a5c7b9f00b In the middle of a pictorial lecture on his recent expedition to the Mongolian Desert, Dr. John Benton the famous explorer, drinks from the water bottle on his lecture table, collapses and dies. His last words "Eternal Fire" are the only clue Chinese detective Jimmy Wong and Captain Street of the police department have to work on. Win Lee, Benton's secretary, reveals the doctor's dying words refer to a scroll which tells the location of rich oil deposits. Wong and Street then begin the search for the killer among Benton's associates. Detective James Lee Wong is on the scenearchaeologist Dr. John Benton, recently returned from an expedition in China where a valuable ancient scroll was recovered, is murdered while giving a lecture on the expedition. The 1940 film is quite good in it's mood and theme. It is a detective film that keeps you engaged and moves in a fast pace. The film stars an Asian actor, Keye Luke and Mr Luke does a very fine job playing an alert intelligent detective that could be set in today's times. This was produced in the WW2 years and it is interesting to see that this film was made with many Asian actors. Sadly that would not continue with the anti-Asian hysteria of the war years. Mr Luke survived on with a long and memorable movie & TV career with his major rolethe High Lama/teacher in TV's 'Kung-Fu'. IN this film a murder strikes during a lecture on the discovery of a lost Mongolian tomb. A scroll with a valuable secret is missing. It's up to Jimmy Wong and the Homicide Squad to find the killer and learn the tomb's secret. This was the last of the Mr Wong serials. Enjoy it. Poverty Row programmers like this may now seem incredibly hokey, but at the same time they're fascinating time capsules of American mores of those bygone (and maybe not so bygone) days. This one is routinely scripted and handled with little inspiration (though lots of pace), yet it's quite idiosyncratic for its time. Most obviously, a real Asian (Keye Luke, better knownCharlie Chan's Number One Son) is finally given the opportunity to play an Asian detective. The screenwriters certainly take advantage of the unique casting, turning a lot of the expected racially-insensitive material on end – Luke gets in a real zinger when he brashly compares the looting of a Mongolian sarcophagus to having a Chinese adventurer dig up and purloin George Washington's corpse from its tomb. Also relevant to the 21st century is the fact that the tomb raiders are not so much seeking the legendary Eternal Flame for cultural or historic reasons, but due to the conjecture that it is produced by a hidden treasure trove of priceless oil. Quite refreshing attitudes for a 40s B-movie, with some vivid scenes of Chinatown life and interesting travelogue footage of a seemingly authentic excursion to Northern China.
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295 weeks ago