BAD BOY

Johnny Downs

BAD BOY (1939). Director: Herbert Meyer.

"I don't care if your business is shipping fat missionaries to cannibal island, I want a job!"

John Fraser (Johnny Downs) kisses his sweet mother (Helen MacKellar) goodbye and heads for the big city full of hope and promise. Although he lands a good job and impresses his boss, McNeil (Holmes Herbert of The Curtain Falls), he falls in with a co-worker, Steve (Archie Robbins), who introduces him to gambling and a singer named Madelon (Rosalind Keith). Although Madelon is about as sexy as a hat rack, John falls hard for her and spends all of his money on her instead of sending it to his mother. Then he decides to "borrow" a couple of hundred dollars in petty cash so he can pay off his gambling debts, and things get worse from there. Bad Boy presents boyishly handsome Johnny Downs [Adventures of the Flying Cadets]  in an atypical role of a supposedly "nice guy" who becomes a gangster in a stereotypical boy-goes-wrong storyline. He is hardly perfect casting for the latter half of the film but he still manages to acquit himself nicely. MacKellar is excellent as his devoted mother, and the pic is nearly stolen by Spencer Williams as Terry, the black super in Mrs. Fraser's apartment who becomes a good friend to both mother and son and winds up working for John -- Terry has a much better head on his shoulders than John does. Saddled with a hairdo that has to be seen to be believed, Rosalind Keith is okay as a miserable bitch but is simply too homely to be that believable as a femme fatale. She retired after one more film.

Verdict: Entertaining minor melodrama with good performances. **1/2.

THE MYSTERY OF MR. WONG

A well-composed cast shot from "Mr. Wong"

THE MYSTERY OF MR. WONG (1939). Director: William Nigh.

"I confess I'm completely at a loss."

James Lee Wong (Boris Karloff) is invited to the home of Brendan Edwards (Morgan Wallace), who shows him the fabulous and cursed sapphire known as the Eye of the Daughter of the Moon. Not much later, Edwards participates in a parlor sketch [during a Charades-like game called "Indications"] in which he gets shot by a jealous husband, but in a plot twist used in other films, Edwards is really killed. At first there seem to be real bullets in the gun, but this is just the first of a number of interesting twists in the movie. Suspects include his wife, Valerie (Dorothy Tree of City in Darkness); his secretary Harrison (Craig Reynolds of Romance on the Run); the musician Strogonoff (Ivan Lebedeff); and the maid, Drina (Lotus Long); among others. Wong is assisted by his old associate Professor Janney (Holmes Herbert of Daughter of the Dragon) as well as Captain Street (Grant Withers). Karloff is excellent, as usual, there's a good wind-up, and the picture is quite entertaining.

Verdict: Snappy Mr. Wong mystery. ***.

THE CURTAIN FALLS

Henrietta Crosman

THE CURTAIN FALLS (1934). Director: Charles Lamont.

A broke elderly woman crosses the Atlantic, shows up at an old British manor house, and announces to the family that she is Aunt Hettie, the infamous Lady Scorsby. Accepted into the family Hettie sees that there are problems that need her attention, and she sets out to make things right. Dorothy (Dorothy Lee) has fallen in love with a man, Barry (William Bakewell of Battle of the Sexes), of whom the family doesn't approve, and her mother Katherine (Natalie Moorhead) is falling for the married Lothario, Martin (Jameson Thomas). Her husband, John (Holmes Herbert of Daughter of the Dragon), has had business reversals and is living on bluff. His son Allan (John Darrow) owes a great deal of money to gambling den owner Taggart (Eddie Kane). But the biggest secret is held by Hettie herself. As a drama this film is no great shakes, but it's bolstered by the performance of Crosman and has a moving wind-up and several adept portrayals from the supporting cast. Hettie putting one over on Taggart in his own crooked gambling den is a highlight of the movie. Lamont was a prolific director of certain Abbott and Costello movies as well as such films as Chip Off the Old Block.

Verdict: An engaging lead performance and an interesting situation never hurt. ***.

DAUGHTER OF THE DRAGON

DAUGHTER OF THE DRAGON (1931). Director: Lloyd Corrigan.

In the early 1930's Paramount Pictures released a trio of films very loosely based on the first three novels in Sax Rohmer's fascinating series of Fu Manchu books. The third and final film in the series, Daughter of the Dragon, is supposedly based on The Daughter of Fu Manchu, Rohmer's third Fu Manchu book, but it has an entirely different storyline. In this movie Princess Ling Moy (Anna May Wong) is a dancer who has no idea that she is the daughter of Fu Manchu. Fu Manchu (an excellent Warner Oland), whose origin is entirely different from Rohmer's, has spent the first two movies trying to wipe out the Petrie family, whom he holds in part responsible for the deaths of his wife and other children (Ling Moy was raised by another family). After killing John Petrie (Holmes Herbert), a dying Fu tells his daughter who she is and of the blood oath which she must fulfill: to kill the final member of the Petrie family, Ronald Petrie (Bramwell Fletcher). Ling Moy agrees to do this but winds up falling in love with Ronald instead. In a rather abrupt character reversal, she decides to go ahead and fulfill the oath and turns quite sadistic to boot. Balancing the evil Asians in the movie is Ah Kee, a policeman played by Sessue Hayakawa. Daughter of the Dragon is slowly-paced and has a rather boring middle section, although there's some excitement at the climax (which has a moving wind-up). The chief feeling you take away from the movie is that both Wong and Hayakawa are excellent actors who deserved much better material. Still, it has its moments. Good performances from the rest of the cast. As far as Fu Manchu goes, he has more fun in the unrelated The Mask of Fu Manchu the following year.

Verdict: Wong and Hayakawa make a great team. **1/2.