The Mystery of Mr. Wong (1939) is a small, drawing-room type mystery, where Boris Karloff as a cold and observant detective, James Lee Wong, solves a series of killings related to a stolen Chinese jewel called the “Eye of the Daughter of the Moon.” The full movie of The Mystery of Mr. Wong is now in popular use as a free classic film and public domain film, and frequently included with the rest of the Mr. Wong series.
Movie Background Table
Movie Cast Table
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Boris Karloff | James Lee Wong |
| Grant Withers | Police Captain Sam (Bill) Street |
| Dorothy Tree | Valerie Edwards |
| Craig Reynolds | Peter Harrison |
| Ivan Lebedeff | Michael Strogonoff |
| Holmes Herbert | Prof. Ed Janney |
| Morgan Wallace | Brandon (Brendan) Edwards |
| Lotus Long | Drina, the maid |
| Chester Gan | Sing, the butler |
| Hooper Atchley | Carslake |
| Bruce Wong | Asian man |
| Jack Kennedy | Policeman |
| Joe Devlin | George, the detective |
| Lee Tung Foo | Willie, Wong’s manservant |
| Wilbur Mack | Ballistics expert |
| Dick Morehead | Police detective |
Full Plot Summary
The movie begins with an affluent mansion in San Francisco with the Brandon Edwards, a rich man who collects Asian artifacts. Edwards has just stolen a rare, legendary gem, the Eye of the Daughter of the Moon, the largest sapphire in the world, a gem which is said to have stolen the gem in China. The jewel itself is cursed, and Edwards already has threatening notes telling that whoever possesses it will be killed.
Edwards welcomes his friend James Lee Wong, a Chinese-American academic criminologist to visit the house and secretly presents him with the jewel and one of the death threats. Wong is a good listener and Edwards reveals that he is under threat and suspects someone in his circle. He even goes to the extent of writing the name of the person whom he assumes to be behind the threats, places it in an envelope and requests that it should only be opened in case he gets killed.
This is a formal party that Edwards and his wife Valerie have that night. The guests include Wong, Police Captain Sam Street, Professor Ed Janney (a competitor criminologist), their lawyer Carslake, secretary Peter Harrison, and some of the acquaintances in the society. At the party, the guests choose to play a parlor game known as Indications which is nothing more than Charades. Mrs. Edwards sets up a mini play in which Brandon will be the victim in a simulated murder Valerie and Peter put on.
The gunshots are heard as the lights are lowered, and the game starts. As the lights reappear, Brandon Edwards is lying on the floor, but this time he is actually dead, shot in the chest. The party erupts in panic. Peter Harrison, the one who was holding the prop gun in the fake murder, seems the apparent victim, yet he claims he used blanks and cannot figure out how a real bullet got there.
About the same moment, Police Captain Street arrives who had a mysterious tip via an anonymous phone call that Edwards would be murdered that night. The missing of the Eye of the Daughter of the Moon out of its hiding place proves the linkage of the threats and the crime.
Professor Janney, Street and Wong start to dig in clues. They learn that the sealed envelope calling Edwards a supposed foe has disappeared, and many others might have had a motive: Valerie might not have been happy in her marriage, Peter could have used the safe, as well as the stage gun, their lawyer Carslake is aware of adjustments in the will of Edwards, and one of the foreign visitors, Michael Strogonoff, has taken an unusual interest in the jewel.
Wong does not know that the sapphire has already been handed over to the possession of Drina, the foreign maid of Edwards. She is horrified by the theft of the national treasure of China, and is afraid of the curse which she believes will befall her once she has the Eye of the Daughter of the Moon with her and also she is going to give it back to her country. She does not share anything with anyone and trails silently around the house with the gem hidden.
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Drina is killed before she can go through with her scheme. Her body is recovered and once again the jewel is lost. Jealousies are revealed and alibis are verified causing the list of suspects to narrow down. Wong and Street understand that they must deal with a person ready to murder someone over and over again so he may have the sapphire or conceal the fact of having stolen it.
