*** DVD CORNER ***

[ghost of miles]

More on Mr. Moto:

In the mid-1930’s, 20th Century Fox seemed to be building up a stable of what were once called Oriental sleuths. The Charlie Chan series, which entered the talkie era in 1929 with Irving Cummings’s “Behind That Curtain” (featuring the forgotten E. L. Park as Chan), had run through all of Earl Derr Biggers’s original novels by 1934, though the series, with the charismatic Warner Oland in the lead, continued with newly commissioned screenplays based on Biggers’s characters. Perhaps worried about running out of material, Fox purchased the popular Mr. Moto stories that the novelist John P. Marquand (“The Late George Apley”) published in The Saturday Evening Post, beginning in 1935.

Marquand’s Moto was a strikingly different figure from Biggers’s Chan: Japanese, not Chinese, and not a professional detective, though exactly what he was went through several changes. In “Thank You, Mr. Moto” (1937), he was described as “an adventurer, explorer, soldier of fortune — one of the Orient’s mysteries.” Though he appeared to be operating on his own, running down smugglers who threatened his San Francisco import-export business, subsequent films in the series inducted him into a mysterious “international police force.”

On film, Mr. Moto acquired the distinctly non-Asian features of Peter Lorre, the brilliant Hungarian-born Jew who fled Hitler’s Europe after his star-making appearance in Fritz Lang’s “M.” After playing a heavy in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1934 British film “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” he arrived in Hollywood in 1935 for much-ballyhooed performances in a pair of ambitious projects: as a demented surgeon in Karl Freund’s “Mad Love” and as Raskolnikov in Josef von Sternberg’s “Crime and Punishment.” But it was as Mr. Moto, fitted out with gold-rimmed glasses, taped-back eyelids and what appears to be a set of buck teeth, that Lorre first caught on with the American public. The role preserved his soft-spoken, sardonic personality, but now he was ostensibly on the side of law and order, though his methods involved elaborate disguises, heartless deception and, in at least one case, something approaching outright murder.

Fox Home Video has released a box set of the first four Mr. Moto films, as a handy companion piece to the Chan films it released a few weeks ago. The Moto movies depart considerably from the Chan formulas: these are not whodunits, with the principal suspects gathered in the drawing room of a country estate for last-reel revelations, but action-adventures set in parts of the world that most Americans, in the days before jumbo jets, considered unimaginably exotic. Moto is not a detached intellectual like Chan, but a calculating man of action whose judo skills (or rather, those of his stunt double) got him out of many scrapes involving foreign spies, evil potentates and international criminal organizations.

The Mr. Moto series is unusual because it is largely the work of one filmmaker, Norman Foster, who directed six of the eight films in the series and contributed to the screenplays of several. Foster, whose rich and fascinating life story is recounted by a documentary by John Cork included in the box set, was a world traveler turned Broadway actor who came to Hollywood with his wife, Claudette Colbert, and worked as an actor for several years. (The documentary includes tantalizing clips of his work in John Ford’s “Pilgrimage” and Henry King’s “State Fair,” which one hopes are on the Fox future release schedule.) He became a director after a severe beating left him feeling too disfigured for front-of-the-camera work. As a visual stylist, he liked crowded, busy frames, full of décor details and animated by the constant crossing of background extras. If he isn’t always able to lift the stock characters into more fully developed human figures, he is able to negotiate his way through complicated, occasionally illogical intrigues while maintaining a quick rhythm and a clear line of action.

The four titles in the first Fox set all look extraordinarily good (perhaps because the original material has not been as overprinted and abused as the Chan films) and show off Foster’s flair for exotic atmosphere mined from the Fox back lot. Two (“Thank You, Mr. Moto,” 1937, and “Mysterious Mr. Moto,” 1938) are terrifically entertaining; one, “Think Fast, Mr. Moto” (1937), is fun, if not terribly coherent; and only “Mr. Moto Takes a Chance” (1938) feels like a B-movie, compromised by tacky jungle sets and stock film. Waiting for Volume 2 are “Mr. Moto’s Gamble,” a 1938 film by James Tinling that went into production as “Charlie Chan at the Ringside” but became a Moto film when Warner Oland died; Foster’s “Mr. Moto’s Last Warning” (1939, currently available only in appalling public domain prints); Herbert I. Leeds’s “Mr. Moto in Danger Island” (1939); and Foster’s farewell to the series, “Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation” (1939).

Foster’s place in movie history was secured later, when Orson Welles hired him (reportedly because he spoke Spanish) to direct the Mexican sequences of his doomed Latin America project, “It’s All True,” and to direct Welles and the rest of the Mercury Players in the 1943 thriller “Journey Into Fear” — based, appropriately enough, on an Eric Ambler novel. After seeing the Moto films, “Journey” looks much less like an exception in Foster’s filmography than the movie he was preparing to make all those years. Whether Welles knew it or not, he had chosen the right man for the job. Fox Home Video, $59.98; not rated.

Matthew--note Eric Ambler reference!

[Matthew]

GoM: Thanks for the heads up. I know "Journey Into Fear" came out in VHS form but it doesn't seem to have been done DVD. Waiting for that to happen. Supposedly Orson Wells was the "real" director for JIF.

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

A first rate series. Ian Richardson is outstanding!

[andybleaden]

I know these....read the books too and they were absolutely riveting .....all three of em

Hope we get more leaders like him

[BruceH]

Excited about this one, which came out this week... both for Peter Lorre and the cinematography (THANK YOU, MR. MOTO in particular was said to be an influence upon the look of CITIZEN KANE):

Mr. Moto V. 1

Thanks for the info, ghost. I've been curious about the Mr. Moto films for years, not least because the title character is played by a young Peter Lorre. Provided the name for a great surf-instrumental, too.

[kinuta]

Any other fans of Cracker? British crime procedural at it's darkest and most fascinating.

Fans of happy endings stay well away.

[kinuta]

Wire In The Blood is another excellent series.

[kinuta]

Here's another

[kinuta]

A first rate series. Ian Richardson is outstanding!

I think so too.

You would probably like this one , Mr Weizen. It's little known but recommended.

[BERIGAN]

How many Oscar winners have gone on to have real sucess, a sitcom???

Never saw this show in syndication, was shocked to find out it was a 60's show, not from the 50's. I think they changed up the box art a bit from what I saw in the stores, but may be wrong.

[BruceH]

Any other fans of Cracker? British crime procedural at it's darkest and most fascinating.

Fans of happy endings stay well away.

I'm a big fan of the show. Recently I re-watched the whole series on DVD and it stands up quite well.

[Matthew]

Someone gave me all three seasons of these guys as a gift....

I'm enojying it, especially junior...

[BruceH]

Here's another

Yes, a very good series. Saw the whole thing on video some years ago.

[ghost of miles]

Excited about this one, which came out this week... both for Peter Lorre and the cinematography (THANK YOU, MR. MOTO in particular was said to be an influence upon the look of CITIZEN KANE):

Mr. Moto V. 1

Thanks for the info, ghost. I've been curious about the Mr. Moto films for years, not least because the title character is played by a young Peter Lorre. Provided the name for a great surf-instrumental, too.

My wife & I have watched the first two films over the past couple of nights & enjoyed them very much. Don't expect great plots, but there's some good dialogue for Moto, and the films look wonderful (the cinematography in THANK YOU, MR. MOTO is indeed impressive, and I can see how it influenced CITIZEN KANE). Also, Peter Lorre is fantastic in the title role... I went to the IU library this afternoon and checked out the 2005 Lorre bio, THE LOST ONE, and look forward to reading it.

I have to think that these movies influenced the Indiana Jones series... and that they may have also influenced, in a weird way, Peter Sellers' Inspector Closeau (accent, use of disguises, etc.).

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

You would probably like this one , Mr Weizen. It's little known but recommended.

