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| Everyone looks to the face of Boris Karloff's Mr. Wong on this well-crafted poster for William Nigh's The Fatal Hour |
A murder with ties to the smuggling waterfront of San Francisco requires the expertise of a certain Chinese detective: He is eloquent. He is shrewd. He is gallant. - He is Mr. Wong!
The Fatal Hour is by no means a great film, nor even a good one. It was the fourth and penultimate Mr. Wong film for Boris Karloff (Suspense (1949-53)), who heightens the mysterious lead, detective Wong with his special outlandish glow.
Cinematically these low-budget crime tales were often extremely uninventive, and The Fatal Hour is no exception. It comes off as more than a tad dull, and Karloff is about the only substantial quality in it and reason to see this one.
It is written by Scott Darling (Behind Green Lights (1946)) and George Waggner (Jane Wyman Presents the Fireside Theater (1957-58)), based on the Colliers magazine short stories of Mr. Wong by Hugh Wiley, and directed by William Nigh (Hoosier Schoolboy (1937)).
Related posts:
William Nigh: Black Dragons (1942) or, The Sinister Foreigner Attacks!
The Ape (1940) or, The Costume-Crazed Doctor
Doomed to Die (1940) - Karloff's last Mr. Wong movie is a good one
Here is a previous Mr. Wong film, Mr. Wong in Chinatown (1939)
Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertain
[The Fatal Hour was released 15 January (USA) and runs 68 minutes. It was shot in Hollywood and San Francisco. Karloff's last Mr. Wong film was Doomed to Die (1940). A sixth and final Mr. Wong movie was made with Keye Luke as the detective, Phantom of Chinatown (1940). Karloff returned in British Intelligence (1940), one of the 8 (!) films he was in in 1940. Nigh returned with Son of the Navy (1940), one of 4 films he directed that year. The film is now in public domain and can be seen and downloaded free and legally right here. 829 IMDb users have given The Fatal Hour a 5.5/10 average rating.]
What do you think of The Fatal Hour?
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