Daughter of the Tong
Director: Raymond Johnson
Year: 1939
Rating: 4.0
The daughter of the Tong is played by that great Asian actress, Evelyn Brent.
Ok, not exactly and the Poverty Row production company behind this (Metropolitan
Pictures) doesn't even have the money to try and make her look Asian other
than a really cheap black wig. The sad and surprising part about this though
is that Evelyn Brent is in it at all. Back in the 1920's she was a pretty
big star appearing in films like Underworld and The Last Command and then
poof, she was yesterday's news. And by 1939 she was down to junk like this.
She plays Carney, the tough talking gun carrying head of a gang of crooks
- though there appears to be no Tong in evidence - basically a bunch of goobers
in a flea bitten hotel with a doorman played by Richard Loo, a real live
Chinese man! He was in well-over a 100 films in his career. The FBI are after
her and assign Ralph Dickson, the spitting image of an escaped con. He is
portrayed by Grant Withers, who was a cop or all around good guy in loads
of B films. His best performance of course was getting married to Loretta
Young when she was 17 and not going to jail. He committed suicide in 1959
leaving a note apologizing to all the people he let down.
Poverty Row says it all - very cheap - probably shot in a few days - not
much of a story and weirdly they have a long car chase on a dirt road though
they are in San Fran. But that was the best part of the film for me - I have
an affection for dirt dusty roads.
