Mysterious Mr. Moto (1938)

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

MYSTERIOUS MR. MOTO (20th Century-Fox, 1938), as scripted and directed by Norman Foster, resumes Peter Lorre as the Japanese bespectacled sleuth, Kentaro Moto, based on the character created by John P. Marquand, in another well-paced crime caper. Though fifth in general release, this series is known by historians to be one to seldom be distributed to theaters in order of production. An improvement over its previous entry, MR. MOTO TAKES A CHANCE (1938), this edition resorts to the usual plotting with interesting results.The story opens with the escape of two convicts from Devil's Island: Paul Brissac (Leon Ames) and his Japanese cellmate, Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre), posing under the name of Ito Kartol. Chased by prison guards with sniffing hounds, the convicts dodge bullets and wild leopard on a tree before breaking away down the river inside a canoe. After a few days of uncertainty, the convicts make their way to freedom onto a steamer where they manage to obtain a new set of clothes. Arriving in London, Brissac goes under an assumed name of Romero with "Kartol" acting as his Japanese houseboy. Taking up residence at 27B Half Moon Street, Kartol is given the day off while Brissac gets to talk over business with visiting associates, Ernst Litmar (Harold Huber) and George Higgins (Forrester Harvey). As much as Litmar doesn't trust this Japanese servant, he at least has managed work into the trusted confidence of Brissac. In the meantime, Mr. Moto makes his contact with Sir Charles Murchison (Lester Matthews) of New Scotland Yard, updating him of his secret mission; and Lotus Liu (Karen Sorrell), another personal contact and undercover agent taking up residence on the second floor of the Blue Peter Tavern, with information leading Moto to the Park Lane Hotel to meet with Anton Darvak, a Czech inventor of a new steel formula. Through the course of the story, it is revealed that Mr. Moto is going undercover to learn the identity of the leader of the League of Assassins stationed in England, which explains his association with Brissac, who's first assignment is his connection with Darvak. As Moto converses with Anton Darvak (Henry Wilcoxon), his personal secretary, Ann Richman (Mary Maguire), reveals she's in fear of his life following a series of death threatening letters and phone calls. While Darvak refuses to be intimidated, David Scott Fresham (Erik Rhodes), his business associate, advises him not take these threats lightly. When Litmar discovers "Kartol" to be Mr. Moto of the International Police, he arranges for "Kartol" to meet with an "accident" while walking through the dangerous district of Gladstone Street while at the same time plotting an perfect "accident" on Darvak that's to take place at the Conventry Gallery Exhibition the following day.What makes this particular entry interesting besides its pacing is its casting of supporting players whose names mean very little today to contemporary viewers: Henry Wilcoxon, best known for his two breakthrough performances under director Cecil B. DeMille's epics as CLEOPATRA (1934) and THE CRUSADES (1935), who, by this time, after such a promising start in his career, having failed to enhance his career as an important actor of major movie productions; Erik Rhodes, the familiar Italian accented character actor immortalized from two Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals, THE GAY Divorcée (1934) and TOP HAT (1935), here adding his familiarity and humor with the lessening in his accented speech; and Leon Ames, later to become a prominent father figure in many family oriented MGM movies of the 1940s and later television, as one of the bad guys. Among others in support are: Fredrik Vogeding (Gottfried Brunjo); John Rogers ("Sniffy"); Mitchell Lewis (Captain Nola); Sam Harris (Lord Gilford, a murder victim); and Billy Bevan (The Passport Inspector).Regardless of fine support from the aforementioned actors, Peter Lorre, as usual, gathers the most attention. Aside from posing as a houseboy speaking in Japanese lingo and at one point disguised as an eccentric bearded art critic, there's one intense scene placed in a bar where he must play a weakling surrounded by "violent types" so not to arouse suspicion to his true identity. There's also familiar scenes as Moto's self defense using jujitsu methods, near death experiences with hired thugs, and chase scenes before the big surprise of Moto's revealing the actual group leader before the 62 minutes is over.Commonly broadcast on commercial television anywhere between the 1960s to 1990s, MYSTERIOUS MR. MOTO, along with seven other entries in the series, have become available for viewing and enjoyment on DVD. In spite of some flaws, that could easily be overlooked, this entry is no disappointment. Next in the series, MR. MOTO'S LAST WARNING (1939). (**1/2)

