A passable but essentially hum-drum action movie. Usually a title like this indicates that we will be able to view a fabulous collection of Chinese knick-knacks or see a group of our favourite uncredited Chinese actors and actresses milling around on a sound-stage, but, alas, "Shadows of the Orient" features only a short Chinese gambling sequence (fascinating but brief) and the ho-hum assortment of items in a rich man's collecion of orientalia, none of which are clearly seen on camera. After that it is bi-planes to Mexico and a lot of fighting and shooting by sturdy immigration and border patrol types, all Caucasian, with the brief exception of James B. Leong, looking quite dashing as a Chinese immigrant-smuggler.
9 Reviews
Not as bad as the others say it is!
illbebad28 August 2017
I don't think I am somebody who will watch ANY old b&w film and enjoy it (tried to watch an early Jon Hall poverty row film earlier tonight, gave up) but Shadows of the Orient isn't terrible. It isn't great, but , it's watchable. The pacing is slow no doubt, the budget tiny, but Esther Ralston, Regis Toomey, J. Farrell MacDonald and Sidney Blackmer are such professionals, they make so-so dialog work. Esther Ralston's character is the typical dumb rich girl, but hey, she is a pilot, which does play a role in the plot. as long as you are not expecting this film to be some great forgotten classic, chances are you will enjoy it.
No Hostage! No Chinamen!
sol-kay24 February 2007
Warning: Spoilers
(Some Spoilers) Smuggling illegal Chinese immigrants across the Mexican border by air is a dangerous job but someones got to do it and at the price of $1,500.00 a head King Moss, Sidney Blackmar, a man obsessed not only with money but the Chinese culture is the guy more then willing to do the job. It turns out that the Feds, or US government immigration officials, have gotten a line on Moss and the person he's working for San Francisco Chinatown gambling and restaurant kingpin Ching Cu, James B. Leong, and start to tighten the screws on their illegal operation.
It turns out that one of, if not the only, Moss' fliers the flamboyant Flash Dawson, Eddie Ftherstone, got cold feet when he was approached in mid air by a US immigration patrol plane that opened fire on him. Panicking Flash dropped the three Chinese immigrants on his plane to their death feeling that if caught, which he wasn't, he wouldn't be prosecuted for smuggling illegal immigrants into the USA but the fact that he may well be arrested for the death of three Innocent people seemed to have completely escaped him. It didn't escape his and Moss' boss Ching who canned him as soon as he showed up at his restaurant, the Canton House, for his fee.
Flash angry that he was fired acts like the jerk that he is by threatening Ching to call the cops on him only to have him shot by one of Ching's henchmen as he was making a phone call that lead to a police raid on the place. In the raid pretty Viola Avery, Esther Nalston, who was at the Canton House gambling, playing Chinese checkers, was grabbed along with some two dozen other gambling patrons and dealers. With the help of the suave and debonair Moss who told the cops that Viola's father is non other then federal circuit judge Avery, Oscar Apfel, she was let go. Only to later become involved up to her neck in infiltrating and bursting the Moss/Ching smuggling ring with her new boyfriend and Federal Immigration Agent the dashing and two fisted, as well as ex WWI ace pilot, Bob Baxter (Regis Toomey).
Both Baxter and Viola go undercover for the government to smash this illegal Chinese immigrant smuggling ring with Baxter putting in, via the San Francisco Chronicle, for the late Flash Fetherston's job. Baxter gets the job but never has a chance to take off until much later as he forced down Big Boss Moss, after a dogfight, who was trying to make his escape south of the border. Viola at first being held hostage by one of Ching's goon to make sure that the goods, the illegal Chinese immigrants, would be delivered safe and sound makes her escape and takes off with the only plane left at Ching's secret airfield.
Putting an end to both Ching & Moss smugging ring not only saved the government a ton of money in tracking down illegal immigrants used to take away Americans jobs, by being used as slave labor in Ching's restaurants and sweatshops, at the high of the depression when jobs in the USA were hard if not impossible to find. It also gave inspector Sullivan, J. Ferrell MacDonald, Baxter's partner the ambition to stay on the force, the US Immigration Services, another year so he can retire and get his long sought after pension. Most of all it gave the very bored and nothing to do but have a good time Viola a chance to serve her country and make her pop Judge Avery, who was starting to get a bit sick and tired of her crazy and mindless antics, to be proud of her for once.
