The last of the five William Nigh-directed, Boris Karloff-starring Mr. Wong movies, this one starts when Cyrus P. Wentworth (Melvin Lang), the head of a shipping company, is killed by Dick Fleming (William Stelling), the son of his rival. He had wanted to marry Wentworth’s daughter Cynthia (Catherine Craig), but her father refused. Now, she wants Mr. Wong to prove that Dick is innocent.
The Wentworth family has been dealing with another tragedy as one of their ships, the Wentworth Castle, caught fire and sank with all 400 of the passengers and crew. That footage is real and is the burning of the SS Morro Castle, which caught fire on September 8, 1934 during a trip from Havana to New York City.
Mr. Wong has contacts within the tongs, Chinese secret societies, which help him find out the truth. He also, as always, has help from Capt. William Street (Grant Withers) and Roberta Logan (Marjorie Reynolds).
I’m kind of sad to come to the end of these five movies. But hey — now that I have the set, I can always go back and watch them all over again.
The Kino Lorber blu ray release of the Mr. Wong Collection has new HD masters of each of the five films — with a 2K scan of the fine grains — and this comes with audio commentary for Mr. Wong, Detective by Tom Weaver and Larry Blamire. You can get it from Kino Lorber.
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