Mysterious Mr. Moto (1938)** 1/2 (out of 4) Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre), under a fake ID, escapes from Devil's Island with another man who he follows to London. Once there Moto helps Scotland Yard try to crack the case of an assassination group. This fifth film in the series is a step up from the previous one but it doesn't quite have enough to put it on the level of the first three. The biggest problem is the actual story, which just isn't very entertaining and it actually makes for a rather slow and boring first forty-minutes. I never really could get into the story once we hit London because it was never quite clear what was going on and even worse is that we had an incredibly stupid character that Moto kept helping. The amount of dumb things this guys does is downright crazy and it really got under my skin. The final ten-minutes is when the action really picks up and the finale, with Moto having a very good fight, really packs a punch and delivers the goods. I also enjoyed the opening sequence on Devil's Island. Lorre is is usual very good self here as he's certainly got all of Moto's moves down. The supporting cast is also pretty good and that includes Henry Wilcoxon and Leon Ames.

This was my first look ever at Peter Lorre's "Mr. Moto" character, and I couldn't help but compare and contrast him to the famous "Charlie Chan" of a similar period. "Mr. Moto" is charming but isn't the comedian or the proverb-quoting Chan. I would have to watch a few more Moto movies before I could really compare the two fairly, as for quality and entertainment value, but what I saw in this film impressed me. My guess is that both of them are winners. I'm anxious to watch another Mr. Motor adventure, after seeing this.I think both characters did a lot - or at least I hope they did - to put Asians in a favorable light. Hey, Chan and Moto are the heroes in their movies, and the smart and courageous guys who solve the murders. These series had to be a boost to the Asian-American community.In this story, Moto pretends to be a fugitive from Devil's Island, one of two escapees who wind up in London. That was the idea all along for Our Man as he hoped his fellow man-of- flight, "Paul Brissac" would lead to him to bigger fish in the criminal world, specifically "The League of Assassins." Just when I thought this film was starting to get a tiny bit slow, it picked up nicely and had very good last 20-some minutes with a suspenseful ending. The actions were hokey but so what? The film is 70 years old so I don't expect state-of-the-art special-effects. In spots, it was so corny it made it fun. I was shocked how physical little Mr. Moto was, throwing bodies around like a WWF bruiser!Two quality actors, in addition to Lorre, had key roles in here: Leon Ames ("Brissac") and Henry Wilcoxon ("Darvak"). There's some good direction in here, too, by Norman Foster, who not only directed some Mr. Moto films, but a few Charlie Chan movies, too. He also married Claudette Colbert.In addition, the restoration job on the DVD transfer makes this a good-looking film.

One of the weakest gimmicks in the Sol Wurtzel-Peter Lorre Moto series was Moto's occasional attempts to lurk about in disguise a la Sherlock Holmes. It's surprising therefore that one of the most successful (and dramatically strongest) films in the series featured Moto doing an extended undercover operation as "Ito," the pidgen-English-speaking Japanese houseboy of a British gangster. The scenes in which Ito/Moto is treated with condescending contempt by his employer and roughed up by Cockney barflies are clearly intended to stimulate the audiences' outrage against their stupidly bigoted treatment of "his kind"--racism here being portrayed as a specifically British tendency, in stark contrast to the friendly respect with which Mr. Moto is treated by American characters. Considering that the Moto series itself has been labeled racist--the assumption being that casting the "ugly" Jew Lorre as a Japanese was an insult to Asians, never mind the way the character was actually treated in the films--it may be time to take a more objective second look.