To make the things even more complicated, Professor Janney is presenting his personal theories and appears to be overly keen on forcing some suspects, whereas the background and movements of Michael Strogonoff are obscure. Wong watches all people and pays attention to little details, who knew what, when, who had time to put an actual bullet in the stage gun, who could have stolen the envelope and the gem.
Following another of these related deaths (in other versions, it is a secondary character who is the one implicated to the estate), Wong is now prepared to show the truth. He calls in all the main suspects Valerie, Peter, Carslake, Strogonoff and Janney, etc to the drawing room in the typical mystery style final confrontation.
Wong coolly re-enacts the turn of events. He describes how the murderer used the charade game to conceal an actual shot, made the anonymous call to Captain Street, stolen Edwards sealed envelope and followed the gem down to Edwards and then to its last hiding place. He reveals the motive of the killer, and it is either because of greed of the jewel value, or it is because of the fear of what Edwards knew or both depending on how it is interpreted.
After giving his argument and bringing forth sufficient evidence, Wong pinpoints the suspect and hands him over to Captain Street to be utilized in arrest. At last with the Eye of the Daughter of the Moon recovered, Wong commands his trusted manservant Willie to collect it and deliver it back to China, so that it can never cause any more bloody scenes on the ground of America. The movie ends with the restoration of justice and Wong slowly walking away, just as unobtrusive in the victory as he was in the investigation.
Genre and Key Themes
The Mystery of Mr. Wong is an American B‑picture mystery with elements of crime drama and drawing‑room whodunit.
Key themes include:
- Greed and cultural theft
The Eye of the Daughter of the Moon is both a valuable jewel and a stolen cultural artifact. The murders revolve around possession of something taken from China, and Wong’s final act is to send it back. - Appearances vs. reality
A party game turns into a real killing; a prop gun hides a live bullet; a sealed envelope that should reveal the truth disappears. The film leans on the idea that nothing at Edwards’ house is quite what it seems. - Logic versus impulse
Captain Street tends to jump to conclusions, while Wong patiently gathers facts and patterns, highlighting two different approaches to policing. - Duty and identity
Wong is portrayed as a cultured, methodical Chinese‑American detective, torn between his life in the U.S. and a sense of duty to return a sacred object to China, even after his own life has been put in danger.
The Mystery of Mr. Wong (1939) Full Movie Watch and Download
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Movie Review
The Mystery of Mr. Wong 1939 film is a solid entry in Monogram’s low‑budget mystery cycle, lifted by Boris Karloff’s reserved, intelligent performance. Karloff plays James Lee Wong with quiet authority—soft‑spoken, observant, and more cerebral than many contemporaneous screen detectives. While the casting of a British actor as a Chinese character reflects the era’s unfortunate “yellowface” tradition, Karloff avoids caricature and brings dignity to the role.
Grant Withers provides an energetic contrast as Captain Street, the brash police officer who relies on hunches and temper rather than fine detail. Dorothy Tree’s Valerie Edwards and Craig Reynolds’ Peter Harrison add the expected mix of guilt, grief, and suspicion, even if they are not as fully developed as leads in higher‑budget mysteries. Lotus Long as Drina and Chester Gan as Sing bring a bit of pathos and tension from inside the household staff.
Director William Nigh keeps things economical. Nearly all the action plays out in interiors—the Edwards mansion, police offices, and a few ancillary rooms—giving the film a stage‑bound, almost theatrical feel. The charade‑turned‑murder sequence is neatly staged, and the later group “reveal” scene is classic series‑mystery form, with Wong patiently walking everyone through the solution.
The contemporary audience might be unsurprised by outdated racial attitudes in the film and the fact that certain supporting characters are a bit generic. Other critics label The Mystery of Mr. Wong as formulaic, where common tropes such as the lost will, the anonymous phone call, the sealed accusation letter, etc. are found. However, in the limits of a one-hour B-movie, it gives a clean cut, simple whodunit.
Being a public domain film, The Mystery of Mr. Wong full movie can be readily located in various versions, both the scratched TV videos and the well-groomed digital copies. It provides a pleasant hour of crime, hints, and a cursed sapphire in the middle of it, to lovers of Karloff, old-fashioned drawing-room mysteries, and the Mr. Wong series in general.
Movie Tags
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