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Post by Ish Kabbible on Dec 5, 2014 22:59:34 GMT -5
Mr. Moto's Last Warning (1938)
Peter Lorre, Ricardo Cortez, Virginia Field, George Sanders, John Carradine
D-Norman Foster
 A Japanese man claiming to be Mr Moto, of the International Police, is abducted and murdered soon after disembarking from a ship at Port Said in Egypt. The real Mr Moto is already in Port Said, investigating a conspiracy against the British and French governments. The dead man was his colleague, impersonating him to throw the conspirators off his scent. Mr Moto recognises one of the conspirators as a British Secret Service agent (Carradine), and together they discover that the gang have mined the harbour in preparation for the arrival of the French fleet. Their aim is to throw the blame onto the British, which may start a second World War. Excellent cast, the best so far for a Moto movie. I really liked Cortez as the ringleader who also had a stage ventriloquist act with a dummy as a cover. Reminded me of George Raft.This is the only Moto film in public domain so its been aired on TV quite often and cheaply produced DVDs are plentiful (The Fox box set I'm sure has the best video quality) Like most Moto movies so far, Lorre is fascinating to watch. The plot however can be a bit convoluted and the dialogue is never as captivating as the Charlie Chan series. But there's much more action and usually Lorre (actually his stunt double) gets into a few good fights with plenty of flying leaps and judo throws. I love the ending of this film with the ventriloquist ringleader vanquished and Moto holding his dummy. A British sea captain asks what country was behind the scheme of pitting England against France (remember this was made in 1939 with the world on the brink of war). Moto is about to answer when the dummy speaks up and tells him to hush. Most of Hollywood wasn't ready to take sides yet There is a 20 minute doc on the life of Mr. Moto's literary creator-John Marquand
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Dec 7, 2014 12:34:49 GMT -5
Mr. Moto In Danger Island (1939)
Peter Lorre, Jean Hersholdt, Amanda Duff, Warren Hymer, Richard Lane, Leon Ames, Douglass Dumbrille
D-Herbert I. Leeds
Puerto Rico has become the back door by which a criminal syndicate smuggles inexpensive contraband diamonds from South America into the United States, dramatically driving down the price of legitimate gems. After they have ruthlessly murdered a special investigator, Moto is assigned to the case. While sailing to the island he impresses Twister McGurk, a slow-witted but amiable wrestler, with his martial arts abilities and gains a loyal friend and bodyguard. When an attempt on his life fails and another government official is murdered, Moto sends authorities a fake telegram identifying himself as a criminal named Shimura and making him and the Twister wanted fugitives. That ploy allows them to infiltrate the gang and expose the criminal mastermind behind it. A script originally prepared as a Charlie Chan film-Charlie Chan In Trinidad. Because of the wait involved between the transition of Warner Oland to Sidney Toler as the Chan actor, this script was rewrote to utilize Mr. Moto and the locale changed to Puerto Rico. As such, the mystery of who is the killer was the key to the movie as well as having the suspects gathered together in a room for the big reveal at the end of the film.Since this now involved Moto, the killer is revealed after a judo throw instead of a long speech. Warren Hymer as Twister McGurk plays a great pug-ugly Brooklyn accented partner to Moto. To save money, they used the same dock set as in Mr. Moto's Last Warning. Decent Moto entry, the last one filmed. There was one more in the can to be released at the end of 1939, Mr. Moto Takes A Vacation The DVD has a 12 minute doc-Who is Mr. Moto regarding the film and book characterization
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 7, 2014 15:42:25 GMT -5
Mr. Moto's Last Warning (1938)
Peter Lorre, Ricardo Cortez, Virginia Field, George Sanders, John Carradine
D-Norman Foster
Excellent cast, the best so far for a Moto movie. I really liked Cortez as the ringleader who also had a stage ventriloquist act with a dummy as a cover. Reminded me of George Raft. Ricardo Cortez is amazing! He was the first actor to play Sam Spade! He was in the 1931 version of The Maltese Falcon (the one with Dwight Frye as Wilmer).
