Black Dragons (1942)
On December 17, 1941 — just 10 days after Pearl Harbor — a syndicated UP article was published in newspapers all over the U.S., alerting readers that
Treachery and violence are the weapons of Japan’s fifth column which operates through the notorious Black Dragon society. (…)
The head of Black Dragon is frail old Misuru Toyama, 87 years old, but still a master craftsman in international intrigue. (…)
Other members of the organization may occupy humble positions in cities of the United States or other lands (...) or perhaps may be dignified by diplomatic appointments and shielded by diplomatic immunity in the countries to which they are assigned.
On December 29, 1941, Showmen’s Trade Review reported: “Implied by the present war situation, Monogram has purchased from Edmond Kelso an original under the title ‘Yellow Menace.’ The author is now developing the screenplay, and an early start of production is contemplated.”
On January 14, 1942, Motion Picture Daily mentioned what’s either a new project or, according to some sources, the old one with a new title: “Monogram plans to star Bela Lugosi in ‘Black Dragons,’ original by Robert Kehoe, dealing with a secret Jap sabotage group. Sam Katzman will produce.”
On January 21, 1942: Variety wrote: “’Black Dragons’, a yarn about a murderous Japanese secret, is being rushed into work tomorrow (Wed.) at Monogram to cash in on its timeliness. Picture stars Bela Lugosi, with William Nigh directing and Sam Katzman producing. ‘Yellow Menace,’ originally scheduled as Lugosi’s next starter, has been postponed.”
And the very next day, Black Dragons (with a script credited to neither Kehoe nor Kelso, but to Harvey Gates, whose scripting career went back to 1913) — one of the famous “Monogram 9” — started shooting. Most likely, shooting took six days, and the film was in cinemas six weeks later.
On a poster, Bela Lugosi was “quoted” with the claim: “I defy moviegoers not to gasp when they see Black Dragons. Never have I worked in a story so startling or so blood-chillingly shocking. See it if you dare!”
Startling indeed: The film’s plot has baffled everyone who watched Black Dragons. Phil Hardy calls it “mainly a half-baked mess of screams, shadows and murkily lurking figures,” while Tom Weaver, a bit more kind, declares the film to be “a minor landmark in the history of incoherent cinema”.
Black Dragons is, in effect, a war-time dissection of identity politics, telling a confused story about a bunch of Japanese spies being turned into American businessmen in order to wreak havoc through sabotage. Apparently, all this requires is to change their faces; the film doesn’t bother to explore the various other intricacies which would necessarily be involved in such a ploy. It is as if surgeon Lugosi not only changes faces, but personalities as well.
The film suggests that identity is malleable and unstable: Lugosi himself oscillates between ruthless killer and charming immigrant, confusing both the leading lady (Joan Barclay) and the audience, both of whom are unsure whether he’s a creep and/or a potential romantic interest. However, neither is his “real identity” — and the film offers no evidence that his former persona as a Nazi surgeon was any more “the real person”. Indeed, is there even such a thing? For masks change: Thus, a Japanese spy is first turned into a Caucasian businessman and then into a monster. We may believe that we control our masks, but in the film’s most profound line, a dying Lugosi, addressing the victim whom he has turned into the monster, cackles: “And you must go on living!”
Even more disturbingly, various near-surreal Monogram moments indicate that reality itself is just as fragile and questionable. Thus, a regular cab appears to house four people in its backseat. Lugosi can vanish from a moving car with no explanation whatsoever. We are shown stock footage from catastrophes allegedly orchestrated by the saboteurs — but surely they had no hand in the 1926 death of Rudolfo Valentino… or did they? In a delightful moment late in the film, Lugosi takes his leave and, asked whether he will be seen again, cheerfully replies: “Who knows, in this crazy world?” And we cannot argue the fact it must be a crazy world which has dialogue like this:
ALICE: “You sound like a man of destiny.”
COLOMB: “One must not flirt with one’s destiny.”
ALICE: “With the world in the condition it is today, aren’t we all flirting with destiny?”
COLOMB: “I suppose I finish my book upstairs.”
