by Psychdoc77 In the 1930s the B production unit at 20th Century Fox was most famous for the Charlie Chan series of mysteries. A total of 26 Chan films were made there between 1931 and 1942. The series was quite […]
Continue reading »Category: Mr. Moto
Discussion of the Mr. Moto movie series
Think Fast, Mr. Moto (1937) ✰ ✰ ✰
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 […]
Continue reading »Thank You, Mr. Moto (1937) ✰ ✰ ½
The second Mr. Moto film takes place in the northern Chinese city of Peiping, an isolated but strangely Westernized city. The plot involves seven ancient scrolls from the time of Genghis Khan that, when placed together, reveal the location of […]
Continue reading »Mr. Moto’s Gamble (1938) ✰
The first Mr. Moto film set entirely in the United States, this third entry finds Peter Lorre’s character investigating a murder that occurred during a boxing match. There are a number of suspects and Mr. Moto spends most of the […]
Continue reading »Mr. Moto Takes A Chance (1938) ✰ ✰
Peter Lorre’s fourth Mr. Moto film finds him posing as an archeologist in Cambodia. After a plane crashes and an aviatrix (Rochelle Hudson) is brought to the local village, the tribal leader’s wife is murdered. American filmmakers are accused but […]
Continue reading »Mysterious Mr. Moto (1938) ✰ ✰
Mysterious Mr. Moto, the fifth film in the Fox series, opens in the jungles of the south Caribbean as two men escape from notorious Devil’s Island. In other films that would be the whole story, but here it is simply […]
Continue reading »Mr. Moto’s Last Warning (1938) ✰ ✰
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 […]
Continue reading »Mr. Moto in Danger Island (1939) ✰ ✰ ½
Mr. Moto’s seventh cinematic outing finds him in Puerto Rico searching for diamond smugglers. The governor’s circle of top officials and businessmen all seem to be suspects and Mr. Moto, after faking an illness to entrap at least one member […]
Continue reading »Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation (1939) ✰ ½
The crown of the queen of Sheba is dug out of the ground in the Middle East. It travels to San Francisco to be displayed in a museum while criminals mass to try and steal it (it is never clear […]
Continue reading »The Return of Mr. Moto (1965) ✰
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 […]
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