Director: Norman Foster
Writers: Willis (later Wyllis) Cooper, Norman Foster adapting John P. Marquand’s novel
Producer: Sol M. Wurtzel
Cast: Peter Lorre, Thomas Beck, Jayne Regan, Sidney Blackmer, Pauline Frederick, Philip Ahn, John Carradine, Sig Rumann, Nedda Harrigan, John Bleifer, Wilhelm von Brincken
Japanese detective and international importer Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre) has recovered one of a set of seven ancient Chinese silk scrolls. The complete set of scrolls would reveal the location of the tomb and treasure of the 13th-century Mongol emperor Genghis Kahn. Moto contacts Prince Chung (Philip Ahn) and his mother Madame Chung (Pauline Frederick) in Peiping, China. The Chung family has long been entrusted to safeguard the scrolls and keep the treasure’s location a secret. While Moto tries to encourage them to let him use their scrolls, there are others who will use any means to acquire all of the scrolls and take the Genghis Kahn treasure.
The Flashback Fanatic movie review
Peter Lorre will probably always be associated with unsavory characters ever since he achieved international fame playing a serial murderer of little girls in the German film M (1931). His small stature, unusual features, and soft Hungarian accent make him seem both harmless and distinctive. That impression abetted Lorre as a film menace. This is the kind of guy that would not seem threatening to most, yet the viewer finds him odd enough to be interesting and unsettling. That quality also made Peter Lorre a great choice for the devious and dangerous Mr. Moto.
Think Fast, Mr. Moto (1937) had been a big B-film hit for 20th Century Fox, which led to the series that the studio surely hoped for. The adaptation of novelist John P. Marquand’s popular Japanese secret agent maintained the character’s mystique and the popular formula of danger and mystery in exotic places. The main changes to the Mr. Moto film character made him a more central player in the story and his vocation became more international than strictly Japan-directed.
Thank You, Mr. Moto was the second film released in the eight-film series. Once again Lorre’s Mr. Moto is the soft-spoken and enigmatic character that we join in the midst of an adventure, and we have to try to keep up with him for a good stretch of the picture before we know just what he is after. As in the first film, Mr. Moto seems vaguely sinister. For those who had not seen that first Moto movie, they may not be sure that he is supposed to be the good guy. He continues to nonchalantly dispose of people and, while they certainly seem to deserve it, we are not immediately sure of just how noble Moto’s objectives are.
Also returning are Thomas Beck and Sig Rumann as different characters fulfilling more or less the same purpose as they did in the first film. Beck plays Tom Nelson, the male half of the young couple caught up in the danger. As Colonel Tchernov, Rumann is another baddie, though in a much smaller part this time around.
In her first starring role, Jayne Regan plays Eleanor Joyce, the love interest of Tom Nelson. She would be cast as a different character in the very next Moto film to be released, Mr. Moto’s Gamble (1938).
Genre film favorite John Carradine appears as the shady antiquities dealer Periera. As was the habit in this film series, Carradine was another actor who would play a different character in a later entry. He shows up for a larger role in Mr. Moto’s Last Warning (1938).
The main heavy is Herr Koerger, a real bastard that is so intent on getting his greasy mitts on treasure that he’ll even resort to punching out an old woman. If Herr Koerger seems familiar, that’s because Sidney Blackmer plays him. Blackmer had been a prolific character actor appearing in films since 1914. He would also make many guest appearances in various television series. Blackmer memorably starred as another villain in “The Hundred Days of the Dragon,” the second episode of the classic science fiction television series The Outer Limits (1963-65). He is probably most remembered as half of the elderly, eccentric Castevet couple who room next door to Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse in Rosemary’s Baby (1968).
While the Mr. Moto movies were always fun, this adventure is probably the grimmest in the series. As the film approaches its climax, Moto makes a vow of vengeance to a dying man and the film ends on an unusually somber note.
