill-equipped Chinatown megalomaniac.

According to legend, if one man gains possession of all twelve coins of Confucius, he earns top billing in the Chinese province of Kelot. Wong's henchmen terrorize Chinatown by murdering anyone thought to have one of the coins, until Wong has but one coin left to go in his collection. Though officials think the killings point to a Tong war, reporter Jason Barton (Wallace Ford, who made a dozen pictures in 1935) thinks otherwise, and follows some loose clues to a shop owned by Wong, disguised as a mild-mannered herbalist. There, he makes himself a target by letting it slip that he may unknowingly have possession of a clue to the 12^th coin's location.

Barton returns to Chinatown later that night, this time bringing along wisecracking receptionist Arline Judge as his date. Handed the coin by a dying man, the pair find themselves on the run from one assassin after another, finally invading the secret passages of the House of Wong. This only gets them in deeper, as they run smack into Wong's private torture chamber - complete with a pit full of rats (which Monogram is too cheap to show).

Some of the dialogue and style of the script reflect Keeler, right down to the racial naiveté and awkward coincidences (Barton is helped out immensely by the fact that Wong has a phone within reach in his torture chamber). But things never reach the furious complexity of Keeler's prose, and most of the film is homogenized into a typical B movie potboiler thriller, with a touch of old fashioned horror thrown in. Perhaps someday a filmmaker will come along that can capture Keeler's madness on film. As for Lugosi, he returned to Monogram in the 1940s to star in nine more ridiculous-but-loveable turkeys.

Roan's transfer is fairly clean, making the film more enjoyable than ever, despite the splices, scratches and noise on the print - which appears to be complete, including the rarely seen Monogram and MPAA logos (some TV prints run as much as nine minutes shorter). DVD features are limited to a short text piece about the film, a worthless credit slide, and eleven chapter marks.