Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.
Between 1938 and 1940 Boris Karloff made 5 movies in which he starred as James Lee Wong, the oriental detective. Not only is this offensive to Orientals and Brits, but to moviegoers as well. I’ve only seen one other Wong movie, but it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Luckily along comes another installment in DOOMED TO DIE to restore my faith in English actors portraying Chinese cops. Okay, that’s not true; I still think it’s ridiculous to pass off Karloff as Chinese when he doesn’t even try to hide his British accent, but at least this movie was more entertaining than THE FATAL HOUR.
I credit all of that enjoyment to Grant Withers and Marjorie Reynolds as Capt. Bill Street and reporter Bobbie Logan.
In this, the final installment of the Wong series, the president of a large shipping line, Cyrus Wentworth, has been found shot to death in his office and the only suspect is the son of his competitor (and his daughter’s fiance), Dick Fleming. As a favor to her friend Cynthia Wentworth, Bobbie Logan asks James Wong to take on the case and clear Cynthia’s beloved’s name.
It’s not the most original story and no one will ever convince me it deserves to be on a compilation of horror movies (DOOMED TO DIE is obviously a murder mystery), but I enjoyed it, more than I expected to, in fact. And, like I said, that goes entirely to Withers and Reynolds.
While Wong is busy being mysterious and brilliant (and a bit smug), Bobbie and Capt. Street can’t stop arguing long enough to piece together any of the puzzle. But man their banter is hilarious. While watching film develop, Streets mutters, “Fascinating.”
Bobbie: Who, me?
Street: No, the other negative.
I laughed for ten minutes over that.
There’s really not a lot to say about this movie. It’s not horror, but it wasn’t bad. At the end of the day you’ve still got Boris Karloff, Frankenstein’s friggin’ Monster, playing a Chinese man. The very idea is ludicrous, and not in a “it’s just crazy enough to work” way; it doesn’t work. He’s Boris Karloff. While watching the Wong movies, I can’t lose myself in the story or the characters because I’m busy focusing on the eyeliner applied to give Karloff’s eyes a slant or wondering what the actual Asian actors on-set think about this Brit playing one of them. Why should he get the lead when he’s not even from the right country?
Other than Reynolds and Withers, absolutely nothing in this movie stands out as particularly redeeming. It’s 68 minutes of nothing, really. Even the revelation of the killer was ho-hum. Kenneth Harlan as Ludlow, the chauffeur had a few good moments, but nothing to outshine the Logan/Street banter. In the end we’ve got a mislabeled movie that wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen, but nor was it particularly appealing. If anything DOOMED TO DIE is the very definition of average. I would recommend this to friends solely on the strength of the Logan and Street, and even then only to friends I thought would appreciate the humor.
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