Benson Fong Movies
The story goes that Benson Fong was a California grocer when, in 1943, he was asked by a talent scout if he'd like to be in a movie (Asian types were, of course, highly sought after during the War years). Actually, Fong had been accepting occasional movie bit parts as early as 1937. After his requisite wartime appearances as hateful Japanese soldiers and courageous Chinese freedom fighters, Fong showed up as Charlie Chan's "number three son" Tommy in four Monogram-produced "Chan" programmers. On the advice of his friend Gregory Peck, Fong added to his acting income by becoming a successful restaurateur, with several top eateries in the southern California region to his name. Active in films into the 1980s, Benson Fong also showed up from time to time on TV, notably as "The Old One" on Kung Fu. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1936
"Warner Oland vs. Boris Karloff" read the billing on the opening credits of Charlie Chan at the Opera. Karloff plays a once-famous opera star who has long been confined to an insane asylum. He escapes, ostensibly to seek revenge on the diva wife (Nedda Harrigan) who'd betrayed him years earlier. Karloff shows up during the performance of a new opera, and within minutes the murders start. Detective William Demarest figures the case is open and shut, but oriental sleuth Charlie Chan (Oland) is not thoroughly convinced of Karloff's guilt--nor is he certain that Boris is genuinely insane. To give away the ending would be churlish, but we can note that Charlotte Henry plays Karloff's daughter, who has been raised to believe that her father was dead. Considered by some Charlie Chan fans to be the best of the Warner Oland efforts, Charlie Chan at the Opera is distinguished by excellent production values, and by an original opera composed by Oscar Levant--who allegedly agreed to this assignment provided he could include the word "Silencio!" in his lyrics. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Warner Oland, Boris Karloff, (more)
- 1943
Behind the Rising Sun is a rarity: a WW2 film with a handful of sympathetic Japanese characters. His eyes slanted by the RKO makeup department, Tom Neal plays Taro, the Americanized son of a Japanese diplomat (J. Carroll Naish). During the Sino-Japanese war, Taro's father insists that the boy leave the US and join the Japanese army. Indoctrinated in the "Banzai" mentality of the empirical government, Taro is transformed into an enemy of the West, going so far as to betray his best friend ly inebriated millionaire. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Based on the novel by A.J. Cronin, The Keys of the Kingdom was the first big-budget effort of movie-newcomer Gregory Peck. This is the 137-minute chronicle of a Scottish priest (Peck), who is assigned a mission in China. Never very focused in his life or work, the priest finds plenty to keep his mind occupied in his new post; when he isn't coping with the starvation and poverty plaguing his flock, he must contend with China's bloody civil war. Nonetheless, he perseveres, and finds it difficult as an elderly man to retire. He returns to Scotland, where he finds a new purpose in life; that of ministering to youngsters who, like him, have trouble determining their place in the world. Keys of the Kingdom was one of the last 20th-Century-Fox films produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz before his career-shift to directing; Rose Stradner, Mankiewicz' then-wife, has an important role in the film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gregory Peck, Thomas Mitchell, (more)
This lavish, 145-minute cinemadaptation of the Pearl Buck best-seller Dragon Seed was intended by MGM as a followup to the studio's successful film version of Buck's The Good Earth. In true Hollywood fashion, the Chinese protagonists are all played by Caucasian actors, with fascinating if not always convincing results. When a peaceful Chinese village is invaded by the Japanese prior to WW2, the men elect to adopt a peaceful, don't-rock-the-boat attitude towards their conquerors-and it is understood that the women will stoically acquiesce as well. But Jade (Katharine Hepburn), a headstrong young woman, intends to stand up to the Japanese whether her husband Lao Er (Turhan Bey) approves or not. She even goes so far as to learn to read and to handle a weapon, so that she may properly equipped for both psychological and physical combat. Jade's attitude spreads to the rest of the village, convincing even the staunchest of male traditional that the Japanese can be defeated only by offering a strong united front-male and female. Alas, there are a few Quislings in their midst, notably avaricious merchant Wu Lien (Akim Tamiroff), who learns all too late the terrible cost of collaboration. While it seems odd to see so many non-Orientals-Walter Huston, Agnes Moorehead, Hurd Hatfield, J. Carroll Naish-in the major roles, Dragon Seed manages to retain its power and entertainment value even 50 years after the fact (Incidentally, there are a few genuine Chinese in the cast-most of them playing Japanese!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Katharine Hepburn, Walter Huston, (more)
