Mr. Moto
Mysterious Mr Moto (1938) 7.5/10
Danger Island (1939) 7/10
Mr Moto's Last Warning (1939) 6.5/10
Think Fast, Mr Moto (1937) 5.5/10
Thank You, Mr Moto (1937) 5.5/10
Mr Moto Takes a Vacation (1939) 5/10
Mr Moto Takes a Chance (1937) 4.5/10
Mr Moto's Gamble (1937) 3/10
The Return of Mr Moto (1965) 2/10
Danger Island (1939) 7/10
Mr Moto's Last Warning (1939) 6.5/10
Think Fast, Mr Moto (1937) 5.5/10
Thank You, Mr Moto (1937) 5.5/10
Mr Moto Takes a Vacation (1939) 5/10
Mr Moto Takes a Chance (1937) 4.5/10
Mr Moto's Gamble (1937) 3/10
The Return of Mr Moto (1965) 2/10
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- DirectorNorman FosterStarsPeter LorreVirginia FieldThomas BeckOn a freighter going from San Francisco to Shanghai Mr. Moto solves mysteries caused by a gang of smugglers.Strangely for such a big fan of the Charlie Chan films, I have never seen a single entry in the Mr Moto series, Fox's other major franchise focusing on a taciturn Asian detective. Based on the novels by John P. Marquand, the Moto series was undoubtedly started due to the success of the Chan films. For a short period of time, the two series seem to become interchangeable in the minds of the executives sharing not only many of the same actors but even some characters and a plot which was originally written for Charlie Chan but ended up being made as "Mr Moto's Gamble".
But the similarities between the two series end there. Moto is no Charlie Chan clone. He is a rather more sinister figure, a cunning Interpol operative who solves problems with his fists rather than his wits. The vast disparity between the two Asian detectives is obvious right from the start of "Think Fast, Mr Moto", the first film in the series.
We are introduced to our hero in disguise as a homeless peddler as he follows a mysterious man with a Union Jack tattoo on his arm. The two eventually meet in an antique shop where Mr Moto takes down a pair of thugs using his proficiency in judo.
There are several other action scenes in this film in which Moto dispatches his enemies by beating them up, shooting them, and even tossing them into the ocean without so much as a second thought. It goes without saying that the polite, brainy Charlie Chan would never engage in such activities.
No, Moto is far more like James Bond than Charlie Chan. A ruthless master of disguise who traverses the world in pursuit of powerful enemies who seem to have assassins in every shadow ready to pounce on our Japanese hero. But Moto is never to be outdone, especially when his foes underestimate him due to his small stature and friendly, smiling demeanour.
"Think Fast, Mr Moto" has him pursuing a smuggling gang to Shanghai. En route, he befriends Bob Hitchings (Thomas Beck), the prodigal son of a shipping magnate whose business is under threat from the villains. Bob has a different kind of trouble in mind, however. He has fallen madly in love with Gloria Danton (Virginia Field), a beautiful but clearly troubled girl who has disappeared without a trace. Is she connected to the smugglers as well? Knowing just how economical these movies are, that's a sure bet.
I enjoyed my first Mr Moto movie even though it never reached the warm, witty, entertaining heights of the Charlie Chan series. It is a diverting if not exactly march through some familiar thriller tropes led at a neat, economical pace by director Norman Foster. Foster has none of the style or flare of Charlie Chan's finest directors but he puts on a technically proficient and consistently satisfying show here. I was certainly never bored.
Peter Lorre plays the mysterious Mr Moto well even though I found it hard to warm to the character. It is impossible to really know what Mr Moto is thinking or where his heart is at. He always seems to be pretending, playing a character, hiding his true intentions. Unlike the friendly Charlie Chan, Mr Moto definitely means trouble. He is more than capable of changing from a bumbling, smiling presence into a sinister judo master at a flip of a switch and Lorre does a good job of portraying his mercurial nature.
Still, even though "Think Fast, Mr Moto" is a fun movie, it's hard not to notice that something seems to be missing. The plot twists often seem random and come out of left field. The supporting cast is not terribly interesting or memorable. Meanwhile, Mr Moto himself remains an enigma which leaves us without anyone or anything to really care for.
5.5/10 - DirectorNorman FosterStarsPeter LorreThomas BeckPauline FrederickSeven maps, when found and put together, reveal the location of the treasures of Genghis Khan.The finest accomplishment of "Thank You, Mr Moto", the second instalment in Fox's series about the globe-trotting Japanese detective, is that it establishes an identity for the movies far removed from the Charlie Chan films. This is certainly not a plot you'd find the honourable Chinese detective in. Unlike the previous film, "Think Fast, Mr Moto", the predicament he finds himself in now seems tailor-made just for his peculiar skill set.