It turns out that one of, if not the only, Moss' fliers the flamboyant Flash Dawson, Eddie Ftherstone, got cold feet when he was approached in mid air by a US immigration patrol plane that opened fire on him. Panicking Flash dropped the three Chinese immigrants on his plane to their death feeling that if caught, which he wasn't, he wouldn't be prosecuted for smuggling illegal immigrants into the USA but the fact that he may well be arrested for the death of three Innocent people seemed to have completely escaped him. It didn't escape his and Moss' boss Ching who canned him as soon as he showed up at his restaurant, the Canton House, for his fee.
Flash angry that he was fired acts like the jerk that he is by threatening Ching to call the cops on him only to have him shot by one of Ching's henchmen as he was making a phone call that lead to a police raid on the place. In the raid pretty Viola Avery, Esther Nalston, who was at the Canton House gambling, playing Chinese checkers, was grabbed along with some two dozen other gambling patrons and dealers. With the help of the suave and debonair Moss who told the cops that Viola's father is non other then federal circuit judge Avery, Oscar Apfel, she was let go. Only to later become involved up to her neck in infiltrating and bursting the Moss/Ching smuggling ring with her new boyfriend and Federal Immigration Agent the dashing and two fisted, as well as ex WWI ace pilot, Bob Baxter (Regis Toomey).
Both Baxter and Viola go undercover for the government to smash this illegal Chinese immigrant smuggling ring with Baxter putting in, via the San Francisco Chronicle, for the late Flash Fetherston's job. Baxter gets the job but never has a chance to take off until much later as he forced down Big Boss Moss, after a dogfight, who was trying to make his escape south of the border. Viola at first being held hostage by one of Ching's goon to make sure that the goods, the illegal Chinese immigrants, would be delivered safe and sound makes her escape and takes off with the only plane left at Ching's secret airfield.
Putting an end to both Ching & Moss smugging ring not only saved the government a ton of money in tracking down illegal immigrants used to take away Americans jobs, by being used as slave labor in Ching's restaurants and sweatshops, at the high of the depression when jobs in the USA were hard if not impossible to find. It also gave inspector Sullivan, J. Ferrell MacDonald, Baxter's partner the ambition to stay on the force, the US Immigration Services, another year so he can retire and get his long sought after pension. Most of all it gave the very bored and nothing to do but have a good time Viola a chance to serve her country and make her pop Judge Avery, who was starting to get a bit sick and tired of her crazy and mindless antics, to be proud of her for once.
Plane dumb
Spuzzlightyear26 November 2005
A disappointingly dull 'actioner' here, that tells of evil Chinese smugglers (which, interestingly enough, are being stashed over the border in Mexico. All of this of course, is controlled by gangsters. A blonde socialite is soon caught up in all of this by getting wooed by the head honcho of this enterprise, who decides to use her for his own means. Luckily, the hotshot police detective hired to the case also has the hots for her.. I was actually surprised at how incompetent this movie was. Filled with boring dialogue, inane fight sequences, and gun fight sequences taken right out of the 'Police Squad' book of crimefighting,. But at least the beginning (where a pilot has a hilarious, and unexpected way to deal with unwanted cargo), and the ending, with it's plane chase (but not the ridiculous plane chase before it, where a plane with a machine gun can't shoot a plane down that's 10 feet in front of it) is interesting, but the rest is an unmitigated bore.
Low budget tale of human smuggling has much to recommend it to the "bad film" lover, however pacing makes it a slow tough haul to get through
dbborroughs6 July 2006
Warning: Spoilers
(This may contain a few spoilers) Socialite who likes to gamble gets mixed up with gangsters smuggling Chinese over the border from Mexico.
Jaw droppingly inept this is a movie that even bad movie lovers will have a hard time sitting through. The problem is not that its so bad as to be bad, rather its because its so badly paced that its really really dull.
