Very Cool!!!

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Too many suspects spoil the soup in this enjoyable, if convoluted, Universal programmer. Lyle Talbot is a smart aleck investigator interfering in police investigation of the murder of a man carrying around a valuable Chinese ring as well as $70,000 in cash. His girlfriend (British leading lady Valarie Hobson) gets involved in it with him, leading to more intrigue when she is held hostage by the head of a Tong like Chinese crime ring. Many familiar faces appear in supporting roles, including Andy Devine who tones down the comedy just a bit here, and Bradley Page, typecast once again as a seemingly smarmy crooked business man. There's little time for boredom here as the action keeps everything moving, and the dialog is tough and often subtly funny. One scene that will stand out has Talbot describing to a few of the murder suspects what happens when someone is placed in the electric chair.

1935's "Chinatown Squad" was one of the handful of non genre titles included in Universal's popular SHOCK! package issued to television in the late 50s. I never encountered it on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater, but it probably rates as one of the better ones, all 'B' programmers of little distinction, most of which dealt with spies or sabotage. This is a welcome whodunit with Lyle Talbot, still in the leading man phase of his career, getting most of the humorous lines, at the expense of Hugh O'Connell's bumbling police sergeant. The murder victim is conniving embezzler Earl Raybold (Clay Clement), who gets stabbed to death by fork (!) in a Chinatown cafe where all the suspects have conveniently shown up. The busy Valerie Hobson, fresh from "WereWolf of London" and "Bride of Frankenstein," is the main asset, playing a mysterious woman in black, trying to retrieve some incriminating letters from the dead man, while others search for a valuable ring which has disappeared. While monster loving urchins like myself would have turned up their noses at viewing this picture on local 'Creature Features,' this now adult movie buff found it most agreeable.

I first saw this as a broadcast movie in the late 1950s and have never forgotten how enjoyable was the experience. Considering the talents involved in the production (Schary and Blochman, for example) that is not surprising. Good ensamble cast including Talbot, O'Connell, Warren and Devine. Humorous reparte between Talbot and O'Connell adds to the enjoyment already supplied by the fast pace of the plot and the effective use of exterior shots of San Francisco's streets. Even if you are not a fan of this genre of 1930s B films, check it out. You will be rewarded!

This minor entry in the Universal Studios canon has mystery, comedy and romance in the Thin Man vein. After a murder in a Chinatown cafe, ex-policeman and Chinatown tour guide Ted Lacey decides to investigate in spite of the objections of his former sergeant. The mysterious Woman in Black, Chinese communists and a missing $70,000 is not going to deter our hero from discovering the real killer. A pity that there aren't more unknown gems like this one around.