Just before the Japanese invasion, the American consulate in Hong Kong informs all Americans that the situation is grave and they should arrange passage immediately. This, of course, means there is none, as Lucile Fairbanks and her aunt, Marjorie Gateson, discover. There's also Douglas Kennedy, who has been following them around, trying to gain an invitation. Eventually she says she'll consider talking to him if he writes her a letter every day for five days, and they're interesting. Soon Kennedy writes her he is involved in a murder, people who don't exist, a fabulous knife, and two mysterious strangers who want him to change the time he heard the gun that killed the murdered man go off, so they could claim they killed him; they have alibis for the actual time of murder.
This movie not only descends into a a crazy mess, its placing the time right before the Japanese took Hong Kong, which seems to have been a leisurely affair according to this movie, renders it even more bizarre. It seems to have vanished into the underground, despite being a Warner Brothers movie. I suspect that is because the only memorable name in the cast or crew is Earl Derr Biggers, one of whose stories, "The Second Floor Mystery", provided the basis for this movie. Like many of Warner Brothers' B omedies in this period, it substitute a frantic pace for funny jokes. Even so, its short length renders it watchable.
This movie not only descends into a a crazy mess, its placing the time right before the Japanese took Hong Kong, which seems to have been a leisurely affair according to this movie, renders it even more bizarre. It seems to have vanished into the underground, despite being a Warner Brothers movie. I suspect that is because the only memorable name in the cast or crew is Earl Derr Biggers, one of whose stories, "The Second Floor Mystery", provided the basis for this movie. Like many of Warner Brothers' B omedies in this period, it substitute a frantic pace for funny jokes. Even so, its short length renders it watchable.