Filled with fake sets, fake facial hair, racist attitudes, bizarre actions and dialog with a high "huh?" factor, this is a movie that bad movie lovers can sit and watch and make fun of, assuming they can stay awake. Rarely have I seen a movie where I mumbled "I can't believe they did that" over and over again. It begins almost at the outset where a police patrol plane begins to strafe the smugglers plane with machine gun fire even though it suspects it has people hidden in it, continues as the smuggling pilot remedies the situation and then goes on from there.
What were these people thinking? A unique viewing experience certainly, but not one I need to repeat or one I can recommend. If you like bad movies give it a shot, but be warned you may not make it to the end with out snoozing.
3 out of 10
Jaw droppingly inept this is a movie that even bad movie lovers will have a hard time sitting through. The problem is not that its so bad as to be bad, rather its because its so badly paced that its really really dull.
Filled with fake sets, fake facial hair, racist attitudes, bizarre actions and dialog with a high "huh?" factor, this is a movie that bad movie lovers can sit and watch and make fun of, assuming they can stay awake. Rarely have I seen a movie where I mumbled "I can't believe they did that" over and over again. It begins almost at the outset where a police patrol plane begins to strafe the smugglers plane with machine gun fire even though it suspects it has people hidden in it, continues as the smuggling pilot remedies the situation and then goes on from there.
What were these people thinking? A unique viewing experience certainly, but not one I need to repeat or one I can recommend. If you like bad movies give it a shot, but be warned you may not make it to the end with out snoozing.
3 out of 10
Pretty bad...and a sad look at one of the sadder periods in history.
planktonrules13 January 2014
Like most videos of older films from Alpha Video, this one is in very rough shape. It's obvious the print has seen much, much better days!
"Shadows of the Orient" is set in the era just after the Johnson-Reed Act (also called 'Immigration Act of 1924' or 'The Oriental Exclusion Act'). This US law created quotas for immigrants that severely limited the number of folks from certain parts of the world--such as Eastern Europe and Asia. However, folks from 'desirable' nations (such as Northern Europe) were given preferential treatment.
Regis Toomey and J. Farrell MacDonald play inspectors working to capture illegal aliens and those profiting from smuggling these folks into the US. Inspector Sullivan (MacDonald), an old an experienced man, is having trouble getting to the bottom of a gang smuggling in Chinese folks. So, Inspector Baxter (Toomey) is brought in--and Sullivan naturally resents it. However, through the course of the film, Baxter proves his worth and, along with his lady friend, is able to put an end to this gang.
While I was uncomfortable with the somewhat xenophobic subject matter, you DO want to see the gang stopped as they are amazingly evil. When they are about to be caught in their airplane, they jettison their cargo--dropping these poor Chinese folks thousands of feet to their deaths!! Nice, huh?! Unfortunately, the film itself just wasn't very good. While Toomey and the rest tried their best, the material was a bit limp and the action scenes pretty bad. For instance, when one plane was shot down, you can see it's from another film as their is a German insignia on the plane that actually crashes! Cheap and silly overall.
"Shadows of the Orient" is set in the era just after the Johnson-Reed Act (also called 'Immigration Act of 1924' or 'The Oriental Exclusion Act'). This US law created quotas for immigrants that severely limited the number of folks from certain parts of the world--such as Eastern Europe and Asia. However, folks from 'desirable' nations (such as Northern Europe) were given preferential treatment.
Regis Toomey and J. Farrell MacDonald play inspectors working to capture illegal aliens and those profiting from smuggling these folks into the US. Inspector Sullivan (MacDonald), an old an experienced man, is having trouble getting to the bottom of a gang smuggling in Chinese folks. So, Inspector Baxter (Toomey) is brought in--and Sullivan naturally resents it. However, through the course of the film, Baxter proves his worth and, along with his lady friend, is able to put an end to this gang.
While I was uncomfortable with the somewhat xenophobic subject matter, you DO want to see the gang stopped as they are amazingly evil. When they are about to be caught in their airplane, they jettison their cargo--dropping these poor Chinese folks thousands of feet to their deaths!! Nice, huh?! Unfortunately, the film itself just wasn't very good. While Toomey and the rest tried their best, the material was a bit limp and the action scenes pretty bad. For instance, when one plane was shot down, you can see it's from another film as their is a German insignia on the plane that actually crashes! Cheap and silly overall.
