Peter Lorre played Mr. Moto in a series of eight films made for Fox in the late 1930s and this was the first of them. A lean 66 minutes, Norman Foster’s film packs a significant plot line into essentially four action-packed scenes. Mr. Moto is first seen in San Francisco’s Chinatown trying to sell diamonds on the black market. When the police become involved, he uses martial arts to fight his way out. He then takes a slow boat to China and meets a number of people involved in the shipping industry. At one point, he has to kill a spying steward and does so without hesitation, James Bond style. Once in Shanghai, he discovers information about diamond smugglers and is nearly hit by a car. We also learn that he works with the police. He rides around in a rickshaw shooting people with his lovely Chinese girlfriend. Finally, they end in a night club where the masterminds behind a smuggling ring are exposed.
Obviously based on the Charlie Chan films, also made at Fox, the first Mr. Moto film stands with any of the Chans as an exciting mystery. Not a moment is wasted on unnecessary elements. There are some strange plot holes but things move so fast few would notice. Hollywood’s racism is on full display as we have a German actor (Lorre) wearing paint to play a Japanese man of mystery in China. The whole idea is so twisted as to be almost unbelievable. Overall, though, this is an outstanding first entry and has me looking forward to the rest of the series. ✰ ✰ ✰.
MJM 01-03-2012
There is one mistake here – Peter Lorre was Hungarian, not German, born in Rózsahegy, Hungary on June 26, 1904. It was remiss of me not to correct this error, but I didn’t recognize it either. Lorre portrayed Germans throughout his career, and so effectively, that I never questioned his heritage. Psychdoc77’s point remains, however, as Hollywood studio heads consistently chose to shoehorn famous Caucasian actors into parts much better suited to lesser known actors of Latin, Asian, African or Oriental descent. This practice was widespread throughout the Golden Age of Hollywood, yet even in the face of mounting cultural criticism, continued into the 1980s, and still surfaces once in a while.
As wrong-headed as the practice was (and still is), I hesitate to condemn the studios too harshly. Things were different way back when, and studio execs believed then, as they still do, that “name” actors bring in audiences and make money. There weren’t any big-name Asian actors (mainly because the execs wouldn’t cast any in big roles; thus, the Catch-22), so Lorre got the call and did the job. Ultimately, I think that judging how well these films works depends greatly on the effectiveness of the actor in the key role, whether he was miscast or not.