Mr Moto (Peter Lorre), the taciturn detective working for the International Association of Importers is tasked with finding a legendary set of seven scrolls which, when found and put together, reveal the location of Genghis Khan's vast treasure.
This story which bears more than a passing similarity to the future adventures of Indiana Jones and even James Bond is a far cry from the detective yarn from the previous film and a much better indicator of the way in which this series of films would continue.
Complicating the matters for Mr Moto, however, is that the scrolls are also being sought by another party whose methods are far more underhanded than Moto's. Following a trail of corpses left in their wake, Moto has to identify the killers before they reach the treasure.
Of course, Moto himself is not above dispatching some bad guys to meet their maker. He even introduces himself to the film's female lead after murdering a duplicitous nobleman with a scarily precise knife throw.
Unlike the loveable Charlie Chan, Mr Moto cuts a very sinister figure in this film. Peter Lorre is at his best when he can play the role deadly seriously stripping away all the artifices of Moto's jovial politeness. Cinematographer Virgil Miller plays along frequently framing Moto with deep, dark shadows giving him a more mysterious presence than that accorded to the film's villains.
Director Norman Foster has also upped his game compared to his work in the previous film. After an exhilarating opening in which Moto crosses the Gobi Desert disguised as a Mongolian, Foster delivers a deftly choreographed and beautifully shot dance sequence in which we follow several conversations and storylines as the characters glide across the dance floor in and out of shot.
Foster is also the co-writer of the film along with Wyllis Cooper which makes him a rare auteur in the B-movies of the 1930s. The dialogue in "Thank You, Mr Moto" is terrific, especially between the characters of Tom and Eleanor, the stereotypical young leads who fall in love throughout the movie. Their sharp, witty banter is well delivered with charm and excellent comedic timing by Thomas Beck and Jayne Regan.
The story, unfortunately, is something of a muddle featuring a tad too many moving pieces for a 65-minute movie. I found it less engrossing than the rather simpler murder mystery from the previous film.
I was also somewhat disappointed that after the film's rousing Mongolian opening and despite its Peiping setting, most of it unfolds in dull offices and ballrooms. A story of high adventure and treasure hunting should really occur in deserts, jungles, and exotic locales and not in some non-descript mansions!
Overall, I had fun with "Thank You, Mr Moto" even though I still remain lukewarm towards this series. It just doesn't have the cosy lovability of the Charlie Chan films. Part of the reason must lie in my preference for mystery films over adventure films but some of it is certainly down to the fact that the stories in these Moto films are weaker and less engrossing and the supporting cast is not terribly memorable. This leaves the bulk of the weight of the film on the shoulders of Moto himself. The problem is that even though this taciturn, cunning, sinister hero is a fascinating character, I just don't find him compelling enough to carry the entire series on his own.
5.5/10 - DirectorJames TinlingStarsPeter LorreKeye LukeDick BaldwinWhen the #1 heavyweight contender is mysteriously poisoned during a bout, Moto knows that identifying the gambler who placed large bets against him is the key to solving the murder.The genesis of "Mr Moto's Gamble", the third in the Fox series of B-movies following the adventures of the taciturn Japanese detective, is a whole lot more fascinating than the film itself. The story begins in 1937 on the set of "Charlie Chan at Ringside" which was to be the 17th instalment in that particular franchise. The production was hardly under way but it was already in trouble. The main cause for concern was the health of its star Warner Oland who was a serious alcoholic and was going through an acrimonious divorce. His physical decline was already evident in the 16th Chan film "Charlie Chan in Monte Carlo" most of which he spent sitting down allowing others to deliver most of the dialogue. By all accounts, in late 1937, he was getting even worse.
Then, one day, he got up out of his chair where he had been waiting for a shot to be set up and announced he was going to get a drink of water. He walked off set never to return. After abandoning the filming, he travelled to his native country of Sweden where he died the following year.
This, understandably, caused considerable panic at Fox headquarters. What were they to do? One of their biggest stars was gone and the film, which was already paid for, was in serious trouble of being cancelled.
They considered recasting Chan but ultimately decided against it. Perhaps they were worried that the general public would not accept a new actor in a role which had already become iconic or perhaps they still held out hope for Oland's recovery.
