KING OF CHINATOWN (1939)

During the first 15 minutes, we are introduced to a sizable cast of characters. At the center is Baturin (Akim Tamiroff), the head of illegal activities in Chinatown but also a contributor to local charities. His main assistant is a man known only as the Professor (J. Carroll Naish). Baturin and his men are terrorizing Chinatown merchants into paying protection money, but Dr. Ling (Sidney Toler) rebels. Ling's daughter Mary (Anna May Wong) is a surgeon who is about to leave the local hospital to go to China with her lawyer boyfriend Bob Li (Philip Ahn) and oversee medical services in the war against the Japanese. One night, at a boxing match set up as a benefit for Chinatown playgrounds, gangster Mike Gordon (Anthony Quinn) double-crosses Baturin by fixing a match, so Baturin orders a hit on Gordon. But the Professor sees an opportunity to get rid of Baturin and partner up with Gordon to run the show, so instead they hit Baturin in an incident that happens one night right in front of Ling's store. When Baturin is badly hurt, Mary fears that her father had something to do with it, so she asks to be Baturin's surgeon. The operation is a success and when he is sent home to recuperate, Mary goes along to see him through his convalescence. Baturin, who wants to reform, soon begins to have special feelings, somewhere between romantic and paternal, for Mary, and she comes to feel protective of him. Of course, Gordon and the Professor are biding their time, kicking their protection racket into high gear as they wait to finish off Baturin. This B-thriller came from an A-studio, Paramount, so it feels a notch above the average B-movie of the day. The sets are good and the acting from character actor pros like Tamiroff and Naish is fine. Even the screenplay is pretty solid. It's nice to see Asian actors like Wong and Ahn here, though we still get some yellowface with Sidney Toler essentially doing his Charlie Chan character as a shopkeeper. Also with Roscoe Karnes, Bernadene Hayes and Ray Mayer in semi-comic relief parts. I’m still not a big fan of Wong's (pictured above with Ahn) but her stolid woodenness fits her role here. [Criterion Channel]