Shadow of Chinatown [Serial] (1936)

Shadow of Chinatown is, in all candor, the cheapest looking, most threadbare of all the independently produced sound serials. Thanks to Bela Lugosi's ripe performance as the ace villain Victor Poten, it is in some ways also the most amusing. Unlike his rival, Boris Karloff, Lugosi was apparently unable to sleepwalk through a role no matter how ridiculously shabby the story line and setting, and he adds the same menace and sense of showmanship here as he had in Dracula five years earlier. Despite lackluster writing (by, among others, director Robert F. Hill, who cleverly hides behind the pseudonym of Rock Hawkey), abysmal production values, and amateurish supporting performances, Lugosi heroically delivers his lines with all the tormented darkness of his Transylvanian soul. Former Tarzan Herman Brix (who would become Bruce Bennett in grade-A pictures for Warner Bros. in the 1940s) does well enough as the stalwart but somewhat dense hero, and B-Western regular Charles King is capital as a lovesick henchman; but Joan Barclay makes little sense as the overly dim girl reporter, and Luana Walters comes across as a road company Gale Sondergaard as the ubiquitous Dragon Lady. Shadow of Chinatown was released by Sam Katzman's Victory Pictures and survives in a rather battered print. The sound, however, was probably no worse when the serial first premiered back in 1936, Katzman being notoriously stingy with production values. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide