Mysterious Mr. Moto (1938)

Mr. Moto, polyglot, master of disguise and martial artist (of a rather vague nature) goes deep undercover to investigate the League of Assassins, an organization intent in obtaining a secret smelting process its developer wants to be used only for pacific purposes to manufacture weapons of war instead.

Will the ingenious Japanese CID agent be able to foil the murderous, blackmailing organization?

As hard as the film tries, Peter Lorre’s physique will fool no one in the audience, no matter how heavily made up, but it’s enough to trick a fellow Devil Islander into partnering to escape the island prison together and into hiring him as manservant (or the more problematic term ‘houseboy’) once in London all the better for Mr. Moto to keep track of goings-on unbeknownst to the assassin or the fellow members.

Contrary to Fox Film Corporation’s Charlie Chan, Twentieth Century-Fox’s Mr. Moto speaks perfectly with good English grammar (in addition to German, and Japanese, I would assume,) and only resorts to Pidgin English when in disguise, which might help the character somewhat weather the PC wars which have made the portrayal of Chan appear to be racially insensitive in this enlightened age (Murder by Death took an opportunity to ridicule this aspect of the Chinese character some time back already.)

But how were the writers to know that their attempt at imbuing their hero with an exotic origin would backfire only a few years later with the coming of WWII?

Because of this, their character was soon abandoned and willfully forgotten by his studio, (a fate which did not befall Charlie Chan, because of China’s status as war ally,) but not before Warner Bros. produced a Porky short (as Mr. Motto) which (coming late) was my personal introduction to the character (Porky's Movie Mystery (1939).)

Another difference between the two is that Mr. Moto is a lot more physical than any of the Chan incarnations, at one point demonstrating catlike agility in an impressive balcony stunt; but also not afraid to (lightly) participate in a bar donnybrook; disarming a couple of thugs and escaping by climbing a building's façade, and later in a mano a mano fight with the boss villain where he gets to demonstrate some Jujutsu or Judo moves (I think.)

This introductory movie (to me; apparently, I started out of order) fails to fully establish or round the character and were it not for Lorre’s natural charm (and for the anonymous stuntman doubling for him) there would probably be little of memorable note.

Obviously intended as a franchise, this problem might be resolved with the viewing of previous and later chapters in the series.

With Mary Maguire, Henry Wilcoxon, Erik Rhodes, Harold Huber & Harold Huber.