I don't know what happened to his career because he isn't the lead in any big movies after the early 1930s. But he's in some good B- and C-pictures! Check out The Walking Dead, with Boris Karloff. Cortez is the gangster boss who frames Boris Karloff for murder. After his execution, Karloff's body is given to a scientist, who revives him. Resurrected Karloff seems normal. Except he has these strange spells ...
The Walking Dead was directed by Michael Curtiz, most famous for Casablanca, Yankee Doodle Dandy and Mildred Pierce.
If you like Poverty Row productions of the early 1940s, you might like I Killed That Man, where Cortez is the D.A. and Joan Woodbury is his reporter girlfriend. A condemned man is killed right under the noses of the prison authorities and several observers, just minutes before his execution. Cortez and Woodbury try to figure out how this mysterious murder was pulled off. Hijinks ensure!
I Killed That Man is really really silly, but it's a good film of its kind for people who like low budget, one-hour, genre films like those put out by Monogram and PRC.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Dec 8, 2014 21:53:02 GMT -5
Mr. Moto Takes A Vacation (1939)
Peter Lorre, Joseph Schildkraut, Lionel Atwill,Virginia Field, G.P. Huntley
D-Norman Foster
 A young and handsome archaeologist discovers the crown of the Queen of Sheba, and returns with it to a San Francisco museum where it is put on display. Its safety is in doubt as many criminals want the crown -- an international pair of criminals, a San Francisco gangster and his cohorts, and a super criminal known as Metaxa. Mr. Moto is forced to postpone his vacation while he deals with the threat. Moto employs several disguises during the film to guard the crown. Each time he is outed by the most annoying character in a Moto movie-Englishman Archie (G.P.Huntley) Featherstone, a cloyingly silly and stupid chap.The acrobatic dexterity of super crook Metaxa is amazing as he runs along the rooftops,swinging and jumping from building to building and basically resembles Daredevil's method of city mobility.As always great action scenes, slow talky scences, Lorre's mesmerizing portrayal and staid dialogue. These films attain some great highs and boring lows consistantly.The movie was previewed to bad audience response in November 1938 and was shelved until June 1939 And that was it.8 Moto movies and they were gone. A 9th Moto film was proposed and script written but Fox and another studio passed on it.Financially they did well but as the years went by Japan's real life activities were making it increasingly difficult to cast a Japanese hero for American cinema.By 1939 America and Japan were quite public in their mutual condemnations against each. Japan had brutally invaded China and Manchuria as well as several island nations and made threats against the Philipines Besides all that, Peter Lorre wanted out from the series.He enjoyed portraying Mr.Moto initially but did not want to be trapped into a long series and be typecast. He left Moto and 20th Century Fox and headed over to Warner Brothers were he attained fame and fortune. But Mr. Moto would not die. There was still one more film to go
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Dec 9, 2014 17:35:42 GMT -5
The Return of Mr. Moto (1965)
Henry Silva, Terence Longdon, Suzanne Lloyd
D-Ernest Morris
Mr. Moto goes undercover to find out who has been blowing up oil wells and trying to gain total control of all the oil leases from a petroleum-rich Middle Eastern country. Henry Silva played great villians in the 60s and 70s. He was also very obviously a Latino. And yet everyone in the film refers to him as an Oriental or a Chink. Weird and retro unPC. And weirder still is when he disguises himself as a Japanese businessman with chin-whiskers, glasses and a ohh-so-me-so-solly accent. No judo or jui-jitsu is used in the film. Its really not a Moto film at all except for the name of the character. Its more of a watered down 60s spy film.Very routine-for anal retentive completists like me Ian Fleming is a co-star in this movie which was a head scratcher until I looked it up and saw that it was the name of a separate British actor . Sayonara Mr Moto
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Post by MDG on Dec 10, 2014 11:30:33 GMT -5
Henry Silva played great villians in the 60s and 70s. He was also very obviously a Latino. And yet everyone in the film refers to him as an Oriental or a Chink. For some reason, he was tagged as an Asian. In the Tall T, he plays a character called Chink, and in The Manchurian Candidate, he's a North Korean. |
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