Yes, most definitely! Coincidentally, we watched this one during the the last week of July!

Tonite it's disc 3 of the 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' and we get to find out who the 'mole' is -- At this point I'm guessing that it's the foppish Toby Esterhase.

[Soulstation1]

anybody pick up this dvd?

[BruceH]

anybody pick up this dvd?

I haven't picked it up (yet) but I've heard that the second disc only has a 1973 TV movie version with Richard Crenna. Hardly seems necessary.

[sidewinder]

Tonite it's disc 3 of the 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' and we get to find out who the 'mole' is -- At this point I'm guessing that it's the foppish Toby Esterhase.

Currently being repeated on BBC4 and on in about 1 hr from now. Last time I saw this was about 30 years ago !

[Kalo]

anybody pick up this dvd?

I haven't picked it up (yet) but I've heard that the second disc only has a 1973 TV movie version with Richard Crenna. Hardly seems necessary.

Absolutely true. Could win an award for most superfluous DVD extra.

They should put the Crenna Double Indemnity on the same disc as the Mark Harmon Shadow of a Doubt and Gus Van Sant's Psycho re-do.

Then you could shitcan them all in one go.

[BruceH]

"Mark Harmon Shadow Of A Doubt"??

[ejp626]

In Region 2 land, a new collection of the films of Louis Malle is coming out. In fact, it is split over 2 box sets, though I am renting the ones I am interested in to see if I will buy the whole thing (either one): Louis Malle set1

I was particularly intrigued by Zazie in the Metro, which is not available in the US currently. This is based around a novel by Raymond Queneau and was considered unfilmable. I find it pretty interesting, particularly seeing shots of 1960s Paris in vivid technicolor, though it is a fairly frantic film with a lot of surrealistic touches and not to everyone's taste. Maybe you should just mix uppers and downers, watch a bit of Zazie, then a bit of Tati's Mon Oncle to take the edge off.

I was particularly struck by this weird scene, practically out of Benny Hill, where this buxom blonde (looking a bit like a low-rent Marilyn Monroe) is being bothered by a horndog cop. She runs into a kiosk with a poster of Sachel Distel on the door! Then when the door opens a man emerges and there is a bit of guitar on the soundtrack, presumably by Sachel. So I went to look for info on the soundtrack and can't find confirmation of this, but I did learn that Sachel Distel had an uncredited cameo in the movie. And sure enough when I watched it again, it is Sachel Distel standing right next to his poster. Weird.

By the way, is anyone else excited about the new Criterion edition of Playtime? I think it will be pretty cool and it should be the best transfer of the lot, though I would like to read some reviews once it is out. So far it is the only thing on my Xmas wish list.

[Kalo]

"Mark Harmon Shadow Of A Doubt"??

TV Movie from the early '90s with Harmon in the Joseph Cotten role. Check it out on imdb. I actually watched the original broadcast back then and it was terrible, even worse than you can imagine.

Edited September 4, 2006 by Kalo

[Kalo]

By the way, is anyone else excited about the new Criterion edition of Playtime? I think it will be pretty cool and it should be the best transfer of the lot, though I would like to read some reviews once it is out. So far it is the only thing on my Xmas wish list.

I am.

Might be my all-time favorite movie. I'll definitely be getting it. Greg Erickson just reviewed the new edition favorably on DVDSavant.com.

[BruceH]

TV Movie from the early '90s with Harmon in the Joseph Cotten role. Check it out on imdb. I actually watched the original broadcast back then and it was terrible, even worse than you can imagine.

I can imagine pretty bad.

[Kalo]

TV Movie from the early '90s with Harmon in the Joseph Cotten role. Check it out on imdb. I actually watched the original broadcast back then and it was terrible, even worse than you can imagine.

I can imagine pretty bad.

It's even worse than that.

The final confrontation on the train, so terse and surprising in the original, seemed to last about 20 increasingly pointless minutes of chasing from car to car...

Oh yeah, and Tippi Hedren's in it too.