Watch Mr. Moto Takes a Chance For Free

You won't be disappointed!

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

The first couple episodes introduced us to a clever deceiver. Mr. Moto has a dark side. It wasn't long before Hollywood decided to throw an Abbot and Costello angle to these films. It happened to Charlie Chan. I'll be interested to see if things get better as I make my way through this series. Lorre is always good, but throw in a bunch of moronic characters. First of all, the native people are all white American actors. They are supposedly Asian. The main bad guy looks like a New York cop. The two filmmakers are such jerks, I wish they had gotten thrown into that well. Then there's the guy who is the prince on the island. He's another fat American. None of them look even remotely like Southeast Asians. Moto does what he can but it is hardly enough to pull this one off. The whole thing with the carrier pigeons is so laughable. With all the birds around why couldn't Moto have sent the thing at a time when it wouldn't be noticed.

Peter Lorre stars in "Mr. Moto Takes a Chance," in this 1938 entry into the series. Lorre, of course, as Moto is the main reason for watching this film, but the rest of the cast here is very good: Rochelle Hudson, J. Edward Bromberg, Robert Kent, and Chick Chandler.Working for the government, Moto is on assignment in French Cambodia to defuse two antigovernment plots, one lead by a holy man, Bokor against the local leader, Rajah Ali, and the other plot, led by Rajah Ali, who wants to start war against French rule. Parachuting into all this is Victoria Mason, aviatrix, an Amelia Earhart type but awfully pretty, flirtatious, and glamorous for someone whose plane just caught on fire. There are also two goofy newsreel photographers who keep getting into trouble.Moto plays a double role here, that of Moto and an elderly mystic who looks like he could be over 150. Lorre gives that role just the right touch - he's not fooling the audience and he knows it. Petite Rochelle Hudson is very pretty and vivacious.This film was the second Moto film but held back because it was thought to be not as strong as Thank You, Mr. Moto, to follow the first film. Like another poster, I'm not buying it, so the holdup remains a mystery. It's highly unlikely that Darryl Zanuck wasted five minutes thinking about the Mr. Moto series, except, of course, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Then he thought about the series long enough to pull it.

"I find it very wise not to interfere with the customs of other people," says Kentaro Moto, export dealer, hand-to-hand combat specialist, expert with disguises and, in Mr. Moto Takes a Chance, a spy for the French in Indochina. Since the French were quite used to interfering in the customs of the peoples they lorded it over in Indochina and elsewhere, what a let- down with this movie, in more ways than one. After the great start of the series with Think Fast, Mr. Moto and Thank You, Mr. Moto, this third in the outing sticks us back firmly in the low budget, do-what-it-takes, quickie category of programmers. Take away Peter Lorre as Moto and we'd have a tired jungle drama of nefarious natives, banana plants and the occasional crocodile. The only real mystery is how Mr. Moto keeps his white suit so clean in the jungle. The plot involves a plot, of course, and this one is by Bokor, high priest in the royal village of Tong Moi, not too far from Angkor Wat. He wants to do some overthrowing which will involve the Raja Ali, a seemingly jolly, chubby man who delights in his wives so much that he plans to add Vicki Mason, aviatrix and adventuress who had to bail out of her plane, to the roll call. We realize that the Raja may have more on his mind than Vicki as he goes about shooting down the carrier pigeons that an archaeologist is sending out. The archaeologist, of course, is Mr. Moto. It's not long before we encounter a wizened holy man almost as ancient, it seems, as a particular temple in the jungle. I won't even hint as to who the holy man really is. We also encounter a couple of newsreel free-lancers in a dugout, a cobra in a basket, a poison dart in a beautiful back, a cameraman in a tiger pit and a lot of munitions hidden in that temple. We begin to suspect that there is another spy working for the French. The Hollywood solution, naturally, involves a good deal of gunplay and the casual blowing-up of a great, hundreds-of-years-old, vine-encrusted temple. One assumes that the French, when they learn about this from Mr. Moto, will consider the destruction regrettable. Hollywood, however, can at times be prescient, however inadvertently. Snarls one major character, "We will not rest until we drive every foreigner from Asia!" At the time, that probably seemed unlikely and terribly unfair to all those foreigners. Lorre brings to Kentaro Moto his typical amusing mixture of lethal bonhomie and polite death-dealing, unencumbered, it seems, by any regrets. The other actors, however, are a gaggle of B players with one exception. J. Edward Bromberg plays the Raja. He was always a reliable actor and a good one. At the end of the Forties he found himself blacklisted because he refused to testify before a Congressional committee if he'd ever been a Communist. He had the quaint notion that in America a person's political beliefs are nobody's business but his own. The film jobs instantly vanished. He was married with a wife and three young kids to support. In 1950 he finally left for London, hoping to get a new start there. People who knew him said he was under a great deal of stress and had aged noticeably. He died within the year of a heart attack. He was 48. To end on a more pleasant note I'll need to mention Chick Chandler, an energetic light-comedy actor who plays the cameraman, Chick Davis. He looks just like a cross between Joe E. Brown and George W. Bush.

Another reviewer has disparaged this film, indicating that P. L. has a small part and that HE is the sole reason to watch it. Not true.Rochelle Hudson is an important addition to this film. Her performance in this Mr. Moto movie is well worth watching. She is also one of the most beautiful actresses you're ever likely to see.If this movie ever becomes available on DVD, I hope I learn of it--I would gladly purchase same. On the basis chiefly of Rochelle Hudson's contributions, I would rate this film 3 1/2 stars out of 5--or 7 out of 10. Viewers who are real Rochelle Hudson fans might well give it a 9 or a 10.