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.

With various villain roles behind him ("M", "Mad Love", "The Man Who Knew Too Much"), Peter Lorre was contracted by 20th Century Fox to star in a series of second string features playing Japanese detective Mr. Moto, a "poor man's" Charlie Chan. Knowing all, seeing all but revealing little, Moto becomes in the case of a colleague murdered by spies and the plot he uncovers along the way involving Fifth Columnists. An admirable cast of supporting players are featured, including George Sanders, John Carradine and Ricardo Cortez, the later playing a ventriloquist in a vaudeville show. There are also some typically bumbling British nobleman (among them Robert Coote) and a few red herrings. It starts off a little slow, but once the villains' intentions are revealed, the plot speeds up quite a bit. An amusing scene has Moto at the movies where a logo advertises a Charlie Chan movie. This short-lived series will never stand up to that more popular series (also from 20th Century Fox) but is enjoyable and pleasing in its own way.

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.

One of the better of the series. The famed Japanese detective Mr. Moto(Peter Lorre)fakes his own death to keep tabs on a pair of saboteurs. A Frenchman, Fabian(Ricardo Cortez), and a British scoundrel named Norvel(George Sander)are trying to stop French ships from passing through the Suez Canal and start a war between France and England. In disguise as an antique dealer, Mr. Moto's mission is to stop them before any lives are lost or ships destroyed. A British agent(John Carradine)is undercover, but also under suspicion of the villains. Rounding out the cast: Virginia Field, Leyland Hodgson and Joan Carroll.