Mysterious Mr. Moto

Awesome way to eliminate the gang leader! That alone made this Mr. Moto movie for me. This also gave Peter Lorre to dress up in various disguises. Including as a Japanese dress up as a Japanese....eh.... and one taking advantage of his own native language as a old German art hater! Otherwise this featured a bunch of respected character actors. There is violence of course, but not as much as in some of the other Mr. Moto films. This is more a good old detective story and a favorable one at that.

A good opening which hits the ground running swaps out its intriguing setting with... exotic London. The film quickly becomes more about good old fashion detective work instead following its undercover set up. While it does set up a bunch of interesting leads none of it ever really pays off in a meaningful way. This becomes more of a hodge podge of genre conventions that never really forms a cohesive whole. Without the oriental flavor of the bulk of the series this becomes a mediocre entry.