He remained unknown, traveling for several years and acting in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, until Reserved, polite, and brilliant, Karloff's Wong is treated extremely well for a minority character of the day.
I have seen the two war-themed B-movies she made in 1942, BOMBS OVER BURMA and LADY FROM CHUNGKING (pictured below), and can report that she’s the lead character in both films, playing Chinese patriots resisting the Japanese. !” Later, after Wong has been knocked out by an interloper during the investigation, Street’s assistant says, “Out like a red lantern.”Lotus Long, Keye Luke, Grant Withers in PHANTOM OF CHINATOWNHowever, as the investigation continues, Street gradually warms up to Wong and swallows his pride to ask him for help, knowing that his specialized knowledge will come in handy and the two develop a friendly rapport. She took me to see the goldfish in her garden, and there were the assassins behind the little trees. He has appeared in two films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Lorre was the inspiration for the ghost mascot of the General Mills cereal, Boo Berry. Between 1937 and 1939 eight motion pictures were produced by 20th Century Fox starring Peter Lorre as Mr. Kentaro Moto.
There were three distinct characters around whom series of films were created in the 1930s: Charlie Chan, Mr. Moto and Mr. Wong. )As mentioned earlier, Wong had lobbied hard for the lead role of O-Lan in MGM’s THE GOOD EARTH, which came out the same year, but had seen it go to a white actress. In an interesting twist, the Japanese guy gets the (white) girl. Lotus Long appears in the first Mr. Moto film, THINK FAST, MR. MOTO (1937), and again in MYSTERIOUS MR. MOTO (1938) where she is curiously billed as Karen Sorrell. Films. When Street is questioning the murder victim’s butler about the food served in the household preceding the death by poison, he points to the archaeologist’s Chinese secretary and asks, in quite a demeaning fashion, “What’d SHE eat?
Anna May Wong plays Lan Ying Lin, the well-to-do daughter of a San Francisco-based importer of Chinese art and Philip Ahn plays “G-man” Kim Lee, a federal agent investigating the wholesale smuggling of illegal immigrants into the U.S. from China and other places. (A reference is made in THE MYSTERY OF MR. WONG to “the looting of Nanking,” although no mention is made of exactly who did the looting.) She passed away on May 7, 1985 in California. Lorre and the Chan actors played their roles with distinct Asian accents while Karloff played the Oxford-educated Wong with his normal voice. a list of 11 titles
Ms. Wong doesn’t fight, but shows great courage in going undercover amidst such hardcases, surely something the character’s privileged upbringing might not have prepared her for. A possible romance between Wong and Win Len is hinted at but never really developed. Not her fault, but theirs that I am still alive – they were such poor shots. Once upon a time Asian super-sleuths, independent crime-fighters of Chinese or Japanese origin who were usually one or two steps ahead of the police in solving murders, were quite popular in Hollywood.
Up to 1939 it may have seemed possible, especially to those Americans unaware of or indifferent to the atrocities of the Japanese military in China, that Japan would be moderate and reasonable in its expansion in the Far East and that the Mr. Motos would defeat the Japanese military fanatics.
They were, with one notable exception, played by Caucasian actors. And in THE JADE MASK, Keye Luke’s younger brother, Edwin Luke, played Eddie Chan. In the 1930s, Lorre played the role of ‘Mr. Anna May Wong had lobbied hard to get the lead female role of O-Lan, which wound up going to Luise Rainer, who’d won the Best Actress Oscar for THE GREAT ZIEGFELD a year earlier and would win one again for this film.What’s also significant about this group of films (and I would include THE GOOD EARTH here), particularly the Charlie Chan films, is the large number of Asian and Asian-American actors who were employed in them. You can see what kind of novelty that was by this poster for the film:You know it’s ironic, if I had to cast an actual Japanese person at the time as Mr. Moto, at least by appearance, I would pick Teru Shimada.Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:
The motion picture Mr. Moto is described as an agent for In subsequent films Mr. Moto works for private organizations such as the Diamond Syndicate (As a member of the International Police, he garners respect from local police around the world.
Bessie Loo plays her servant and is soon murdered also.
Got is in every episode of the serial and just about every fight scene as he and Rod Cameron (as agent Rex Bennett) take on Japanese spies trying to sabotage the U.S. war effort. See titles to watch instantly, titles you haven't rated, etc List your movie, TV & celebrity picks. Such a lovely lady. This character perfectly suited Lorre and he excelled in his performance.
Had one daughter: Catherine Lorre (born 22 June 1953). In BLACK MAGIC (1944), it was Chan’s daughter, Frances Chan (played by an actress conveniently named Frances Chan), who joined her father for the ride, while his sons took a break. Chan, in particular, was given to issuing frequent fortune cookie-style aphorisms that were often played for laughs.
The Mr. Wong character was featured in a series of films for Monogram Pictures.The first five starred Boris Karloff and were directed by William Nigh.All the films co-starred Grant Withers as Wong's friend, Police Captain Street. ‘Mr. In the early 1990s, his famous accent was parodied yet again on the animated series (Interestingly, when the first Charlie Chan films were made as silent films in the 1920s, the actors portraying Chan, who was not the lead character in either of the films, were both Japanese. The Japanese Mr. Moto, an agent working for the International Police, was played by Austro-Hungarian actor Peter Lorre. He was smiling, showing a row of shiny gold-filled teeth, and as he smiled he drew in his breath with a polite, soft sibilant sound.