by Psychdoc77

In the 1930s the B production unit at 20^th Century Fox was most famous for the Charlie Chan series of mysteries.  A total of 26 Chan films were made there between 1931 and 1942.  The series was quite successful for the studio and by the late 1930s they were looking for other characters to feature in similar films.  John P. Marquand, an American writer, had written a series of mysteries featuring Mr. Moto, an internationally active Japanese detective, as serials, and soon Fox decided that they could convert the character into a movie series.  They recruited Peter Lorre, the Hungarian actor who had gained fame as the child murderer in Fritz Lang’s M, to play the title role and set to work on the films.  Eight films were made between 1937 and 1939.  Many of the creative people behind the Chan films were involved in the production of the new series.  The Mr. Moto mysteries were popular but the public’s increasing dislike for the Japanese on the eve of World War II brought the series to a premature end.  There was a one-off revival in 1965 with Henry Silva as Moto but the film was unsuccessful and cinemas have not seen Mr. Moto since.  Here, each of the films will be discussed briefly and some general notes will be provided.

The best films in the series are the first two, Think Fast, Mr. Moto and Thank You, Mr. Moto (both 1937).  Think Fast, Mr. Moto has a fast pace and a lot of intrigue.  It has a series of set pieces and action sequences that work well and maintain viewer interest.  In comparison with the Chan films Mr. Moto emerges as a much more action-oriented hero.  He performs judo and is willing to kill his enemies quickly and without regret when called upon.  The story hops the globe from San Francisco to Shanghai, where Moto engages with beautiful women and dangerous criminals.  The follow-up was nearly as good.  Mr. Moto is found working undercover in Northwestern China on a case involving the smuggling of ancient artifacts.  There is again a lot of action and Moto’s skills at judo and deception are on full display.  The films establish Mr. Moto as nothing less than a proto-James Bond.  He travels the world working on high profile cases for the International Police.  He seems capable of anything, including violence, and he even has a girlfriend stashed away in Shanghai.  While Peter Lorre was no Sean Connery in terms of physical appearance, he gives memorable characterizations and makes for a compelling central character.  The films are low budget but convincing enough in their portrayal of international locales.  The films also make limited use of humor, a trait that would soon change.

Mr. Moto’s Gamble (1938), the third film in the series, is a significant let down.  It began life as a Charlie Chan film but Fox had to change plans when Warner Oland, the first Chan star, passed away.  The differences between the series are obvious right away.  Moto is reduced to a much more passive character.  He teaches a class on criminology, moves slowly, and makes pithy comments rather than doing something.  The entire film takes place in San Francisco and thus lacks the international angle so important to the success of the first two films.  The film also introduces comic relief in the form of “Slapsie Maxie” Rosenbloom.  He plays a boxer and amateur detective who has been hit on the head one too many times.  Many of the Chan films had similar characters and this one is a painful reminder of just how unnecessary they were.  While it is an oversimplification, it is true that Moto as James Bond works much better than Moto as Charlie Chan.

The follow-up film, Mr. Moto Takes a Chance (1938), returns to the globe-trotting, international policing ways of the first two entries.  Set in Cambodia, the plot involves the efforts of colonial governments to thwart native uprisings in the jungle.  Not as strong as the first two films, Chance at least gives Moto a chance to get back into action.  He even uses machine guns at one point!  Its follow-up, Mysterious Mr. Moto, is a slight improvement, but its London setting and more traditional mystery makes it more run-of-the-mill than the earlier films.  Lorre is as good as ever in these films, but like all actors he is limited by the quality of the material he is working with and can only do so much.

The series continued in this vein with Mr. Moto’s Last Warning (1938).  This episode is set in Egypt and involves international tension over a plot to blow up the French fleet in the Suez Canal.  While the setting and plot are worthy of Mr. Moto, the way it plays out is disappointing.  Mr. Moto is at his best when he provokes his enemies or makes a move to draw them out; here, he mainly waits for them to act so he can expose and destroy them.  Mr. Moto in Danger Island (1939), is an improvement and the last film to hark back to the early days of the series (just two years previously!).  Set in Puerto Rico, the film sees Moto brought in to try and stop a ring of diamond smugglers.  There is copious action, Moto is in the middle of most of it, and the mystery is hard to solve.  The film is only marred by another of the comic relief characters, this time a wrestler played by Warren Hymer.  Still, this was the last hurrah of the Moto series.

Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation (1939), the final film in the original series, is set mostly in America and highlights the features that make for a bad Moto film.  There is little action, a lot of talking, and little for Peter Lorre to do.  The two films set in America are actually the two worst films in the series.  One of the joys of the series is seeing Mr. Moto work effectively in different settings and cultures, so perhaps the American films lose something by missing this element.

