The Chinese Ring (1947)

Written by CinemaSerf on July 7, 2022

Quite a routine little outing for Roland Winters as he has to investigate the death of a Chinese lady - in his own house, would you believe - by way of a sinister poisoned dart! It transpires that the woman was really a Princess sent by her government to buy some aircraft with one million dollars which has now gone missing... Aided by No.3 son "Tommy" and the inimitable Mantan Moreland as "Birmingham Brown" he embarks on his perilous quest to discover who killed her, and what happened to the cash! It moves along quickly, but Winters is no Sydney Toler and his performance is nowhere near as engaging; his Confucian OSV syntax is much more contrived and though it's still a fun way to kill an hour, I think the end of now definitely nigh for this character.