They considered retooling the film into a vehicle for Keye Luke, a terrific and charismatic young actor best known for playing Charlie Chan's overenthusiastic number-one son Lee. This would have been a wonderful idea, especially if it spawned into a new series of films but it was also eventually dismissed.
Finally, an uneasy solution was found. They would retool "Charlie Chan at Ringside" into a film starring Peter Lorre as Mr Moto, Fox's other detective protagonist who had just debuted in "Think Fast, Mr Moto".
That is how the third Moto film, "Mr Moto's Gamble" came to be and why it feels like such a strange concoction of disparate styles, scenes, and subplots which never comfortably gel into a coherent film.
Even if you didn't know the tumultuous behind-the-scenes goings-on, you'd be able to twig that something was off right from the get-go. The opening scene of the film sees Mr Moto, who had thus far been a mysterious, even sinister detective, a lone wolf, teaching a class in San Francisco!
This is the first of many feeble attempts to explain away his presence in a story which is so clearly ill-suited for his character. Mr Moto and Charlie Chan are very far apart both in personality and in the types of cases they normally investigate. Moto movies are closer to the adventure genre, early prototypes of James Bond or Indiana Jones films. They frequently see him looking for treasure, fighting foreign spies, and milling around exotic locales. This is the only time we'll ever see him investigating a rather down-and-dirty murder case in the seedy underbelly of an American metropolis.
The plot has him looking into the mysterious death of a boxer who dies after receiving a punch to the face in the ring. At first, everyone writes off the death as a tragic but natural death until Mr Moto finds traces of poison on the other boxer's glove. This is definitely a far cry from the previous Moto film which had him looking for a treasure map in China.
Even his dialogue is ill-fitting for his character. He has obviously been assigned lines previously written for Charlie Chan so we suddenly have the usually quiet, scheming Mr Moto espousing Confucian aphorisms. Similarly, he has traded in his usual two-fisted methods of getting to the truth for the decidedly Charlie Chan-esque techniques. He is seen, for the first and last time, looking down microscopes, patiently interrogating suspects, and setting cunning psychological traps. He doesn't even kill anyone!
Now, I'd be more than willing to forgive even such egregious out-of-character behaviour if the film were any good. It's not! The main problem lies with the messy, top-loaded screenplay written by Charles Belden and Jerome Cady who were also responsible for the last (and worst) of the Oland Chans.
The film is absolutely brimming with subplots, side characters, and tangents but Belden and Cady never give it any kind of structure, shape, or rhythm. The film seems to amble along from one scene to the next like a traveller without a map often forgetting what had happened before and lingering for far too long on scenes of little interest either to the viewer or to the plot.
Among the bevvy of characters, we get competing mobsters betting on different outcomes for the big fight, a boxer torn between two beautiful rival girls, a former boxer struggling with his kleptomania (and a serious case of short-term memory loss to boot), a boxing promoter and his daughter, and even number one son Lee Chan himself.
Lee's presence in the film is a leftover from the original script. It's interesting to see him interact with Mr. Moto and an intriguing relationship develops between them resembling that of a patient mentor and a dedicated student. Sadly, Lee is quickly paired off with the aforementioned kleptomaniac boxer and the two of them set off on a completely unrelated comedic adventure.
Moto, meanwhile, is paired up with a San Francisco policeman played by none other than Harold Huber, another mainstay of the later Oland Chans. I like Harold Huber, a funny and likeable performer, but here he is given very little of interest to do. His dialogue is not funny, his character lacks the verve and wise-cracking vivaciousness of his typical roles, and he serves no discernable purpose in the plot.
With so many characters, subplots, and tones all milling about in the same 72-minute movie, you'd think that at least the film would not be boring. Unfortunately, "Mr Moto's Gamble" is rather sluggish and unevenly paced. Look, for instance, at the appallingly unfunny scene in which Lee and the kleptomaniac boxer find themselves locked up in a jail cell. It goes on for a whole five minutes while contributing absolutely nothing to the story. Meanwhile, important characters are barely given an introduction. The plot, meanwhile, proceeds in fits and stutters, delivering its disappointingly few twists at uneven and overlong intervals.
This script would not have been a very good Charlie Chan film but with Mr Moto at the helm, it is an absolute disaster. A chaotic, uneven, listless slog in which Moto has no business being in. It spends so much time trying to distract us from the fact that Moto is ill-at-ease in the story that the story itself gets forgotten somewhere along the way.
