Mr. Moto's Last Warning (1939)

Too much of everything

Thanks for the memories!

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This time Mr. Moto is after Fabian the Great! Fabian is an international agent posing in a traveling show as a ventriloquist along with his henchmen. Fabian and gang are trying to blow up the entrance to the Suez Canal and start an international war. The particular country Fabian is working for and the motives as to why are kept a secret, it's up to the viewer to guess because they never tell us - Mr. Moto may loose his job over it (you'll have to watch the film until the ending to get a full understanding of what I mean).The movie is fun to watch. It has it's moments of intensity, comedy and sometimes quite a bit of action. Worth your time watching if you like the other Mr. Moto films, Peter Lorre or mysteries in general.7.5/10

A story of espionage set in Port Said, with Kentaro Moto, who has a careless enjoyment of the job, which means he is resourceful in a fantasy, comic book world, where being a spy is mainly fun and mostly harmless, quietly enjoying his renown and skills, with an occasionally eerie playfulness, and the story is mildly suspenseful, more a task to be done while playing, which results in a certain blandness, and Moto is meant as a fairy tale character (more like Fu Manchu, than like Chan or Wong), the thing has charm, ease, fun and lightness; Lorre and Carradine show their class from the 1st moment they are on screen, Carradine is a British agent, and he brings another kind of acting, though Lorre's likely insouciant but shrewd character does have weird undertones.The action of such movies is not frustratingly forgettable, but enjoyably so.

Mr. Moto battles saboteurs intent on blowing up the Suez Canal. On paper this one looks like it would be the best Mr. Moto film. It has George Sanders, John Carradine, and Ricardo Cortez in the cast. But despite that excellent trio, this is probably my least favorite of all the Moto films. It's not a bad movie, just not very exciting. The first half is rather dull. There is one particularly tense scene involving a diving bell that was quite good. It's the highlight of the movie. Lorre's fine, as are the three actors I mentioned before. Pretty Virginia Field has a nice role, as well. But the story is kind of blah and the movie drags. Still, it's watchable and there are enjoyable parts. Any movie with Lorre, Sanders, Carradine, and Cortez involved is at least worth checking out for yourself.

For a dedicated film buff I've not had too much luck with franchises; I hadn't seen a single Andy Hardy film until Channel 4 screened them in sequence on succeeding Saturday mornings about fifteen years ago, I've still to see a single film featuring Ann Sothern as 'Maisie' and only now have I finally caught up with Mr. Moto. In each case I knew of the existence of these characters and I even read a couple of John P. Marquand's Mr. Moto potboilers but this is my first exposure to the celluloid detective. It was good to see Peter Lorre playing something other than a heavy or a coward but that doesn't quite outweigh the risible plot - why, I asked myself, would a Music Hall in Port Said have signs - No Smoking, Exit, et - in English, why indeed, it it comes to that would there even BE an English type Music Hall in Port Said at all and do Egyptians really go for vent acts? Presumably in the late thirties no one was asking awkward questions and elaborate plans to blow up the harbor were accepted at face value. I'm glad I've now seen at least one title in the franchise but I'm not rushing to locate any more.