MR MOTO TAKES A VACATION

1939, 65 minutes, Black-and-white.
Peter Lorre, Joseph Schildkraut, Lionel Atwill, Virginia Field, John King, Iva Stewart, George P.Huntley Jr, Victor Varconi, Honorable Wu.
Directed by Norman Foster.

In 1931, Peter Lorre made a huge impact in German cinema with his performance in the child-killer film by Fritz Lang, M. Warned by Joseph Goebbels to leave Germany, he moved to Paris, then to the US. By 1938 he began to appear in a popular series of short features, stories of the Japanese detective, Mr Moto, created by author J.P.Marquand.

This is a typical such adventure. It opens with excavations to find the crown of the Queen of Sheba, Mr Moto, with beard and wig, posing as an Austrian archaeologist but all the time on the lookout for an international thief, Metaxa. Mr Moto is undercover but is exposed by a silly-ass Brit, played by George P.Huntley Jr who has quite an array of pratfalls throughout the film.

Most of the action is in San Francisco, the transferring of the crown to the Fremont Museum, under the auspices of Lionel Atwill. He is accompanied by an insurance investigator, Mr Manderson, played by Joseph Schildkraut (and, with his disguise, and his limp, it would seem obvious that he will be revealed as Metaxa – and he is).

There are various people in the act, some petty criminals wanting to eliminate Mr Moto and the silly Englishman. There is a femme fatale who is on the ship and then latches onto the archaeologist, played by John King. He, however, is attracted to the museum curator’s secretary. There is also another insurance investigator as well as the Chinese secretary to Joseph Schildkraut.

There are some murders. Mr Moto goes about his investigating – with an interlude where a young man working at the hotel asks for some jujitsu training to help him against a bullying employee and we see the comeuppance!

There are complications with the alarm system in the Museum, Mr Moto’s conviction that Metaxa is so vain that he will attempt to steal the crown no matter what – and, that is what happens, and unmasking of Joseph Schildkraut and a fists-on fight between Peter Lorre and Schildkraut.

Nothing startling but entertaining in its way, especially Peter Lorre’s impersonation of the Japanese detective.