Mysterious Mr. Wong

The Mysterious Mr. Wong (1935) was Bela Lugosi's first film for Monogram Pictures, predating the nine films he'd make for the studio and producer Sam Katzman.

Obviously inspired by the success of Boris Karloff's The Mask Of Fu Manchu (1932), here we find Lugosi's Wong in search of twelve oriental coins believed to bring extraordinary powers to their possessor.Wong deploys his murderous henchman to round up the coins, which are now scattered throughout New York's Chinatown, which is where Lugosi resides, conveniently enough.

Director William Nigh would become an old hand at this type of mock-Asian nonsense, directing the Mr. Wong mystery series starring Karloff and Lugosi in Black Dragons (1942).(He also directed Lon Chaney in the silent Mr. Wu.)

The Mysterious Mr. Wong finds Lugosi at his hand clutching, world domination plotting best, chewing the scenery as only he could (playing and Asian with Hungarian accent intact).And in typical Poverty Row fashion, we're treated to torture chambers, secret passageways, murder and plenty of mayhem.Great stuff.