Movie review - Moto #2 - "Thank You, Mr Moto" (1937) ***1/2 (warning:spoilers)

Excellent entry in the series - probably the best one of them all - which has production values so strong it could be an A feature. It starts in the Gobi Desert with Moto fighting and killing and then winding up in Peking as he searches for scrolls which say where Genghis Khan's treasure is located. (I recall a Fu Manchu movie where Genghis Khan's tomb was the Maguffin - I guess it's a good one).

The action is fast, there is heaps of abundant exotica, ancient curses, a grande dame Chinese lady whose son betrays her honour, some boring romantic leads (one played the very pretty Jayne Regan, who I liked a lot more than Virgina Field from Think Fast Mr Moto; the other played by Thomas Beck, who was the dull romantic lead in the first - I get that they wanted to recycle cast but did they have to do it in the very next film? And in the same sort of role) and engaging villains and wacky support types, including old standbys John Carradine and Sig Ruman (another returnee from the first movie).

There is lots of action including a fight on a junk, a fight in a tent in the desert, a hara-kiri, a supposed suicide and a real suicide. Moto - who is super energetic in this film - kills four people. Again, like in Think Fast Mr Moto, you could come to the movie not knowing anything about him and think he's a villain from the way he acts.

It looks fantastic - surely this had the biggest budget of any movie in the series? - with teams of extra and exotic sets: mansions, desert tents, desert, junks, and so on. It also has unexpectedly strong emotin with Philip Ahn very good as a Chinese determined to protect his family honour, then failing, then killing himself... and Moto touchingly promising Ahn on the latter's deathbed that he'll avenge his family's disgrace - and keeping to that bargain. It's really sweet, these two strong Asian characters in a 1937 Hollywood film (even if one is yellowface); Ahn's mother is also sympathetic (albeit yellowface) - indeed, all the baddies are Caucasian, I think.

I don't want to make this sound better than it is - it's a B picture - but if you want to sample just one Moto, I'd recommend this one.