Truly Dreadful Film

The greatest movie ever made..!

Crappy film

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It starts with scared animals running through the forest in this movie like they are afraid of something right in the beginning. I think it was the noise of a plane. The pilot a female, Victoria Mason is above Cambodia near Angkor Wat. She is suppose to fly around the world. She is up to something and she torches the plane to set it on fire and parachutes out.There are also camera men from another country in a canoe with a large camera there to take pictures of that country.Moto is at archaeological dig. He goes to where the airplane crashes and finds the torch that set the plane on fire. He knows something is not right. In the story we don't find out why she did that.Moto is Japanese and is on this island with mixed tribes. One leader wants to kill all white people including the camera men and the other leader Rahah Ali played by J. Edward Brombergrefers wants to marry Victoria the "white" woman. He is very funny.Moto has a cage with a homing pigeon that he sends with messages. He is kind of rough and the pigeon seems to fight. Moto puts a message on him and releases the bird. One of Rahah Ali wives is killed by a dart and they think it was a curse. Victoria is his choice as a wife. Whites are referred to in a bad way by the tribal people.Moto is on a mission he plays a prophet or something in disguise and also a archaeologist. In disguise he directs people away from a temple. He is searching for something and finds a room full of guns and explosives in the temple. He sends Bokor and his men away to watch Moto at the dig. At some point another shipment of guns comes and all hell breaks loose.The funny thing is that everyone's clothes are so clean in all these old movies and Rahah Ali's women are all dressed in jewels and more. Moto's suit is white and even when he comes up from the ground he is spotless. Victor Sen Yung that plays in Charlie Chan as a son is a soldier uncredited in this movie.There is lots of shooting, lots of fires, lots of people from different countries, music, humor and mystery.

Mr. Moto is posing as an archaeologist but in reality he's investigating reports that there is soon to be an uprising against the colonial government. Soon after he arrives, an Amelia Earhart-like woman conveniently "drops in" as well as two wildlife documentary film makers--making this part of rural Thailand about the busiest place in the entire country!! Some things about MR. MOTO TAKES A CHANCE are very good and make this a stand out film. First, instead of being stuck on a cruise ship or in the big city, Moto is in Thailand--a nice departure indeed. Second, like the earliest Moto films, our hero is NOT above killing his enemies--making Moto quite the different from Charlie Chan. Later Moto films are quite different, with Moto acting almost exactly like Chan--so in general, the later the films were made the worse they were.Unfortunately, the film also had more than its share of dopey moments, such as the bats that flew up out of the trap door. Not only were they obviously fake, but you could very, very clearly see the strings! There was also an overuse of stock footage. While fortunately the animals were correct (such as Asian elephants, tigers and orangutans) but sometimes the clips were a bit grainy and seemed like they were thrown in for padding. In addition, the one cameraman character (the obviously "goofy" one) was a bit annoying. He seemed to be some sort of unnecessary comic relief and really detracted from the film.'' Overall, not a particularly inspired film and far from one of the better films in the series. Watchable but it's only a time-passer for everyone but Moto fans.

The characters are what make this movie intriguing, and stupid.....at the same time! One is never quite sure who is what except we know Mr. Moto is a good guy and the two cameramen are innocent but too goofy. This, the fourth in the Peter Lorre-starred series of Moto films, re minded me of the Monogram latter-day Charlie Chan films, with Mantan Moreland, in which some silliness sometimes overtook the crime story. It also reminded me a bit of some old Tarzan films where you see stock footage of animals.The mystery starts right in the beginning when we see "Victoria Mason," a Amelia Earheart- type female who flying solo around the world, suddenly sabotaging her plane and parachuting to safety. We never find out until the end what that was all about. The pretty and nicely- shaped Rochelle Hudson plays Victoria.Anyway, to summarize briefly, the story is about a few Cambodian revolutionaries and a secret tomb- like cache for munitions. Along the way, we see Lorre in another one of his disguises, this one as an old "guru" with magical powers. I do enjoy Moto's disguises even though they fool everyone but us, the audience. The story is fair, nothing super, but the characters in here are odd, which is good because it keeps our interest in the film. The silliness is supplied by a two-man American two-man film crew working the jungles of Cambodia. Robert Kent and Chick Chandler play "Marty" and "Chick," respectively. Yes, an actor named Chick playing a guy named Chick!.They are more like Abbott and Costello than documentary filmmakers, and their lines are really dumb most of the time.What looked even more unrealistic but, in reality, wasn't as much as I thought, were the two main characters of from the host country in this story. They are George Regas, who plays the villain "Bokar" and J. Edward Bromberg who plays "Rajah Ali." Both these guys look and sound American, especially Bromber but Regas, who looks like comedian Henny Youngman, is from Greece and Bromberg is from Hungary/Romania! Go figure! Hudson was an attractive actress whom I remember from the 1935 Shirley Temple movie "Curly Top," in which she was only 19 but looked more mature. When this film was shot, she was 22 or 23 and still could have passed for a good-looking 30-year-old. Sadly, this actress died of pneumonia while only in her 50s.Anyway, if you don't mind some of the sappy dialog and you still enjoy Lorre and his disguises, this Moto episode should be worth your time checking out. It's a pretty fast-moving story and these restored editions out on DVD offer outstanding transfers. They really look good!

I don't have any problems with this or the series in general. Here you have an obvious Amelia Erhardt knock-off, Chick Chandler doing his usual Intrepid American on tour routine, Bromberg as a Rajah who bears a little resemblance to Dom Deluise, bogus natives gone wild stuff, etc. etc.I enjoyed it. I liked Lorre as the Guru, reminded me of Yoda. And Rochelle Hudson was quite a looker, to boot. There isn't a lot going on here-natives revolting, gun dealiner, the Rajah knows about it but strings things along for his own ends, etc. I don't think this is any worse or better than the others in the series.**1/2