When Were You Born (1938)

(On Cable TV, May 2022) I’m normally a good sport for 1930s murder mysteries, and an even better sport for any movie featuring Asian pioneer Anna Mae Wong. But horoscope thriller When Were You Born starts on the wrong foot and keeps stepping on its own toes throughout. Even by the standards of 1930s films going nuts for dubious subject matters, this film goes all-out of very strange tangents. The opening of the film, for instance, has noted astrologer and all-around crackpot Manly P. Hall introducing the film by speaking directly to the camera and insisting that Astrology! Is! A! Science! It’s not a random cameo, as Hall also co-wrote the script – which features Wong as an astrologer whose understanding of the discipline gives her near-magical divinatory powers, to the point of predicting deaths. That would normally make her a prime suspect but in this film, she becomes a detective helping the skeptical policemen sift through the twelve suspects, each of them from a distinct zodiac sign. What Wong is doing interpreting western astrology despite being showcased as a mysterious lady of the orient is a mystery for the ages. While murder mysteries with a little bit of the supernatural were not exactly unknown in the 1930s, few were as thoroughly contaminated by the supernatural as this one, as the second of Ronald Knox’s 10 Commandments of Detective Fiction are gleefully jettisoned in favour of astrology hokum – the “investigations” of Wong’s character pretty much consist in asking suspects about their date and hour of birth, from which she can pretty much divine their quirks, fate and breakfast. (It does not make for a satisfying mystery plot.)  Too bad – Wong remains a striking performer even in substandard roles when she’s asked to be overly stiff, and the film does have a few amusing bits of business, suggesting the importance of co-writer Anthony Coldeway in shaping the pseudo-scientific material in a half-competent commercial product. Still, I can’t bring myself to recommend When Were You Born except to audiences knowing what they’re getting into – I mean, it’s interesting that the film’s twelve characters are mapped so that they all fall on a different zodiac sign, with corresponding personality traits – but there’s a large step between this and an actually good film. [June 2022: Manly P. Hall… I knew this name meant something! I actually have a copy of his magnum opus, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, in my library: a thick, lavish book full of hokum that’s nonetheless a wonderful piece of conversation and contemplation. Which might as well be what I think of the film as well.]