This is a shame really because the prospect of seeing Lee Chan and Mr Moto working a case together is a fascinating one. Keye Luke is as terrific as ever, delivering a more subdued and sharper performance than usual. Also very good is Peter Lorre himself. The character he is playing is very clearly not the Mr Moto we met in the previous films but it makes one think that perhaps Lorre would not have been a poor replacement for Warner Oland in the part of Charlie Chan after all. If only he had a good script to work with!
3/4 - DirectorNorman FosterStarsPeter LorreRochelle HudsonRobert KentIn the jungle near Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Mr. Moto poses as an ineffectual archaeologist and a venerable holy man with mystical powers to help foil two insurgencies against the government.Whereas previous Mr Moto movies, despite their adventure-laden plots, took place in dull offices and familiar ballrooms, "Mr Moto Takes a Chance" places our taciturn Japanese detective in the midst of the Cambodian jungle. Seeing Moto actually stalk his way through ancient temples and thick greenery alone makes this fourth instalment in the series a rather compelling proposition.
Unfortunately, the screenplay written by Lou Breslow and John Patrick from a story by Willis Cooper and Norman Foster is a considerable letdown. Instead of having Moto pursue maps to hidden treasures and fight off cunning bad guys, most of the film seems to waste its runtime on painfully unfunny comic relief and extraordinarily lengthy expositional dialogue. The padding in the film is so severe that nothing at all seems to happen until well after the halfway mark.
The plot itself, it must be said, is rather thin even for a Moto film. There is no mystery and surprisingly little intrigue. The bad guy is revealed right at the beginning, his plot is painfully obvious and not terribly ingenious, and Moto's methods of defeating him seem to rely more on luck and fists than smarts.
The story begins with a beautiful lady named Victoria Mason (Rochelle Hudson) quite literally falling out of the sky into a small Cambodian village after the plane she was piloting around the world malfunctions.
Also in the village is Mr Moto, posing as a hapless archaeologist. In fact, he is there spying on the deceptively bumbling local Rajah (J. Edward Bromberg) and his entourage which includes one of the most obviously moustache-twirling villains I've ever seen. He is the devious and sinister priest named Bokor (George Regas) who is planning to overthrow the Rajah.
But Miss Mason is also not who she seems to be. Moto quickly figures out that her plane malfunction was actually a clever ruse and that she has ulterior motives for being in the jungle.
All of this is established in the first 10 or so minutes after which the film lays the plot aside for almost a third of its runtime in favour of some truly awful comedic routines. Our comic relief comes in the form of a pair of newsreel filmmakers, Marty (Robert Kent) and Chick (Chick Chandler) who bumble their way through the jungle like a pair of untalented Abbott and Costello impersonators. They are not quite as ghastly as the duo from "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla" but their teeth-gritting slapstick certainly reminded me of that cinematic abomination.
There are some terrific ideas in "Mr Moto Takes a Chance" and several scenes certainly do bear the promise of potential for this serial. I enjoyed the scenes in which Moto disguises himself as a travelling sage in order to manipulate the superstitious Bokor. I also enjoyed the thrilling climax in which Moto comes face to face with the Rajah who is not nearly as friendly as he appears to be.
It also must be said that Peter Lorre is terrific as Moto, a character I am finally starting to warm to. He seems to have developed a biting sense of humour between the films and has become a more likeable and less sinister character.
But all of these good scenes are few and far between, seeded into the movie like breadcrumbs between the awful comedic routines and some truly egregious padding.
"Mr Moto Takes a Chance" is in theory a step in the right direction for the series. It has more adventure, exotic locations, and a more charming protagonist, but in practice, the film takes far too long to unfold its disappointingly simplistic plot.
4.5/10 - DirectorNorman FosterStarsPeter LorreMary MaguireHenry WilcoxonMr. Moto has himself imprisoned on Devil's Island so he can help his cellmate escape and thereby get the goods on a gang of international killers.After four entries in the Mr Moto franchise of decidedly variable quality, I have finally come across one I wholeheartedly enjoyed. "Mysterious Mr Moto" is a terrifically entertaining romp which joyfully marches its way through all the spy yarn cliches at a lightning pace and with more than sufficient charm.
Unlike its predecessors, it sees the taciturn Japanese detective Mr Moto (Peter Lorre) move from one memorable set piece to the next wasting almost no time on mind-numbing filler or grating comic relief. Packed with action, this is the first of the Moto films to have a constant, tangible sense of peril making it easily the most suspenseful and thus entertaining of the series.
The film begins with a bang as Mr Moto (posing as a murderer named Ito Matsuka) escapes from the notorious French prison Devil's Island along with a fellow prisoner named Paul Brissac (Leon Ames). The two become firm friends and upon arriving in London, Brissac makes Ito/Moto his valet.