- 1944
Pearl S. Buck's novel China Sky is boiled down to a wartime romantic triangle, courtesy of commercial-minded RKO. Randolph Scott and Ruth Warrick play American doctors in a remote Chinese village. The relationship is platonic, but Scott's spiteful wife Ellen Drew suspects hanky-panky. Despite these turgid soap-opera events, World War II has to be fought, and fought it is thanks to guerilla leader Anthony Quinn and insidious Japanese POW Richard Loo, who tries to win half-Japanese doctor Philip Ahn over to the Rising Sun. Halfway down the cast as "the goat" is Chinese juvenile actor Ducky Louie, who enjoyed a brief 1940s stardom in such films as China's Little Devils (1945) and Black Gold (1947), reteaming with Anthony Quinn in the latter film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Randolph Scott, Ruth Warrick, (more)
The year is 1942: eight American airmen crash-land during the Doolittle bombing raid on Tokyo and are taken prisoner. Though slated for execution, the pilots are put through a "show trial" by the military, on a charge of committing war crimes. The Japanese judges promise to be merciful if only the Americans will reveal vital US military secrets. But captain Dana Andrews speaks for the rest of his melting-pot crew-some of whom have been subjected to the most horrific of tortures--when he chooses death before dishonor. In its own way, The Purple Heart is as racist a piece of propaganda as was ever produced by Hollywood. The Japanese are shown to be little more than sadistic beasts (at one point, the judges interrupt the trial by moronically shouting "Banzai" after receiving news of a military victory), while hissing, buck-toothed interrogator Richard Loo ("I attended your...Amelican universities"), unable to admit that he's been wrong about Yankee resilience, commits hara-kiri. Remember, however, that The Purple Heart was made at a time when America was still at war with Japan, and political correctness was hardly a consideration. Its jingoism aside, the film is a first-rate piece of moviemaking, socked across by director Lewis Milestone with the same fervor that he'd expended on his anti-war masterpiece All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, (more)
- 1944
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Having ended its 11-year run at 20th Century-Fox, the "Charlie Chan" series set up shop at Monogram with the singularly uninspiring Charlie Chan in the Secret Service. Sidney Toler returns as the famed oriental detective, who, per the title, is now a government agent. His first assignment is to solve the murder of an inventor and recover the victim's secret plans. Two reels into the picture, all action grinds to a halt as Chan wearily interrogates the suspects. The identity of the murderer might have caught some filmgoers by surprise in 1944, but seasoned mystery fans will beon to the game the minute the culprit is introduced. The one saving grace of Charlie Chan in the Secret Service is the stereotypical but undeniably funny comedy relief of Mantan Moreland, making his first appearance as pop-eyed chauffeur Birmingham Brown. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sidney Toler, Gwen Kenyon, (more)
Charlie Chan's second mystery for Poverty Row company Monogram, The Chinese Cat is one of the inscrutable detective's better efforts. Director Phil Rosen keeps things moving at a reasonably expedient pace -- especially for a Monogram programmer -- and although the denouement is no big surprise, armchair detectives at least have no trouble keeping up with the redoubtable sleuth (Sidney Toler). Leah Manning (Joan Woodbury), of the San Francisco Mannings, enlists Chan's help in solving the murder of her stepfather (Sam Flint), whose slain body was found in his hermetically sealed study. The police have given up and only Charlie's deducing can refute a scurrilous book that blames Mrs. Manning (Betty Blythe), Leah's mother, for the crime. There are, of course, several worthy suspects, including a gang of diamond thieves lead by Catlen (Anthony Warde), the dead man's business partner (Cy Kendall), and even a "ghost" who isn't quite what he appears (John Davidson). A poisonous gas attack and the less than helpful efforts of Number Three Son (Benson Fong) complicate matters briefly, but Chan is, as always, on top of things all of the time and can soon reveal the identity of the guilty party. Comic sidekick Mantan Moreland has fun in a fun house, Fong is a worthy addition to Charlie's less than brainy brood (Number Three Son is, as Chan points out, "weak limb to which no family tree may point with pride"), and silent screen veterans Betty Blythe and Ian Keith do well enough with their limited assignments. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sidney Toler, Joan Woodbury, (more)
