Le serment de M. Moto

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 ****

Peter Lorre is in top form as Mr. Moto in "Thank you, Mr. Moto," the 1937 second entry into the series.

Here Mr. Moto is on the trail of ancient scrolls that, once put together, lead one to the grave of Genghis Khan and millions of dollars. Moto has one scroll; the rest of them are owned by Madame Chung and her son (Pauline Frederick and Philip Ahn), who protect them as a duty to their ancestors, to keep the grave of Genghis Khan from desecration. Naturally there is a nefarious bunch after the scrolls, including Sidney Blackmer, Nedda Harrigan, and Sig Rumann. John Carradine is on hand as an unscrupulous antique dealer, rounding out a good cast with Jayne Regan and Tom Nelson as the young leads.

Chase scenes, murder, and gunfire all are aplenty here, but the end is very touching. Peter Lorre is marvelous. It's a shame that once Pearl Harbor was bombed, we had to say goodbye to Mr. Moto.

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.

Treasure maps have always intrigued viewers. I remember seeing a lot of television shows when I was a kid where a hidden treasure was buried somewhere and people fought for the maps to find the treasure. The stories have run the gamut from Superman episodes to the big screen with "Long John Silver" and "Indiana Jones." Usually the stories are fun, and suspenseful.

In this second-of-eight "Mr. Moto" movies, the treasure lies in the tomb of Madeline....er, Ghengis Kahn. I won't divulge too much of the story because what happens right at the beginning isn't fully revealed until the end but it ties the whole thing together.

This is my second look at this series and one thing I really get a kick out of is the vocabulary of Mr. Moto, played by the great Peter Lorre. He has a great way with the English language and he's fun to hear. He doesn't crack jokes like Charlie Chan, but he's very well-spoken and very polite like his counterpart. He's also very physical when he needs to be. Unlike Charlie, Mr. Moto will stab you to death if need be, as he does several times in this film! Shocking! He also likes to literally jump through the air and attack his adversaries. Cool! This guy would be embraced by the WWF, if that wrestling federation had been around in the 1930s.

There are plenty of surprises, so I'll leave it just at that. Fans of the series should enjoy the "Oriental intrigue" in here. I only wish - not for PC reasons but for credibility - they had Asian actors playing the roles. I actually laughed when I saw John Carradine playing an Asian! There is one "real one" in here: Philip Ahn as 'Prince Chung." Actually, he was Korean-American. Speaking of roles, Jayne Regan as "Eleanor Joyce" was a bit intriguing in the female. She had a nice wholesome, pretty look to her and

Another interesting real-life story is Pauline Frederick who played "Madame Chung." A proper Bostonian, she looked anything but Asian but the sad story with this actress is that this was her last movie. She died at the young age of 55 the following year, of asthma.

These Mr. Moto movies always have a lot of interesting facets to them, and have a good combination of intelligent and sometimes witty dialog (i.e. "Well, there's nothing like a murder to ruin a perfectly good evening,") along with an ample supply of action and intrigue.

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?