So bad, it's bad!
mritchie24 January 2009
I'm a fan of B-movies, but this Poverty Row film is so bad, I'm tempted not to bother reviewing it, but that cool title is what suckered me into watching it, so maybe my review will save others who might be equally tempted. This begins with a good scene that was duplicated in a later (and much better) Ronald Reagan B-movie, SECRET SERVICE OF THE AIR, in which a pilot, smuggling a Chinese family of illegal aliens, dumps them out in mid-air to their deaths when he's attacked by another plane. The pilot, angry when his boss won't pay him for the aborted delivery, calls the Feds and offers to give them the goods on the smuggling ring, but is shot to death just before the agents raid the Chinese restaurant which is the front for the gang. The leader, Sidney Blackmer, gets away, but agent Regis Toomey, his older sidekick (J. Farrell McDonald), and a prominent judge's daughter (Esther Ralston) try to infiltrate the gang, only to wind up in danger. The 70-minute movie is filled with inept photography, bad sets, and flubbed lines left in, and the lack of any background music at all only accentuates the sheer boredom of the proceedings. Even the promise of a moderately exciting air chase at the end goes nowhere. The actors, all pros who have done good B-film work elsewhere, are left at sea by bad direction and zero production values. Blackmer gets one nicely slimy, almost campy line, when he says, "Orientals have a peculiar irresistible fascination for me," but despite the promise of the melodramatic title, this one will hold no one's interest.
The shadows are so foggy that you can't see the orient.
mark.waltz16 July 2023
Warning: Spoilers
In fact, there are hardly any Asian characters. There's a minor plot involving the smuggling of illegal Asian immigrants, but all that is for the outline surrounding the main plot of Esther Ralston, the spoiled daughter of a local judge, being found inside an illegal gambling joint (you know the kind, where the guests guess which shell has a pea underneath it), arrested by detective Regis Toomey who's more interested in finding out who's behind this racket.
Toomey has been brought in by the police chief to supervise the original investigation by aging detective (scene stealing J. Farrell MacDonald), and ends up in a romance with the fun loving, rebellious Ms. Ralston. In spite of ridiculously awful script and a dull leading man, this is saved by the snappy pacing and villains that are so horribly cliched that a blind man selling pencils on the street would figure out how crooked they were instantaneously. MacDonald always steals scenes with his deliberate constantly befuddled line delivery, but that's not difficult when he's with Toomey who's trying to give a Lee Tracy style performance and can't manage to be convincing. Ralston plays a rather annoying spoiled character but instills her with a love of intrigue that redeems her somewhat. Still a poor cheapie poverty row programmer that doesn't live up to its exotic title, saved somewhat by a plane chase at the end.
Toomey has been brought in by the police chief to supervise the original investigation by aging detective (scene stealing J. Farrell MacDonald), and ends up in a romance with the fun loving, rebellious Ms. Ralston. In spite of ridiculously awful script and a dull leading man, this is saved by the snappy pacing and villains that are so horribly cliched that a blind man selling pencils on the street would figure out how crooked they were instantaneously. MacDonald always steals scenes with his deliberate constantly befuddled line delivery, but that's not difficult when he's with Toomey who's trying to give a Lee Tracy style performance and can't manage to be convincing. Ralston plays a rather annoying spoiled character but instills her with a love of intrigue that redeems her somewhat. Still a poor cheapie poverty row programmer that doesn't live up to its exotic title, saved somewhat by a plane chase at the end.
Tough guy adventure
Leofwine_draca2 February 2019
Warning: Spoilers
SHADOWS OF THE ORIENT is an enjoyably dated B-movie of 1935, dealing with Chinese being smuggled into Brazil. A female heiress gets drawn into the mix and finds herself up against gangsters, but a tough cop comes to her aid. This is a poverty row-style production filled with cheesy action scenes, aerial combat and lots of tough guy dialogue. It certainly hasn't aged well over the years, but perhaps that's the charm.
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