Black Dragons ** (1942, Bela Lugosi, Joan Barclay, George Pembroke) – Classic Movie Review 5667

Director William Nigh’s 1942 Black Dragons is a sinister and extremely weird wartime thriller, starring Bela Lugosi as brilliant scientist Dr Melcher, who is instructed by Japan’s fiendish Black Dragon Society to go to Japan on a secret mission.

He operates on six Japanese plotters, making them resemble six American leaders, who are then are murdered and replaced with their lookalikes.

Interestingly, and strangely, it contains stock footage of the riots at Rudolph Valentino’s funeral.

The cast includes Joan Barclay as Alice Saunders, George Pembroke as Dr Bill Saunders and Clayton Moore (later famous as the Lone Ranger), who plays Dick Martin, the handsome detective who investigates the case.

The Black Dragon Society also appears in Let’s Get Tough! a 1942 East Side Kids film made by the same Monogram Pictures team of writer Harvey Gates and producer Sam Katzman. Lugosi appeared in two East Side Kids films, Spooks Run Wild (1941) and Ghosts on the Loose (1943).

The timely film was rushed into production after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and begin shooting on 21 January 1941.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5667

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com