Peter Lorre returns in the sixth Mr. Moto mystery, Mr. Moto’s Last Warning, finding himself in Egypt trying to determine who is attempting to destroy the French fleet.  The first Mr. Moto we meet isn’t Mr. Lorre but Teru Shimada (a Japanese-American actor who later appeared in You Only Live Twice) but, like most foreigners in the series, he is almost immediately killed by the sinister agents behind the maritime plot. Soon, the group of saboteurs, including the always welcome John Carradine and George Sanders, are gradually revealing their hand. Mr. Moto, posing as a Japanese importer, mostly waits in the shadows until the plot is ready to unfurl.

This film is a small improvement over the prior entry but the pace again lags compared to the outstanding standards set in the first two adventures. Mr. Moto, who started the series as a sort of an international, proto-Bond spy, has settled into being a more passive observer by this point in the series. Instead of moving the action forward, he seems to mainly wait for the villains to act. This makes him a less compelling hero. There are still numerous references to his race and, for reasons that are obscure to modern audiences, it appears that Americans would find nothing surprising about a Japanese selling antiques in Egypt, probably because the world beyond Europe was considered “Oriental” at the time.  It seems as though the series is dwindling even though Lorre remains excellent as Moto.  ✰ ✰.

MJM  01-20-2012