Monday, November 12, 2018

Movie review - Moto#6 - "Mr Moto's Last Warning" (1938) ***1/2 (re-watching)

Very good Moto film, one of the best. It's got the strongest villains, and the highest stakes, and ties in with real world shenanigans. It's got the best death and Moto really has to work hard to triumph. There's also no wet "heroic" romantic male lead. Every role has some meat on it. There is a silly ass sidekick for comic relief but I didn't mind him because it's his idiocy that causes trouble for Moto.

The villains: Ricardo Cortez as a smart villainous ventriloquist; George Sanders is always worth watching, as a monocle wearer; Leyland Hogson.

The deaths in this have impact - John Carradine, as a fellow agent, is sent to the bottom of the ocean in a chilling sequence. Also there's a guy who impersonates Moto who is killed.

Virginia Field, irritating in the first Moto film, has a decent role here to play - of a woman who realises her lover is a spy - and does well.

The villain's plot is great - they want to blow up a French ship in Port Said, run by the British - to cause trouble between France and Britain (this actually happened in the war when British ships sunk French ones).

It's a very good Moto.

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