The inner core of the labyrinthine script is a climactic flashback, in which Lugosi’s surgeon character is thrown into a jail cell which already houses another prisoner — who just happens to look exactly like Lugosi (and is played by him). Surgeon Lugosi grabs his operating instruments, which his foes have inexplicably failed to take away from him, and the film implies that he performs plastic surgery — right there, in the cell — to make himself look like Bela Lugosi (apparently by shaving himself and putting the beard on Bela II), which somehow helps him to escape off-screen. (Monogram’s press book offered — oddly apt, considering the beard switching — a “Bela Lugosi-Remington Tie-Up”: “Don’t be the ‘Black Dragon’ of your household. Keep your face smooth and clean with a Remington!”) Even if we assume that original plans had another actor play one of those two characters, it’s still a mind-boggling idea.
One might reasonably argue that all this is merely the result of Monogram screenwriters desperately trying to meet a deadline. And indeed, there is little doubt that nobody involved with the film regarded it as more than a quickie, to be shot today and forgotten tomorrow. But this argument is moot: Meaning is rarely created through conscious efforts, and it is the very “problems” of the script which allow us to perceive it as more than a mindless time-waster.
Luckily, Bela Lugosi is up to the task of portraying a character who consists of nothing but the disjointed activities required by the plot. Even though he’s both a Nazi and a multiple murderer, he manages to come across as the most sympathetic character in the film. Especially enjoyable is the way he can hardly be bothered to even pretend being innocent, letting us know that he’s in the joke and inviting us to share it. At one point, having annoyed the aptly-named Dick into leaving, he breaks into a spontaneous grin which, in itself, perfectly encapsulates the proper way to deal with “this crazy world”.
Black Dragons was released on March 6, 1942 to bad reviews. On March 27, FBI agents arrested 139 alleged members of the Black Dragon society. More films about the society followed: In May, Republic announced its serial G-Men vs. the Black Dragon, while at Universal, the Dead End Kids were already busy in their own serial Junior G-Men of the Air, with “Baron” Lionel Atwill leading the Black Dragons. On May 22, Monogram released the East Side Kids comedy Let’s Get Tough!, with the Kids fighting the Black Dragons following another script by Harvey Gates. And on August 14, Fox released Little Tokyo, U.S.A. But by then, Katzman and Lugosi were already at work on Bowery at Midnight.
Harrisons’ Report: This espionage drama is best suited for small towns and neighborhood theatres, where the patrons are not too exacting in their demands for story values. The producer has taken a timely subject and turned it into a fantastic plot. It is difficult to believe that Japanese could be transformed into Americans. Intelligent audiences will hardly find it acceptable.
Motion Picture Daily: Timeliness is the principal if not sole asset of this fantastic melodrama (….) It’s a bit fantastic to be taken seriously, even for purposes of melodrama, but it does get a lot of killing inside the running time.
Motion Picture Herald: (…) it’s a bit more than can be asked of melodrama as conveyed by Bela Lugosi and associates assigned lines and business beyond anybody’s artistry to deliver with conviction.
New York Evening Post: The picture can be listed as a feeble attempt to publicize ill feelings between Japs and Germans. All it does, though, is put unwary Americans to sleep.
Showmen’s Trade Review: A capable cast headed by Bela Lugosi is far above the quality of the trite story material, and the script unfortunately never gets a lift from the direction.
Hollywood Reporter: Any child wearing a Halloween mask can cause a more instantaneous and legitimate scare than Black Dragons manages to evoke.
New York Daily News: Bela Lugosi’s Black Dragons, at the New York Theatre, is tame compared to most of the horror he’s turned out. It appears to be something Monogram ran up hurriedly, with little thought, in order to be among the first in Hollywood to get Japanese deviltry on the screen. This exaggerated yarn is not helped by suspense.
Los Angeles Times: Those who love their mystery and their Lugosi will find this film unusually sinister.
Variety: Probably the most incredible of the film productions which has come out of Hollywood since the outbreak of the war. Imposed on a whodunit with horror furbelows is a denouement that baffles all logic, science and respect for the average picture-goer’s intelligence. With Bela Lugosi, who poses here as a menace overhanging a flock of other menaces, it’s mostly a closeup of peering eyes and a figure slinking around corners or disappearing from cabs in motion. (….) The direction or acting rarely seems certain or at ease.
