Thank You, Mr. Moto

This was the 2nd of the 8 Fox Moto's, and like its predecessor Think Fast, was a fast paced action/detective film with high production values and a fine cast of goodies and baddies.

It starts out in the Gobi Desert with Moto in possession of something valuable, stabbing an attacker to death and burying him without a pause – all becomes clear an hour later. Back in civilised China he and a bunch of gangsters are after 7 linen scrolls which indicate the whereabouts of Genghis Khan's fortune – Moto has one, nouveau poor Prince Chung and his rigid mother have the others … for the time being. When Moto finally gets to see them his monotone evaluation of their beauty: "The harmony of line and colour – this is truly a voiceless poem" – always makes me think of John Wayne's immortal line in The Greatest Story Ever Told. Non-Oriental Austrian Peter Lorre again plays the importer and detective with class, vim and believably if you understand you're using up your time watching a work of fantasy. Thomas Beck's in here playing handsome devil to glamorous Jayne Regan this time; both had short movie careers. And from the collection of baddies nasty Sidney Blackmer especially stood out, but even he didn't get to kill as many as Moto did! There's a chase sequence near the end which is brought to a rather dramatic conclusion – attention recommended!

Great stuff as usual for the enlightened, nothing here for the serious. You watch this, you savvy?

I love the Mr. Moto series. My favorite is the first, Think Fast, Mr. Moto, but this second in the series comes a close second. Mr.Moto has been tasked (by whom we don't know) to locate the treasure of Genghis Kahn. His good friend Prince Chung is a descendant of Kahn, and cares for 5 (one was stolen) scrolls that, when put together with the remaining two, reveal the location of the tomb of Genghis Kahn, and within it, a vast treasure.

Considering how Japanese/Chinese relations were at the time, the friendship of Moto and Chung is perhaps unusual, but its very touching.

John Carradine does a lovely turn as the slimy antique dealer Parera, Thomas Beck is the usual boyish hero in love with the girl. Philip Ahn is quite good as Prince Chung. Why his mother was played by Pauline Frederick instead of a Chinese woman I do not know, but she did quite a good job in her last movie.

Quite a few Chinese actors had walk ons in this movie, and the Chinese police are shown in a good light - they too are anxious to stop the smuggling of art objects.

It's fast paced, it's fun, I recommend it.

...from 20th Century Fox and director Norman Foster. Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre) is in China tracking down members of a smuggling ring specializing in local artifacts, especially anything pertaining to the tomb of Genghis Khan. Also featuring Thomas Beck, Pauline Frederick, Sidney Blackmer, Sig Rumann, Jayne Regan, Philip Ahn, Wilhelm von Brincken, Nedda Harrigan, John Bleifer, Richard Loo, Victor Sen Yung, and John Carradine.

This was as enjoyable as the first. It's more outrageous than most of the other B mysteries of the period. Moto is still presented as an odd, creepy character that others in the story have trouble figuring out. He's ill-defined, with characters saying that he's a soldier of fortune, an adventurer, a freelance detective, or something in between. He's also very violent, a master of judo who seems to revel in throwing people around rooms and occasionally off balconies. He's also quick with a gun, and more people are shot and killed on screen in these first two Moto movies than in all of the Charlie Chan movies combined.

This is a fairly typical Mr. Moto film from the superb B-unit at Twentieth Century Fox, but I was quite surprised by certain elements of depth in the film. There are moments of brutality that exceed what was standard in films, especially B-films, of the time. But more interesting was the emotional factor. One scene, the last scene between Peter Lorre's Moto and Philip Ahn's Prince Chung, is really amazing for its humanity and poignant quality, something not readily found in 67-minute programmers of the period. The Moto films, like the Charlie Chans Fox made, are all splendidly made little pictures. This one is better than most.

This is the second Mr. Moto film and I enjoyed the hell out of it! I've only got two movies of this series under my belt at the time of this writing but I liked this entry even more than the first one, which was called THINK FAST, MR. MOTO. I was struck by how much the Moto character and the formula of this film in particular reminded me of James Bond; I could almost see Sean Connery somewhere in here, if he had taken on 007 twenty-five years sooner!

Peter Lorre again plays the very eccentric Mr. Moto, and this time he's trying to find the tomb of Genghis Khan, which can only be located by securing seven ancient scrolls with intricate artwork drawn on them that may provide the desired information. There is a treasure housed in the burial place, and so Moto is not the only seeker interested in obtaining each of these valued art scrolls. Lorre is very good in this part, and he displays a varying array of moods as Mr. Moto. This chapter benefits from a generous amount of wham-bam action and also some necessary violence which seems daring for the times in which the production was made. It's also a real treat to see Sig Rumann here again as the heavy, as well as a change of pace stint by John Carradine as a foreign antiques dealer. Good stuff. Thank You indeed, Mr. Moto. *** out of ****