The Fatal Hour

The Mr. Wong series borrows somewhat from the Torchy Blane series at Warner Bros., i.e. feisty female reporter annoying the police officer/boyfriend, but also key to solving the crime. A comment was made elsewhere about that character here having a "Lois Lane" moment. Torchy Blane was allegedly the inspiration for the Lois Lane character of Superman comics.

A humorous, but probably unintentional, mistake shows up early in the film when Boris Karloff's darkening makeup is forgotten on his neck, giving him a two-tone head.

Although one can disparage Karloff for these films, keep in mind that film actors then, as now, need and want work. There are plenty of other well-experienced actors appearing in the Mr. Wong films, whom you can see in better films at better studios in the 1930s, or even in later films.

Although Karloff was making "B" films at Monogram and Columbia around this time, at least he had an "up" blip in his career when he played a major role in "Arsenic and Old Lace" on Broadway from 1941 to 1944.

This film is no worse than the formulaic TV series we have now, both comedy and drama, TV now being today's equivalent of the "B" movies of yesterday.