Bela Lugosi (Wong), Wallace Ford (Jason H. Barton), Arline Judge (Peg), Robert Emmett O'Connor (McGillicuddy), Fred Warren (Tsang), Lotus Long (Wong's niece, Moonflower), Edward Peil (Jen Wu, a Wong henchman), Luke Chan (Professor Fu), Lee Shumway (Brandon, the editor), Ernest F. Young (Chuck Roberts), Chester Gan (Tsang's agent), Theodore Lorch (incompetent Wong henchman), James B. Leong (Wong henchman), Richard Loo (bystander).Director: WILLIAM NIGH. Screenplay: Nina Howatt. Additional dialogue: James Herbeveaux. Adapted by Lew Levinson from the story "The Twelve Coins of Confucius" by Harry Stephen Keeler. Photography: Harry Neumann. Film editor: Jack Ogilvie. Art director: E.R. Hickson. Music director: Abe Meyer. Sound recording: J.A. Stransky. Producer: George Yohalem. Executive producer: Trem Carr.Copyright 12 January 1935 by Monogram Pictures Corporation. Filmed at RKO-Pathé studios in Culver City. New York opening at the Criterion: 6 March 1935. U.S. release: 25 January 1935. 7 reels. 63 minutes. SYNOPSIS: Under the guise of a tong war in Chinatown, the ambitious Wong attempts to gain possession of the twelve coins of Confucius which promise unlimited power to their owner. NOTES: One of only two movies made from the oddball mystery/crime writings of the highly idiosyncratic American novelist, Harry Stephen Keeler. The other, also released by Monogram Pictures Corporation in 1935: "Sing Sing Nights".Dorothy Lee was originally cast as the heroine, now played by Arline Judge.COMMENT: Some smart, wisecracking dialogue for brash reporter Wallace Ford and a nicely timed comic performance by Irish cop-on- the-beat Robert Emmett O'Connor, helps out a rather corny plot in which Bela Lugosi attempts (not too convincingly) to impersonate a typical Fu Manchu character. He seems hampered rather than helped by his make- up and costumes. The sprightly heroine is also forced to do battle with an unappealing outfit (the one with a ridiculously wide collar). Director Nigh (aided by Neumann's glossy black-and-white cinematography) does his best to keep the action moving along. Production values are comparatively lavish by Monogram standards, and include some unexpectedly large sets, doubtless courtesy of RKO.Sample dialogue:BRASH REPORTER: The paper sent me over to do the murder.IRISH COP: You're too late. It's already been done.

The Mysterious Mr. Wong (1934) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Reporter Jason Barton (Wallace Ford) begins to investigate a murder, which leads him to a set of twelve coins, which legend has can help a person control the world if they posses all of them. This investigation leads to Mr. Wong (Bela Lugosi) who appears to be willing to stop at nothing to get the final coin that he needs.THE MYSTERIOUS MR. WONG is exactly the type of "B" film you'd expect Monogram to release during this era. Obviously Fox was doing outstanding business with their Charlie Chan series so smaller studios were taking Asian characters and doing their own thing. This low- budget movie is pretty typical for the era but with Lugosi in the lead that adds a lot more fun to it.I said typical of the era because if you watch enough movies from this period then you'll realize that all sorts of them dealt with a reporter doing some sort of investigation. A lot of times these reporters were wise-cracking joksters who like to flirt with the ladies while throwing their nose at the real police. That form pretty much holds true here but thankfully Ford is a likable actor so he too helps keep the entertainment level high.As far as Lugosi goes, that accent certainly doesn't help his Asian character but it's Monogram so who cares, right? He's fun in the lead role and certainly helps keep the film moving at a nice pace even though the story is nothing special. William Nigh does a nice job with the movie and keeps it running at a good pace through its 62- minutes.

Have Tong wars gone out of style? Not according to the House of Wong, here with a Hungarian accent. "The Wrong Mr. Wong" an old friend of mine used to refer to this as, and indeed in comparison to good guy Boris Karloff's heroic Chinese detective (complete with British accent and lisp), Bela Lugosi's evil villain is closer to Karloff's Fu Manchu, or perhaps several of Lugosi's serial villains. This doesn't have the opulence of MGM's "The Mask of Fun Manchu", but is equally as tacky.Searching for the twelve coins of Confucius, Lugosi is as mad as the long nailed Fun Manchu, whether it be Karloff's or predecessor Warner Oland who by now had moved to the right side of the law as Charlie Chan. But when non-Asian actors play Asian characters, there's bound to be stereotyping and offense characteristics no matter if they are good or bad. Lugosi is fortunately mussing the broken Asian version that Oland, Karloff and much later both Christopher Lee and Peter Sellers would utilize, but the fact that he is so obviously Eastern European rather than Asian makes his performance all the worse.Adding comedy into the mix is Wallace Ford as a really idiotic reporter who seems to find more trouble than information for an article. A scene where he keeps walking into near death situations is played for laughs like a a Scooby Doo cartoon. The typical pompous but equally idiotic Irish cop adds more eye rolling, if innocent laughs. And try not to hear yourself say Mr. Wong's Tong Gong over and over when Ford's rather obnoxious female companion (Arline Judge) overhears the sound on the darkened middle of the night streets. Lugosi fans will have fun here as it is the epitome of everything that Lugosi could do to bring even the cheapest of his programmers to the lowest of the low is a pretty sorry state of affairs. Creaky pacing, wretched dialog, ridiculously dumb law enforcers and a one dimensional leading character makes this watchable nonsense and a definite lesson as to why old style Hollywood racism is just the worst example of prejudice at its most absurd. If you play a drinking game with this one and take a shot every time Lugosi's mustache dances, you'll be drunk within the first reel.

I am a fan of Bela Lugosi but I also realize that he often appeared in cheesy films. However, much of this cheese was actually a lot of fun to watch despite the low budgets and silly writing. Sadly, however, this film is neither well made nor is it cheesy fun--just amazingly dull.The film begins with the old Monogram Studios logo--the one with the monorails and zeppelins. Despite this cool start, I also immediately realized that because it was made by a so-called "Poverty Row" studio, that the budget and overall quality would be suspect.Wallace Ford is a rather obnoxious reporter (a standard cliché of the day) who is assigned to Chinatown due to some suspicious murders. At the heart of it all is Mr. Wong--but exactly WHO Wong is no one seems to know. Considering the film stars Lugosi, it doesn't exactly take a rocket scientist to figure it probably is him!! However, who thought that a Hungarian with a heavy accent would make a good Chinese-American?! And who would have thought that Lugosi actually looked and sounded MORE Chinese than his motley group of henchmen. They all sported Chinese-style clothes but looked about as Chinese as Mae West!! The film does have some killing and tossing of knives and even some bamboo shoots being inserted under the nails. Yet, because the acting is so flat, the script so limp that even these crazy story elements can't breathe life into this soggy biscuit. Perhaps the movie would have been better if Lugosi had actually played twins--then maybe two Wongs could have gotten it right! I should be ashamed of myself.A final note--The DVD version of this film I saw was from Passport Video and was of very dubious quality (it came in "The Bela Lugosi Box"). This company specializes in releasing public domain films and consistently does nothing to clean up the prints. This one was almost unwatchable due to terrible sound and no captioning. Also, Passport imprints their logo at the bottom right corner of the screen--which seems like a lot of nerve considering they didn't pay for the film!! Public domain AND emblazoning their name across it like they made the film?! Gimme a break. See if you can find a different and cleaner version.