But Moto's true intentions are revealed once we find out that Brissac is a member of the shadowy League of Assassins, a highly skilled group of international hitmen who are zeroing in on their latest target. That target is a pacifist scientist Anton Darvak (Henry Wilcoxon) who has invented a new formula which will change the world... or something like that. Who cares, after all, it's just a McGuffin.
Moto has to navigate the treacherous fog-laden London streets where every shadow hides an enemy in order to identify all the members of the League of Assassins and save the scientist's life.
Curiously, the lieutenant of the League is played by Harold Huber, best remembered now for playing a series of comedic characters in Charlie Chan films and "Mr Moto's Gamble". Here, he is a chillingly effective villain - precise, cold, and calculating. Director Norman Foster makes the most of his scarred face, framing him in shadows, and shooting him from moody, low angles.
Mr Moto, meanwhile, has become less of a sinister figure than he was in the earlier films. He is not as ruthless as he once was but he has lost none of his efficiency or cunning. Peter Lorre is now entirely comfortable in the skin of the Japanese detective and infuses his performance with touches of gentle humour and irony.
The script by Foster and Philip MacDonald is an economical, pacey affair, a far cry from the padded and unfocused scripts of the previous Moto films. It moves deftly from one location to the next and one action set piece to the next.
From the thrilling opening escape from Devil's Island to a witty foot chase through the streets of London and an all-out brawl in a seedy pub, "Mysterious Mr Moto" certainly kept me entertained. I also enjoyed the way Norman Foster managed to incorporate "local colour" into nearly every scene. I loved the colourful minor characters populating the film's impoverished locations - the cockney flower sellers, the violent drunks, the goofy vergers... I also love the use of diegetic music which usually consists of some drunkard half-intelligibly mangling an old English drinking song.
Sure, the plot is not all that complex and the mysterious villain is immediately obvious but the film's swift pace and ever-changing locales did a great job of distracting me from my disbelief.
"Mysterious Mr Moto" is perhaps not up to par with the best Charlie Chan films, but it is a rollicking good adventure full of good humour and exciting suspense.
7.5/10 - DirectorNorman FosterStarsPeter LorreRicardo CortezVirginia FieldMoto thwarts a ruthless band of international agents who try to foment an international incident by mining the entrance to the Suez Canal and blaming the British.Philip MacDonald's second script for the Mr Moto film series, "Mr Moto's Last Warning" is a fine spy yarn even if it doesn't ever ratchet the same amount of excitement as "Mysterious Mr Moto".
It begins, fascinatingly enough, with the death of our favourite taciturn Japanese detective. Disembarking from a long oceanic voyage, Mr Moto is picked up by some thungs and stabbed to death in an Egyptain alley.
The first clue as to what is going on comes from he fact that despite introducing himself as Mr Moto, the soon to be dead man is not played by Peter Lorre. He is actually a double hired by the real Moto to take the fall.
Meanwhile, Moto is on the trail of a group of spies planning to blow up a French fleet docked in Egypt and blame it on the British. The nationality of the spies is never revealed but seeing how the film was released in 1939 it's not too hard to guess which country would profit the most from the destruction of the British-French alliance.
Unusually for a B-movie, the spies are played by two stars. Ricardo Cortez is tremendous as Fabian, the group's charismatic and sinister leader. Even though by night he is a blood-thirsty spy, by day he is a ventriloquist and the film gets a lot of mileage out of his wooden friend Alf who is as creepy as only a ventriloquist's dummy can be.
Geroge Sanders plays the other spy, the elegant Norvel but his character is far less original or memorable than Fabian. After killing the fake Mr Moto, Sanders pretty much fades into the background which is a shame since he is one of the best actors to grace this series.
Also in the film (a rare star-studded affair) is John Carradine playing Danforth, a British spy who has successfully infiltrated the spy ring. His impenetrable disguise consists of a fake beard and nothing else. It's frankly hilarious watching how these supposed superspies are unable to recognise Danforth just because he is now sporting a beard. The scene in which Fabian finally realizes who his comrade is resembles something out of a "Naked Gun" movie.
The only disappointment in an otherwise first-rate cast is the presence of an annoying comic relief character (over)played by Robert Coote. After "Mysterious Mr Moto" seemed to grasp the fact that no such character is needed to make a thriller work, we are now once again served up with a buffoonish caricature whose repetitive schtick got on my nerves before his first scene was done.
