Sonya Rokoff, a Caucasian retailer who is angry that Chinese merchants are selling more goods than she is for less money, yet who for some reason enjoys dressing in traditional Chinese clothes, cringes as Victor Poten gleefully offs another victim. I know: what!?
Entrepreneur Sonya Rokoff wants to scare the tourists out of Chinatown and put its merchants out of business, hoping her stores will rake in the sales. She teams up with Victor Poten (Bela Lugosi), a half-Caucasian, half-Asian sadist / scientist who is happy to assist. Lugosi employs a team of Caucasians dressed as Chinese who infiltrate Chinatown and stir up trouble, and his residence is equipped with all kinds of torture mechanisms! Goofy adventure serial with about as much basis in reality as a Super Friends episode. Like the Lugosi series The Return of Chandu, this serial was produced by Sam Katzman and also uses exoticism as a source of thrills and mystery, but Shadow of Chinatown is not nearly as enjoyable. Its Caucasian hero (played by hunky athlete Herman Brix/ Bruce Bennett) is a dull author renowned for his knowledge of Chinese culture (which he admits he has learned from his houseboy Willy Fu) and the Caucasian heroine is a shrill female reporter. The "girl reporter" is an odd trope in 30s - 40s pop culture. She's got all the worst qualities traditionally assigned to women (talkative, pushy, overly inquisitive) and funnels them into a profession, which she happily abandons when the right guy comes around. Jeesh!
Lugosi spies on a secret meeting through a proto-TV of his own devising.
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