Mysterious Mr. Moto

Of all the yellowface performances I've ever seen from classic Hollywood, Peter Lorre's Mr. Moto strikes me as the least offensive. The only times the character comes off as too stereotypical are when Mr. Moto is trying to trick dumb white people into thinking he's an ignorant heathen. Most of the time he's exceedingly intelligent, a Japanese Sherlock Holmes. He even has a couple of action sequences (apparently the audiences at the time ate up the Judo stuff). Lorre's just great in the role. The rest of the cast here is fine, too (the most recognizable actors are Henry Wilcoxon and Erik Rhodes). The Asian detective character was extremely popular at the time, the most famous of them being Charlie Chan (there's also Boris Karloff's Mr. Wong). I'm planning to take in a Charlie Chan and Mr. Wong film (n.b. I did end up watching Mr. Wong, Detective afterward, and it was pretty good, too) just for comparison. I also plan on watching all the other Mr. Moto films available to me. I love Lorre and very much enjoyed this film.

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.

In the late 1930s, eight Mr. Moto films were made of varying styles. In some (the best ones if you ask me), Moto was a rather amoral character and often killed bad guys instead of arresting them. In the lesser films, Moto was almost like a clone of Charlie Chan--very sedentary and the sort of guy who wouldn't hurt a fly. Well, this one is of the former type where Moto is a good guy but is more than willing to rub out his enemies to save the government the trouble of prosecuting them! What a guy, that Moto!

The film begins with Moto escaping with a prisoner from Devil's Island (Leon Ames). It seems that Moto is so intent on infiltrating a gang of international assassins that he went to a heck of a lot of trouble to get himself locked up, befriending one of the founding members of the group and then helping him escape! Back in London, Moto pretends to be an ignorant and VERY stereotypical Japanese houseboy for Ames. Many, I'm sure, will be annoyed or shocked with Peter Lorre's performance in this dual role, as the houseboy (and escaped prisoner) is 100% stereotype--complete with phrases such as "so solly"! Uggh. Well, while I don't condone this, this was the 1930s and have learned to ignore these scenes--otherwise all the Moto films will make you go crazy!

Moto's job is not just to discover who's the head of this mob and capture the entire gang, but he must also somehow protect a Czechoslovakian guy who is really, really stupid. First, he sounded about as Czechoslovakian as Winston Churchill. Second, he never takes the assassins' threats very seriously--even when they showed they really meant business. Even after they kill one of his friends right after they promise to demonstrate their power, this idiot insists he needs no help from Moto or the police!! Can anyone be that stupid? Apparently, in a B-film the answer is "yes".

So far, this film is about average for a Moto film. However, towards the end it really picks up its pace and delivers a very shocking finale that only Moto could engineer. See it for yourself and see what I mean. Oh, that Moto!

Overall, a bit better than average for the series despite having a really dumb character (if I were Moto, I would have let him die) and Lorre's rather obnoxious impersonation of a brain-dead Japanese servant.

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.

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.