"Mr Moto's Last Warning" is an enjoyable spy story with a terrific cast and some of the best action scenes in the whole series. I also enjoyed how the script fleshes out the villains making them more unusual and human characters than we normally see in films such as this.
Where the film does falter somewhat is in its pacing which is noticeably slower than that of "Mysterious Mr Moto". The problem is that the story is not all that complicated and there is no mystery in it at all. We know all the villains and their plans right from the get-go.
Whereas "Mysterious Mr Moto" zipped us along through a variety of set-pieces and action scenes, "Mr Moto's Last Warning" spends a tad too much time going over information we already know. Its 71-minute runtime could have easily been cut down by 10 minutes without losing any plot points.
Still, the film is a lot more fun than the first four Moto adventures were and Peter Lorre is as marvellous as he was in "Mysterious Mr Moto", playing a softer, more likeable version of the character.
6.5/10 - DirectorHerbert I. LeedsStarsPeter LorreJean HersholtAmanda DuffThe U.S. government asks Mr. Moto to go to Puerto Rico to investigate diamond smuggling after an earlier investigator is murdered.First, a little note on the film's title. Seeing how the opening credits read "PETER LORRE as MR MOTO in Danger Island", I believe this film's title is simply "Danger Island" rather than the grammatically incorrect and rather awkward "Mr Moto in Danger Island" which seems to have become the more universally accepted version.
Unlike other Moto movies which are either based on John P. Marquand novels or original stories, this film is based on a novel called "Murder in Trinidad" by John W. Vandercook. This probably goes a long way in explaining why "Mr Moto in Danger Island" doesn't quite feel like a Moto kind of movie.
For one, it's a whodunnit, centring around a gang of diamond smugglers operating in Puerto Rico and killing off anyone who gets in their way.
Secondly, Moto's usual crime-solving methods (elaborate disguises and violent dispatchings of thugs) are toned down in favour of a more Charlie Chan-esque investigation focusing on the quiet, deliberate observation of a group of suspects.
Nevertheless, screenwriter Peter Milne and director Herbert I. Leeds have taken Vandercook's novel and adapted it into a very entertaining murder mystery programmer executed with skill and precision and at a more than enjoyable pace.
The film also has a fair bit more humour than your average Moto film. There is a terrifically witty extended scene at the beginning of the film which reminded me greatly of Gogol's "The Government Inspector". In it, the newly arrived Moto slowly exposes the fact that there's a leak in the governor's office by revealing that every single suspect knows something which is supposed to be top secret. Peter Lorre plays the scene wonderfully slyly with a kind of irony he rarely gets to display in the role of the polite, taciturn Mr Moto.
Another pleasant surprise comes in the form of Twister McGurk, a comic relief character by Warren Hymer. Usually, I cannot abide comic relief characters in these B-movie thrillers but Hymer is genuinely funny. Perhaps that is because McGurk is a whole lot warmer and more likeable character than usual, portrayed not as a stupid cartoonish stereotype but rather as an overly enthusiastic blunderer in the mould of Lee Chan.
The story is surprisingly engaging as well featuring a bevvy of plausible suspects. I do wish they were better profiled and more varied (they all seem to be middle-aged white men with military titles) but they form a good basis for an entertaining guessing game. The film does lack a colourful villain such as the ones from "Mr Moto's Last Warning" and "Mysterious Mr Moto" but "Danger Island" is clearly playing a different game. This is a more classical, cosy mystery rather than a spy thriller.
An interesting thing to note here is the progression of Mr Moto as a protagonist. In the first two films, he was a rather sinister, solitary figure whose plans and tricks we were not privy to until he chose to reveal them. Those films made it clear that his politeness and bumbling exterior were mere pretences to make his enemies underestimate him.
However, after "Mr Moto's Gamble", Moto started to change into a warmer, more Charlie Chan-like figure. His friendly, approachable exterior changed from mere pretence to a genuine characteristic.
This change has proved to be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the warmer Mr Moto is a far more likeable and palatable protagonist. Someone we can root for and whose adventures we can enjoy. Peter Lorre also seems to be having more fun playing the more affable version of Moto.
On the other hand, however, the more mysterious version of the character present in the first two films was a much more compelling, unusual lead and made the films all the more edgy and unpredictable.
I suppose your preference will depend on what you want from these films. I personally find that the latter, less-interesting but more likeable Moto is the better one. After all, these films are meant to be breezy 70-minute adventure flicks and as such are not really all that good at dealing with grey morality and complex characterizations. Colourful but broad brushstrokes work better in such limited stories.
