Mask Of The Dragon has young Richard Emory killed almost immediately after coming home to America after Korean war service. Before that he had agreed to help a Korean dealer in Oriental artifacts get a Chinese jade statue into the USA.
Watching this it occurred to me that ever since 9/11 we are all warned and asked at airports not to accept packages from strangers. You would think someone in the army and a private detective would know better.
So like in The Maltese Falcon your partner is supposed to do something about it when you're killed and this film does have some similarities to The Maltese Falcon updated for the Cold War. Of course the plot and the characters aren't halfway as interesting.
I think you've figured out there is smuggling afoot here, but when you see the film I think you'll agree that the smuggling might have made more sense going out of the USA instead of coming in.
Richard Travis as the Sam Spade of the piece and Sheila Ryan as a CSI investigator and Lyle Talbot of the LAPD try to solve the homicide of Emory and later of Dee Tatum a singer stabbed through a curtain on the Johnny Grant Show. Sid Melton plays one of the bad guys and he was Lippert Pictures house comedian. In this film his comedy is very forced.
Dashiell Hammett if he saw this film would have been mortified at what was done to his masterpiece.
Watching this it occurred to me that ever since 9/11 we are all warned and asked at airports not to accept packages from strangers. You would think someone in the army and a private detective would know better.
So like in The Maltese Falcon your partner is supposed to do something about it when you're killed and this film does have some similarities to The Maltese Falcon updated for the Cold War. Of course the plot and the characters aren't halfway as interesting.
I think you've figured out there is smuggling afoot here, but when you see the film I think you'll agree that the smuggling might have made more sense going out of the USA instead of coming in.
Richard Travis as the Sam Spade of the piece and Sheila Ryan as a CSI investigator and Lyle Talbot of the LAPD try to solve the homicide of Emory and later of Dee Tatum a singer stabbed through a curtain on the Johnny Grant Show. Sid Melton plays one of the bad guys and he was Lippert Pictures house comedian. In this film his comedy is very forced.
Dashiell Hammett if he saw this film would have been mortified at what was done to his masterpiece.