More than 25 years after the final Fox Moto film, a British production company, Lippert Pictures, revived the series with Henry Silva in the lead.  Oil fields in Iran (still called Persia in the film) are ablaze and the executive in charge of addressing the problem is assassinated as the film opens.  Moto’s task is to discover the culprits and save the oil company’s interests in the Middle East.

Disastrous in most ways films can be disastrous and some novel new ways as well, Return failed to successfully update the Moto series.  The credits make it clear that the makers were aiming for the James Bond audience as silhouettes of Moto throwing a knife flash on the sides of the screen as the music crackles.  However, the film is clearly low budget, shot in black and white (in 1965!), and, most importantly, stupefyingly slow.  Early scenes involving the assassins chasing Moto have Silva walking (slowly) down a street while a car (amazingly, even more slowly) follows.  This sequence lasts a good three minutes and nothing happens.  The walking Moto motif is revived later in the film as a reminder of the general ineptitude of the proceedings.  There is an enjoyable belly dancing sequence in the middle that is reminiscent of the scene at the gypsy camp in From Russia with Love but even this goes on too long.  The total running time of 70 minutes is shamefully padded by these and other talkative scenes that do little to advance the plot or raise the excitement level.  Silva isn’t terrible as Moto but it would have made more sense for him to be an English spy.  The Return of Mr. Moto is only recommended for completists or for those who want a quick lesson about just how much quality B films of the 1930s and early 1940s really contained.  ✰.

MJM  01-30-2012