Overall, "Danger Island" is one of the best Moto films I've seen. It's engaging, bright, entertaining, and, for once, features a genuinely enjoyable mystery. Herbert I. Leeds' direction may be distinctly workmanlike but he's delivered a technically sound and well-paced adventure which is a joy to watch.
7/10 - DirectorNorman FosterStarsPeter LorreJoseph SchildkrautLionel AtwillDisguised as an Austrian archaeologist, Moto helps unearth the priceless crown of the legendary Queen of Sheba and sans disguise defends it from a variety of thugs and criminals.Now that I have finally seen all 8 of the Fox-produced Peter Lorre-starring Mr Moto movies, I feel like I should offer a brief recap. Overall, I can't say I'm nearly as big a fan of this series as I am of the Charlie Chan one. Most of the Moto films are perfectly acceptable B-programmers but little more than that. They lack the charm, warmth, and good humour of the best Chans.
There is also something of a lack of personality to the Moto series which has struggled to find a unifying tone throughout its 8-movie run. Each Moto film feels like its going in a different direction, trying on different genres, tones, and pacings. Charitably, such experimentation could be interpreted as an unwillingness to conform to a single formula but realistically I think it betrays a lack of confidence in what started as a rather unusual series of films.
The first Moto film was a fairly serious spy yarn in which our protagonist was a taciturn, downright sinister figure whose intentions and methods were not revealed to the audience until the very end. Capable of startling acts of violence, Moto was an alienating figure to me, someone to be fearful of rather than someone I could root for. A stark difference from the amiable Charlie Chan.
However, by the time the final film in the series came around, Moto had become an entirely different character. The polite, affable, warm personality that used to be a mask in the earlier films became his actual character. Gone was his faintly sinister secretiveness and the startling acts of violence were reduced to bog-standard self-defence.
The Flanderization of the Moto character coincided with a move towards more humorous adventure stories. Insufferable comic relief characters became a staple of the series as well as preposterous plots and cartoonish villains.
All of these failings are present in "Mr Moto Takes a Vacation", the eighth and final film in the series. Written by the usually excellent Philip MacDonald, this is a curiously uneventful thriller. One in which everyone keeps prophecising a theft which ultimately never occurs.
Namely, Moto is hired to protect the priceless crown of the Queen of Sheba which is on display in a San Francisco museum. The crown is the target of a mysterious thief Metaxas, a master of disguise who has been presumed dead for years.
I was hoping that midway through the movie, Metaxas would execute a daring and seemingly impossible theft which Moto would then have to solve. Nothing of the kind happens. Instead, the film consists of Moto's amiable wanderings through the museum while the thief mysteriously does nothing but wait.
The 62-minute runtime is padded out with the antics of one of Moto's most unbearable comic relief sidekicks. His dishonourable name is Archie Featherstone and he is yet another upper-class twit who has a tendency to fall about a lot and talk in an exaggerated plum-in-mouth accent. He is not quite as irritating as the upper-class twit from "Mr Moto's Last Warning" but I found his every scene utterly embarrassing.
Not only is the film lacking in excitement but there is not much mystery in it either. The suspects are very poorly profiled and unless one has a first-rate memory for white middle-aged men's faces it's very hard to remember who's who. Not that any of it matters all that much since a bad make-up job gives the villain away right at the start of the film.
What "Mr Moto Takes a Vacation" badly lacks is a colourful villain the kind which we had in "Mysterious Mr Moto" and "Mr Moto's Last Warning". Instead, it tries to be a Charlie Chan-style mystery but the plot is thin, excitement totally lacking, and the suspects are bores.
This is a shame since "Mr Moto Takes a Vacation" is without a doubt the most cinematic of all the Moto films thanks to some eye-catching cinematography from Oscar-winning DP Charles G. Clarke. There's a stark difference between the look of this film and the previous seven. Just look at those rich, dark shadows! Clarke does a spectacular job of emulating the moody, noirish atmosphere of rainy San Francisco nights while the scenes set in the abandoned museum have a haunted, horror-movie quality to them. The film looks so good that I am tempted to rewatch it with the sound off. Maybe play some moody music instead!
Director Norman Foster also gets a chance to show off some stylish directorial tricks. The film opens with a terrific crane shot of the Arabian desert. There are also several rather clever moments of mise-en-scene such as the one in which two co-conspirators (a man and a woman) talk to each other while pretending to fix their hair in unison.
"Mr Moto Takes a Vacation" cannot hold a candle to the genuinely entertaining and exciting Moto films such as "Mysterious Mr Moto", "Danger Island", or "Mr Moto's Last Warning". It is, however, a good example of the series' failings.
