Friday, November 09, 2018

Movie review - Moto#5 - "Mysterious Mr Moto" (1938) **1/2 (re-watching) (warning: spoilers)

This gets off to a great start with Moto escaping from Devil's Island but instead of keeping things in the third world he heads off to boring old studio London and hangs around. I go back and forth over what I think of this one. I mean there's some good stuff - the opening escape, the novelty of seeing Aussie Mary Maguire in a role (hearing her accent when her character gets upset), Henry Wilcoxon adding some name value to the support cast, the reveal the upper class twit is the baddie. Leon Ames adds some support cast class. There's a striking scene where Moto encounters racial prejudice at an English pub - the bar guy charges him more and the others mock him.

But it's stiff - a bit stagey. Wilcoxon's character is a dull idiot. Maguire doesn't have anything much to do other than love Wilcoxon. The film lacks a bit of verve. Energy. I mean it's okay. Just not great. Needed another twist or something.

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