AllMovie

Dore Schary, several years removed from his tenure as head of MGM, was screenwriter for the modest Universal actioner Chinatown Squad. Lyle Talbot plays Ted Lacey, a disgruntled ex-cop reduced to driving a sightseeing bus in Chinatown. When a man who has been collecting funds for the Chinese communist cause is murdered, Lacey leaps at the opportunity to solve the case in hopes of getting his badge back. The killing is tied in with some stolen airplanes -- and, this being Hollywood's version of Chinatown, there's an abundance of sinister-looking suspects. Eighteen-year-old Valerie Hobson is the pretty if antiseptic heroine. For reasons best known to the folks at Universal, Chinatown Squad was included in TV's "Shock Theatre" package, lumped together with the studio's Frankenstein and Dracula pictures!