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Veteran action star George Larkin had worked for low-budget outfits before, but the former serial ace reached the nadir of his screen career with this Chinatown mystery produced by one-legged, one-eyed Gower Gulch entrepreneur Robert J. Horner. The Edward D. Wood, Jr. of the silent era, Horner stood for about the cheapest most threadbare films this side of home movies. In The Pell Street Mystery, Larkin plays a crusading reporter searching for the killer of a Chinatown businessman (Frank Whitson). He manages to infiltrate a notorious gang, but they are soon on to his disguise. At the last moment, Larkin and his girlfriend (Florence Stone) are saved by the police. The killer (Karl Silvera, who specialized in playing "half-breeds" and Orientals) is apprehended, and Larkin proposes to his girl. Larkin's real-life wife Ollie Kirby also appeared under the direction of Joseph Franz, as did Jack Richardson. Larkin had only himself to blame for the lacklustre reception of The Pell Street Mystery: he wrote the screenplay.