Monogram Monday: The Fatal Hour (1940)

A policeman who has been working undercover investigating smuggling is found murdered, and detective James Lee Wong (Boris Karloff) helps police captain Bill Street (Grant Withers) to track down their friend’s killer(s). Marjorie Reynolds is very good as reporter Bobbie Long, and the rest of the supporting cast does well with their parts. This is …

Monogram Monday: Trailing Double Trouble (1940)

An early entry in the 24-picture Range Busters series, Trailing Double Trouble has the three amigos — Crash, Dusty, and Alibi (Ray “Crash” Corrigan, John “Dusty” King, and Max “Alibi” Terhune) — dealing themselves in when a man in a buckboard is attacked by a gang. Though the man dies, he leaves behind his baby, …

Monogram Monday: Mr. Wong in Chinatown (1939)

The Mr. Wong series took on what I consider its definitive form with this, the third entry in the series. Marjorie Reynolds joins the regular cast as reporter Bobby Logan, always ready to bend rules to get a story and also eager to champion those she thinks wrongfully accused. She and Wong’s friend Captain Street …

Monogram Monday: The Mystery of Mr. Wong (1939)

Mr. Wong (Boris Karloff) attends a party whose host (Morgan Wallace) is slain in the midst of a charades-type game. The victim had feared for his life after arranging for a rare gem to be smuggled out of China. The slain collector’s wife (Dorothy Tree) and private secretary (Craig Reynolds) are suspected, as they were …

Monogram Monday: Mr. Wong, Detective (1938)

Before the Charlie Chan series moved to Monogram in the 1940s, that little studio had its own series about a Chinese detective, James Lee Wong, who had starred in short stories in the magazine Collier’s. The first five of the six movies star Boris Karloff as the sleuth, an expert on many things, including Chinese …

Monogram Monday: The Wolf Hunters (1949)

Trapper Paul Lautrec (Edward Norris) is shot and framed for a string of fur robberies and killings, and it’s up to Mountie Rod Webb (Kirby Grant), aided by his faithful dog Chinook, to untangle the scheme. This is another entertaining programmer in the Monogram series starring Grant and Chinook.   Recommended. Otto finds this one pleasing …

Monogram Monday: Below the Border (1942)

Buck Jones, Tim McCoy, and Raymond Hatton, old hands at movie-making whose audience appeal dated back to the silents, made an appealing western trio for Monogram as the Rough Riders. In this series entry, U.S. Marshals Buck Roberts (Jones), Tim McCall (McCoy), and Sandy Hopkins (Hatton) investigate a gang that has murdered a local sheriff …

Monogram Monday: Jungle Bride (1933)

Charles Starrett, best known for his long-running series as the Durango Kid, essays an early role in this rather soapy picture. A shipwreck strands a young woman (top-billed Anita Page), her fiancé (Kenneth Thomson), the man (Starrett) she believes guilty of a murder for which her brother was imprisoned, and that man’s sidekick (Eddie Borden) …

Monogram Monday: Bowery Bombshell (1946)

This early entry in the Bowery Boys series offers another example of the blend of crime and comedy so often found in the films. This time, thanks to a photographer friend, Sach (Huntz Hall) ends up suspected of involvement in a bank robbery, one in fact committed by a gang led by Ace Deuce (Sheldon …