Mod-Doomed to Die Reviews

With Twentieth Century Fox successfully mounting an A-mystery series featuring Charlie Chan and a B-mystery series with Mr. Moto in the 1930s, it seemed as if Fox had a lock on Oriental movie detectives. Not to be outdone, however, poverty row studio Monogram decided in 1938 to initiate its own detective series with Mr. Wong, Detective based on the magazine mystery series “James Lee Wong” by Hugh Wiley. The Mr. Wong films were small scale and definitely programmers (barely running over an hour), but in their own inconspicuous way, they told  fairly good mysteries and featured a true star at the head of the films: Boris Karloff. Doomed to Die is the fifth film in the series and the last to star Boris Karloff. As with the others in the series, it’s very typical of all of the films: an unfussy mystery with a small number of suspects who do their best to deflect the investigation until one is unmasked as the instigator. It’s a mystery formula that’s been working for over a century in one kind of media or another.

To participate in the discussion of Doomed to Die DVD Review, please click on the highlighted title.