The attempt at resurrection, The Return of Mr. Moto (1965), simply isn’t very good.  Henry Silva plays Mr. Moto as a relative of James Bond (making the link the earlier films hinted at obvious) but the film lacks the action necessary to succeed as an international spy adventure.  Silva isn’t nearly as good as Lorre and comes across as too-cool-for-school most of the time.  The plot involves the sabotage of oil fields in  Iran and could have been interesting if we actually went to Iran, but instead we are stuck in London, talking and seeing Mr. Moto almost get killed by people in cars.  Who can’t catch him.  Even though he is on foot.  The whole effort is pretty awful and must have looked particularly bad coming out the same year as the sophisticated Thunderball.

The Mr. Moto series was above average for a B series and arguably had a better median quality than the Charlie Chan films.  However, they are marred by some of the most glaring and offensive examples of racism in classic Hollywood.  Like the Chan films, they elected to have an actor of European descent play an Asian hero.  They gave Lorre bad teeth, a bad haircut, and had him speak in broken English.  He is often described as mysterious by other characters and was clearly meant to represent the mysteries of the Orient.  He is intelligent and a man of action but he often assumes a subservient role in order to gain information or advantage.  In many of the films characters played by Asian-American actors are quickly killed off as plot devices.  Eventually, the appearance of an Asian character means the viewer knows that they are going to be murdered along the way.  A fake Moto at the beginning of Mr. Moto’s Last Warning is killed almost instantly as a way to convince the bad guys that Moto is out of the way.  There are almost no examples in the series of European or American characters being treated so badly unless they are clearly the heavies in the films.

Another way the films ultimately fall short of the later standard set by the Bonds as international action adventures is the way in which Moto is not allowed to have a significant libido.  He does have girlfriends a few times during the series but they are always Asian.  Each film has a young American ingénue but they always end up with the dull, usually wealthy Caucasian male who Moto helps during the stories.  Henry Silva at least gets to flirt with European woman in The Return of Mr. Moto but that is as far as things go.  By essentially castrating the lead and weighing him down with offensive Asian stereotypes, the series really limits its possibilities.

In spite of these concerns and the average quality of the films, they are still worthwhile for fans of classic Hollywood B films.  Peter Lorre is a singular actor and manages to make Moto a compelling central character in spite of the racism.  The dignity he brings to the role as an actor lifts the material out of the realm of exploitation.  When the films dial up the action and international intrigue, they are nearly as good as James Bond films made in the 1930s might have been.  They lack the budget and the high-quality production values that would later distinguish the Bond films but they have the same spirit.  They are, in many ways, superior to the Chan films that were made alongside and I feel as though Moto is a better central character than Chan.  Still, the short duration of the series and the lesser entries towards the end leave the sensation that opportunities were missed.  The update attempt was pitiful, but I can imagine Moto returning as a modern spy disrupting trade conspiracies or international terrorism.  A compelling Japanese actor, a decent budget, and a good director could probably work together to create a memorable thriller.  The racist legacy of the original series probably will prevent this from ever happening, but the Mr. Moto series managed to be interesting even with all of the stereotypes.  I can only imagine how good they might be without them.

MJM  02-09-2012

Editor’s note:  The eight official Peter Lorre adventures as Mr. Moto are available on DVD in two four-disc sets from 20th Century-Fox home video.  Each restored movie is accompanied by a featurette or interview, and a restoration comparison.  The final DVD also carries a second film: Henry Silva’s turn as the Oriental sleuth in 1965′s The Return of Mr. Moto.  Silva’s recorded audio commentary accompanies that brief film. The 2 DVD sets retail for $50 apiece but can be found for half that amount through secondary sources.  Each set also contains a nice little booklet that describes aspects of the series.

Kudos must be given to Fox for making these relics available in such attractive sets, especially after that studio refused for so long to distribute the equally controversial Charlie Chan films of the same era (I chastised Fox for this in the 2004 Filmbobbery, Volume 5, Issue 4).  In recent years Fox has changed tacks and allowed films of both series to speak for themselves, and classic film fans should rejoice at their turnabout.