It is clearly trying very hard to be likeable to a broad audience by inserting comic-relief characters, softening its protagonist, and trying to streamline its plot towards a Charlie Chan-style murder mystery. By doing that, it has managed to rob the Moto movies of any kind of individuality or identity. It doesn't help, of course, that the film is rather uneventful and feels padded even at 62 minutes. Not even Charles G. Clarke's superb photography or Peter Lorre's game performance can make much of what is a very dull, unengaging script. Thus, the Mr Moto series dies as it lived - unevenly.
5/10 - DirectorErnest MorrisStarsHenry SilvaTerence LongdonSuzanne LloydMr. Moto goes undercover to find out who has been blowing up oil wells and trying to gain total control of all the oil leases from a petroleum-rich Middle Eastern country.Of all the detectives from 1930s films, I doubt anyone expected it would be Mr Moto who'd make a comeback. And yet a curio known as "The Return of Mr Moto" was made in 1965 starring Henry Silva who is undoubtedly the obvious choice to play an unassuming Japanese detective.
The film seems to have been made as the start of a new series of B-movies which is baffling since by 1965 such series were ancient history. Television might have been a more fitting place for a Mr Moto revival, however, which is ironic since "The Return of Mr Moto" definitely feels like a pilot for a poor man's variation on the old ITC shows.
The entire movie has that patina of televisual dullness. Just look at Basil Emmott's cinematography. Every single set has the same kind of studio lighting. Mr Moto's apartment, a swinging London nightclub, and the villains' lair on the banks of the river Thames all look exactly the same - overlit and shadowless. Furthermore, every shot seems to be a boring medium shot or a two-shot giving the production the feel of a much older studio-bound TV play.
Fred Eggers' screenplay, with its thin plotting, garrulous dialogue, and forgettable characters, also has the distinct flavour of low-rent television. The needlessly complicated plot is endlessly expounded upon in scenes upon scenes of exposition. Characters walk in and out of this film like it's the Grand Central Station serving no purpose in the plot beyond explaining inane conspiracies to a bemused Mr Moto.
Speaking of whom, there are almost no similarities between Henry Silva's Moto and the one we remember from the Peter Lorre films beyond both of them being Interpol detectives. Even Moto's Japanese heritage is questionable here since Silva certainly doesn't appear Japanese nor does he try to act Asian. Instead, his Moto is a laidback playboy with an American accent and features. His characterization is downright non-existent and I cannot imagine him carrying a series of films on his own.
The supporting cast fares no better since it's populated by equally forgettable characters. I had real trouble keeping track of who's who since the film continuously introduces new characters without bothering to distinguish them from the old ones.
The villains are a pretty boring bunch as well which is unfortunate since there are about half a dozen of them. The film's big mystery is actually why Fred Eggers couldn't merely focus on one bad guy and try to flesh him out instead. An interesting candidate could have been the German hitman Engel (Martin Wyldeck) who, in the first third of the film, is revealed to be a Nazi war criminal. After that shocking revelation, Engel is pretty much forgotten until the film's hilarious climax in which he chases Moto around a supposedly dark room which is so overlit that I started to wonder if Engel was supposed to be blind.
Director Ernest Morris imposes a sluggish pace on the proceedings. Even with its 70-minute runtime, "The Return of Mr Moto" is a tedious watch. Despite its cornucopia of characters and twists, not much actually happens on screen. The few action scenes that do occur in the film are shockingly badly shot in a way that robs them of any excitement.
A good example is the opening chase scene which goes on for about 10 minutes in which Moto strolls away from a car which is pursuing him at about 5 miles per hour. Meanwhile, the villains pursuing him have a lengthy chat in which they explain each other's backstories. Rivetting stuff indeed!
Another scene has a subdued Moto being tied up into a bag. Morris frames the shot in such a way that Moto's head is peeking out of the bag like an oversized melon making what should have been a suspenseful scene absolutely hilarious.
There is no fun to be had with "The Return of Mr Moto". The film is so slow and uneventful as to be downright unwatchable. The plot is too complicated to keep track of or explain, the dialogue is expository and lacking in humour, the characters are forgettable, and the direction is hopelessly bland.
The only interesting aspect of the film is just the very idea of reviving the Mr Moto series which was not all that highly thought of even back in 1937. Perhaps the producers couldn't get the rights to Charlie Chan. Whatever the reason, the result is a film which is a complete failure best left forgotten.
2/10