After the Improvement of the Mr Wong series with the previous entry, "In Chinatown", the series returns to its slow and pondering ways. It starts off intriguing, revealing the death of a pal of Boris Karloff's and Grant Withers found in the San Francisco Bay, having been working alone on a secret case involving a smuggling ring. Marjorie Reynolds returns as the ambitious reporter, and what was cute in the previous film in her rivalry with Withers now seems to be simply obnoxious. Much of the film focuses on interviewing people who claim to have seen the deceased in his last hour alive, or those who possibly could have been involved in his death or know something. That takes away time for action, making this entry boring and stagnant. There are a few interesting supporting characters, most notably Charles Trowbridge and Lita Chevret as the proprietor of a fancy nightclub and his seemingly hard as nails girlfriend. This goes to show the hit or miss quality of these quickly written and even faster made B crime dramas, made to collect a quick buck when released, but thoroughly analyzed decades later. Karloff is beginning to show his boredom with the series, or perhaps that heavily lackered hairstyle was becoming as painful to deal with as his Frankenstein monster's costume.
Review of The Fatal Hour