Peter Lorre played Mr. Moto in a series of eight films made for Fox in the late 1930s and this was the first of them.  A lean 66 minutes, Norman Foster’s film packs a significant plot line into essentially four action-packed scenes.  Mr. Moto is first seen in San Francisco’s Chinatown trying to sell diamonds on the black market.  When the police become involved, he uses martial arts to fight his way out.  He then takes a slow boat to China and meets a number of people involved in the shipping industry.  At one point, he has to kill a spying steward and does so without hesitation, James Bond style.  Once in Shanghai, he discovers information about diamond smugglers and is nearly hit by a car.  We also learn that he works with the police.  He rides around in a rickshaw shooting people with his lovely Chinese girlfriend.  Finally, they end in a night club where the masterminds behind a smuggling ring are exposed.

Obviously based on the Charlie Chan films, also made at Fox, the first Mr. Moto film stands with any of the Chans as an exciting mystery.  Not a moment is wasted on unnecessary elements.  There are some strange plot holes but things move so fast few would notice.  Hollywood’s racism is on full display as we have a German actor (Lorre) wearing paint to play a Japanese man of mystery in China.  The whole idea is so twisted as to be almost unbelievable.  Overall, though, this is an outstanding first entry and has me looking forward to the rest of the series.  ✰ ✰ ✰.

MJM  01-03-2012

The second Mr. Moto film takes place in the northern Chinese city of Peiping, an isolated but strangely Westernized city.  The plot involves seven ancient scrolls from the time of Genghis Khan that, when placed together, reveal the location of a hidden treasure.  A royal Chinese family, down on their luck financially, own six of them but refuse to sell out of pride.  Eventually, they are stolen and only Mr. Moto can stop someone from taking the treasure out of China.

The film is again fast-paced and lively.  There is little humor and Mr. Moto remains a dangerous character.  He kills his enemies quickly and without remorse.  His interest in Chinese values such as honor and family elevate him above being a simple common police officer.  The film has John Carradine as a Mexican (!) antiques dealer in China and many mentions are made of the way Western countries removed artifacts from China illegally.  While not quite as involving as the first Moto film, this is still an above average B picture.  ✰ ✰ ½.

MJM  01-06-2012

Peter Lorre’s fourth Mr. Moto film finds him posing as an archeologist in Cambodia.  After a plane crashes and an aviatrix (Rochelle Hudson) is brought to the local village, the tribal leader’s wife is murdered.  American filmmakers are accused but Moto, in disguise as an elder of the local religion, manages to save them.  It soon emerges that some of the tribesmen are preparing to revolt against their leader.  They wish to fight the French colonials and find him to be too compliant with the invaders’ wishes.  Moto eventually finds that Hudson is a spy (like him) and, along with the American filmmakers, they take hold of the arms and defend themselves inside an ancient temple with machine guns.  Mr. Moto’s chance is the one he takes of threatening to destroy the temple and killing everyone (including himself).

This review is a good place to mention the virulent racism found in the Mr. Moto films.  The Charlie Chan films receive a lot of attention for yellowface and racism, but the Moto films, and this one in particular, are in many ways much more racist. Lorre is given bad teeth.  He is shifty and unpredictable.  He is also quite murderous in a way that the passive Chan never was.  The Asians in the films are often killed off as part of the plot while heroic whites are spared.  From a modern perspective, the film’s condemnation of anti-colonial forces is repugnant.  The pacing is better here than in Mr. Moto’s Gamble and puts the series back on track, but the racial stereotypes and callous disregard for Asian culture are difficult to condone.  ✰ ✰.

MJM  01-07-2012

Mysterious Mr. Moto, the fifth film in the Fox series, opens in the jungles of the south Caribbean as two men escape from notorious Devil’s Island.  In other films that would be the whole story, but here it is simply a prelude to a mystery set in London concerning a “League of Assassins” who has assembled to carry out one of their missions.  Mr. Moto, one of the prison escapees, has infiltrated the League, but once he informs Scotland Yard of his presence both the police and the gang are out to get him.  Can Mr. Moto identify the target and help capture the criminals?

London makes for a less exciting setting than many of the other Moto films and in general this is a lesser entry in the series.  Peter Lorre is still interesting and graceful as Mr. Moto but the plotting and mise en scene are not as interesting as in some of the earlier entries.  The film moves slowly at times and thus robs the series of one of its prime attributes.  One special treat is the appearance of Lotus Long as Mr. Moto’s girlfriend.  She is appealing and a fine actress, and, believe it or not, is actually Asian!  The casual racism of the series is still prominent, but the real sins of this episode are the slow pace and the plot holes.  ✰ ✰.

MJM  01-19-2012

Peter Lorre returns in the sixth Mr. Moto mystery, Mr. Moto’s Last Warning, finding himself in Egypt trying to determine who is attempting to destroy the French fleet.  The first Mr. Moto we meet isn’t Mr. Lorre but Teru Shimada (a Japanese-American actor who later appeared in You Only Live Twice) but, like most foreigners in the series, he is almost immediately killed by the sinister agents behind the maritime plot. Soon, the group of saboteurs, including the always welcome John Carradine and George Sanders, are gradually revealing their hand. Mr. Moto, posing as a Japanese importer, mostly waits in the shadows until the plot is ready to unfurl.