Billed third, Spencer Tracy plays Lt. Col. James P. Doolittle, who led the bombing raid over Tokyo. Most of the footage concerns pilot Ted Lawson (Van Johnson), who loses a leg while escaping from China after the attack; other subplots concern the meticulous preparations for the raid, and the individual exploits of those Doolittle flyers who crashed into the sea or were captured by the Japanese. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Van Johnson, Robert Walker, (more)
Just as Edgar C. Ulmer would at PRC around the same time, young Phil Karlson turned Monogram's almost nonexistent production values to his advantage in two Charlie Chan whodunits: The Shanghai Cobra (1945) and Dark Alibi (1946). Karlson added touches of film noir to the usual hoary Chan melodramatics and the result was arguably the best of the Monogram "Chans." In The Shanghai Cobra, Charlie (Sidney Toler) is investigating several murders connected with the manufacture of wartime radium. The employees of a bank connected with the radium experiments have an unfortunate tendency to get themselves killed by the injection of cobra venom. Charlie remembers a similar case back in Shanghai in 1935, but the suspect in those murders escaped. Since his face was damaged in an explosion, the only tell-tale sign to identify him is by a streak of white in an otherwise jet-black mane -- unless of course the murderer has heard of hair dye. As always, Charlie's faithful if bumbling companions, Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland) and Tommy, the Number Three Son (Benson Fong), are along for the ride, offering their now patented sidekick humor. Toler, whose fondness for imbibing on the job was legendary, could basically sleepwalk through his role by 1945 and does so here. As for director Karlson's noir-ish touches, they quickly give way to business as usual, but the opening scenes of The Shanghai Cobra remain quite evocative. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sidney Toler, James B. Cardwell, (more)
- 1945
This WW II drama is the first to deal with the fateful atomic bomb attack on Japan. Originally, the film centered on the acquisition of a new kind of gun, but as it was in production during the time the Bomb was dropped, the producers were quick to change the story to suit the times. It tells the story of a straight-arrow American pilot who was raised in Japan and is asked to return there to get a captured scientist to garner valuable information about the A-bomb. The pilot, Major Ross, realizes that he will not survive the mission, but as he has just lost his lover, he cares little for life. Before he goes, his face is surgically altered so he looks Japanese and he then infiltrates the camp where the scientist is being held. There he finds his girl friend, an army nurse, who has also been captured. Unfortunately, she has fallen in love with a fellow inmate. The determined Major Ross remains focused and completes his mission, but not before encountering considerable danger at the hands of enemy officers. The end of the film features actual newsreel footage of nuclear bombings from Pathe. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbara Hale, Richard Loo, (more)
Edward Dmytryk's Back to Bataan stars John Wayne as Colonel Joe Madden. After General MacArthur decides to follow his order and leave the Philippines, Madden agrees to stay behind and organize an underground resistance movement. Anthony Quinn plays Andres Bonifacio, a captain who falls in love with a local woman (Fely Franquelli) who helps the army keep their rag-tag forces as organized as possible. Bonifacio must also deal with the pressure of being the grandson of a beloved Filipino leader. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Wayne, Anthony Quinn, (more)
- 1945
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Based on the '30s comic-strip character, Secret Agent X-9 was a black-and-white adventure serial from Universal. This 1945 version stars a young Lloyd Bridges as the American hero Phil Corrigan, also known as Secret Agent X-9. He joins up with Chinese agent Ah Fong (Keye Luke) and Australian agent Lynn Moore (Jan Wiley) to defeat the bad guy, Japanese agent Nabura (Victoria Horne). ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
