Mr. Wong (fictional detective)

James Lee Wong, known simply as Mr. Wong, is a fictional Chinese-American detective created by Hugh Wiley (1884-1968). Mr Wong appeared in magazine stories and a series of films.

Description

In his story "No Witnesses", Wiley describes Mr. Wong as six feet tall, educated at Yale University and "with the face of a foreign devil-a Yankee".^[1] In the stories he is an agent of the United States Treasury Department and lives in San Francisco.

Short stories

Twelve stories were published in Colliers Magazine from 1934 to 1938.^[2]

• "Medium Well Done" (March 10, 1934, Collier's)
• "The Thirty Thousand Dollar Bomb" (July 28, 1934, Collier's)
• "Ten Bells" (August 4, 1934, Collier's)
• "Long Chance" (December 15, 1934, Collier's)
• "A Ray Of Light" (May 25, 1935, Collier's)
• "Jaybird's Chance" (July 20, 1935, Collier's)
• "Scorned Woman" (September 14, 1935, Collier's)
• "Three Words" (November 2, 1935, Collier's)
• "No Witnesses" (February 15, 1936, Collier's)
• "Seven Of Spades" (September 5, 1936, Collier's)
• "The Bell From China" (March 26, 1938, Collier's)
• "The Feast Of Kali" (June 25, 1938, Collier's)

These were all collected in the volume Murder by the Dozen in 1951.

Films

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.

The sixth Mr. Wong film featured Chinese-American actor Keye Luke in the title role, the first time an American sound film used an Asian actor to play a lead Asian detective. Luke had formerly played one of Charlie Chan's sons in the Chan mysteries and Kato in The Green Hornet 1939 serial. In the reboot of the Mr. Wong series, the young "Jimmy Wong" (Luke) was introduced to Police Captain Street, whom Karloff's character worked with in the previous films. A 1940 article, Keye Luke Sleuths on his Own, in the Hollywood Citizen News, announced that Luke had been signed for four Mr. Wong pictures a year.^[3] But due to the departure of Karloff, film exhibitors lost interest in the Mr. Wong series and it was ended.^[4]

Comics

From 1939 a comic of the film The Mystery of Mr Wong appeared in four consecutive issues of Popular Comics.

Popular Comics (Dell, 1939–40) Issues 39-41

Notes

External links

• Mr Wong at Thrilling Detective http://www.thrillingdetective.com/wong.html
• Hugh Wiley http://www.answers.com/topic/hugh-wiley
• The Mr. Wong Page - Information on the stories, comic and films.