This film is a small improvement over the prior entry but the pace again lags compared to the outstanding standards set in the first two adventures. Mr. Moto, who started the series as a sort of an international, proto-Bond spy, has settled into being a more passive observer by this point in the series. Instead of moving the action forward, he seems to mainly wait for the villains to act. This makes him a less compelling hero. There are still numerous references to his race and, for reasons that are obscure to modern audiences, it appears that Americans would find nothing surprising about a Japanese selling antiques in Egypt, probably because the world beyond Europe was considered “Oriental” at the time.  It seems as though the series is dwindling even though Lorre remains excellent as Moto.  ✰ ✰.

MJM  01-20-2012

Mr. Moto’s seventh cinematic outing finds him in Puerto Rico searching for diamond smugglers.  The governor’s circle of top officials and businessmen all seem to be suspects and Mr. Moto, after faking an illness to entrap at least one member of the elite, spends time among them trying to determine the culprit.  He pretends to be a criminal, gets captured, and eventually identifies the ring leader, all the while accompanied by his wrestling companion Twister (Warren Hymer).

The longest entry in the series thus far, Danger Island (as it may have been known originally) is the strongest entry since Thank You, Mr. Moto.  The action sequences are often exciting and more happens around Mr. Moto in this film than in most of the other episodes.  Lorre is particularly good and seems to have more to do than usual.  There are two major problems with the film.  One is the comic relief in the person of Twister.  Earlier entries hadn’t felt the need for the slapstick, moronic element that Twister adds, and in the end it takes away from the suspense and interest.  The other problem is that there are too many interchangeable suspects in the governor’s inner circle.  Many of them look the same, and by the end of the film it was too much work to remember what each of them did.  More effort to distinguish (or limit) the various characters and their potential motives would have greatly improved the mystery.  Still, this probably ranks in the top half of the series so far and is engaging enough to recommend to Moto fans and mystery hounds.  ✰ ✰ ½.

MJM  01-26-2012

The crown of the queen of Sheba is dug out of the ground in the Middle East. It travels to San Francisco to be displayed in a museum while criminals mass to try and steal it (it is never clear what type of fence it would require). Mr. Moto, incognito on vacation, follows the crown and the clues to determine the identity of a master criminal. Comic relief from George P. Huntley abounds and leads to entire scenes grinding to a halt.

The final Moto film released in the 1930s (although Danger Island was actually the last filmed), Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation simply isn’t very good. Whereas the series began with a serious tone and an exciting, action-oriented central character, here we have a number of suspects, again, slowly doing not very much as Mr. Moto talks and waits. The plot simply doesn’t engage and the pace is deadly slow. After an engaging beginning the series devolved into dull whodunits because the makers forgot that Moto is exciting, mysterious, and the central point of interest. Oh well.  ✰ ½.

MJM  01-27-2012

More than 25 years after the final Fox Moto film, a British production company, Lippert Pictures, revived the series with Henry Silva in the lead.  Oil fields in Iran (still called Persia in the film) are ablaze and the executive in charge of addressing the problem is assassinated as the film opens.  Moto’s task is to discover the culprits and save the oil company’s interests in the Middle East.

Disastrous in most ways films can be disastrous and some novel new ways as well, Return failed to successfully update the Moto series.  The credits make it clear that the makers were aiming for the James Bond audience as silhouettes of Moto throwing a knife flash on the sides of the screen as the music crackles.  However, the film is clearly low budget, shot in black and white (in 1965!), and, most importantly, stupefyingly slow.  Early scenes involving the assassins chasing Moto have Silva walking (slowly) down a street while a car (amazingly, even more slowly) follows.  This sequence lasts a good three minutes and nothing happens.  The walking Moto motif is revived later in the film as a reminder of the general ineptitude of the proceedings.  There is an enjoyable belly dancing sequence in the middle that is reminiscent of the scene at the gypsy camp in From Russia with Love but even this goes on too long.  The total running time of 70 minutes is shamefully padded by these and other talkative scenes that do little to advance the plot or raise the excitement level.  Silva isn’t terrible as Moto but it would have made more sense for him to be an English spy.  The Return of Mr. Moto is only recommended for completists or for those who want a quick lesson about just how much quality B films of the 1930s and early 1940s really contained.  ✰.

MJM  01-30-2012