Birmingham Brown joins pal Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) in solving this missing government documents mystery, set at a New York City radio station. Various media types are satirized in this unorthodox entry in the Monogram Pictures series. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
- 1945
The bland performance of star George Raft is the only drawback of this splashy 20th Century-Fox musical. Set in turn-of-the-century San Francisco, the film casts Raft as Barbary Coast saloonkeeper Tony Angel, who endears himself to patrons and pedestrians alike by tossing out silver dollars at the slightest provocation. Though Tony is loved by saloon singer Sally Templeton (Vivian Blaine), he only has eyes for Nob Hill socialite Harriet Carruthers (Joan Bennett). Upon marrying Harriet, Tony realizes he is sorely outclassed, and turns to the bottle as the result. It's up to "Little Miss Fixit" Katie Flanagan (Peggy Ann Garner) to bring Tony and Sally back together. Ample comedy relief is provided by Alan Reed and B. S. Pully, while the largely uncredited supporting cast includes such familiar faces as J. Farrell McDonald, Nestor Paiva, Bud Jamieson, and Frank McCown, who rose to fame under the new moniker of Rory Calhoun. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Raft, Joan Bennett, (more)
- 1945
More tightly scripted than most of the Monogram Charlie Chan whodunits, The Scarlet Clue is set in a radio station that, rather fortuitously, is located in the same building as a government research lab. It's wartime, and the Chinese master detective (Sidney Toler) is searching for the killer of an enemy agent. The trail leads to the aforementioned radio station, where the owner of a soap opera, Mrs. Marsh (Virginia Brissac), is terrorizing her hard-working actors. The sneaky-looking station manager, Ralph Brett (I. Stanford Jolley), is reporting back to an unknown boss; a blackmailing actress (Janet Shaw) is poisoned; and the halls are haunted by a former Shakespearean star turned horror actor, Horace Carlos (Leonard Mudie, whose character is obviously patterned after Boris Karloff), and a Swedish char woman (Victoria Faust), who, so help her, says "yumpin' yimini!" As always, Chan's detective work is interrupted on occasion by the antics of manservant Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland) and dense Number Three Son, Tommy Chan (Benson Fong). One of the villains literally "gets the shaft" and Monogram fearlessly flirts with a potential new media rival: television. The pièce de résistance is a couple of very funny vaudeville turns by African-American comedians Mantan Moreland and Ben Carter. All in all, The Scarlet Clue makes for an entertaining enough hour or so. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sidney Toler, Benson Fong, (more)
- 1946
In this episode of the popular detective series, Chan learns that fake fingerprints have caused innocent people to go to prison. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1946
Deception is an operatic rehash of the 1929 film Jealousy. Music teacher Bette Davis--who evidently has a large student pool, judging by the size of her penthouse apartment--is reunited with her cellist lover Paul Henreid, whom she believed to have been killed in the war. Henreid wants to marry Davis, but he is unaware that she has, for the past several years, been the "protege" of composer Claude Rains. Rains agrees to keep quiet about his affair with Davis, but takes sadistic delight in tormenting the woman and working behind the scenes to sabotage Henreid's career. When Rains tells Bette of his plans to publicly humiliate Henreid, she shoots her ex-lover dead. Henreid agrees to stand by Davis no matter what is in store for her. Director Irving Rapper had originally wanted to treat the hoary plot twists of Deception comically, with the three principals walking off together at the end with a "what the hell?" attitude. He was tersely told to stick to the script; after all, people didn't pay to see Bette Davis but to see her suffer. Like the 1929 version of Jealousy, Deception was based on a play by Louis Verneuil. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, (more)
- 1946
Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) heads south of the border in this so-so series entry. With the help of Mexican police official Luis (Fortunio Bonanova), Chan looks high and low for a stolen atomic-bomb formula. The oriental detective is also "aided" by his son Tommy (Benson Fong) and his chauffeur Chattanooga (Willie Best, subbing for Mantan Moreland) two of the most inept assistants in the history of the movies. The gimmick in this film is a mysterious murder weapon which seemingly disappears from the face of the earth the moment it has been used. Though more expensive looking than most of Monogram's Charlie Chan films, The Red Dragon isn't one of the series' more exciting efforts. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sidney Toler, Fortunio Bonanova, (more)
- 1947
Alan Ladd stars in Calcutta as devil-may-care pilot Neale Gordon. With his equally fearless partners Pedro Blake (William Bendix) and Bill Cunningham (John Whitney), Gordon handles the air-freight route between Calcutta and Chungking. When Cunningham meets his death at the hands of jewel smugglers, Gordon vows to play judge and jury and bring the criminals to justice himself. Among the suspects are the film's two gorgeous leading ladies, sweetie-pie Virginia Moore (Gail Russell) and sultry nightclub singer Merina Tanev (June Duprez). Once Gordon figures out who his real friends are, he relies on his fists to mete out retribution, resulting in one sequence that's guaranteed to raise the hackles of every feminist in the crowd. Even with a short running time of 73 minutes, Calcutta secured top-of-the-bill bookings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alan Ladd, Gail Russell, (more)
- 1948
The scene is Shanghai: the time, WW II. An international group of women left stranded during the Japanese invasion are rounded up by the local authorities to act as "comfort girls" for high-ranking Nazi and Japanese officials. Bridling at this degrading treatment, the ladies secretly work on behalf of the Chinese Underground, relaying vital information to the Allies and, at one point, committing murder in the name of Democracy. The plot thickens with the introduction of a Nazi "cosmic ray" device, which OSS operative Van Arnheim (William Henry) hopes to destroy before it can be used in battle. Van Arnheim's courageous wife is played by Virginia Christine, light-years removed from her stint as "Mrs. Olsen" in the Folger's Coffee TV commercials. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tala Birell, William Henry, (more)
- 1948
Chronic gambler Ellen Crane (Paulette Goddard) indulges in games of chance to compensate for the loss of her boyfriend during WW2. Heavily in debt to gambling czar Lonnie Burns (Fred Clark), Ellen promises to marry him to clear her financial slate, but in the cold light of day she rethinks her decision and takes it on the lam. The irascible Burns hires detective J. D. Storm (Macdonald Carey) to track Ellen down and bring her back. After a hectic cross-country pursuit, Ellen and Storm come to realize what the audience has predicted all along: they've fallen in love with each other. This very standard assembly-line comedy is redeemed by its character actors, notably squeaky-voiced Percy Helton as a "three time loser" jailbird. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paulette Goddard, MacDonald Carey, (more)
- 1949
In this final episode of the Boston Blackie mystery series, our hero and his side-kick find themselves accused of murder after they are seen exiting a Chinese laundry where the proprietor is soon found murdered. Blackie must find the real killers before he gets in real trouble. Action and mystery ensue. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chester Morris, Joan Woodbury, (more)
- 1949
Hurd Hatfield, star of MGM's lavish Picture of Dorian Gray (1944) finds himself in shabbier surroundings in Columbia's Chinatown at Midnight. Hatfield is cast as a homicidal thief Clifford Ward who picks no favorites when choosing his victims. The film is evenly divided between Ward's heinous activities and the methodical police investigation conducted by San Francisco police captain Howard Brown (Tom Powers). Columbia contractee Jean Willes plays a young innocent who is forced to accompany Ward during his escape, while Jacqueline de Wit is cast as the killer's foredoomed accomplice. Other performers on the premises include the always reliable Benson Fong and Victor Sen Yung. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hurd Hatfield, Jean Willes, (more)
Inspired by the 1949 hit A Letter to Three Wives, this takes the other side of the coin with a deceased playboy leaving letters to the husbands accusing their wives of having had affairs with him. Although the 1949 hit was done as a dramatic treatise on the reactions of the wives to the revelations, this movie is played strictly for laughs as the husbands stumble all over themselves trying to dig out the truth behind the allegations. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eve Arden, Ruth Warrick, (more)
