THINK FAST, MR. MOTO (1937)

 Growing up I watched a lot of late-night Charlie Chan flicks on the fuzzy UHF stations. I don't recall them showing very many Mr. Moto movies though. Being a fan of Peter Lorre I figured I should check them out. This here is the first one in a series of 8 and unlike the Chan films they seem to be a lot more serious in tone. This is probably due, in a large part, to how ominous Peter Lorre portrays our hero at times. He spends a lot of time acting like he's just a typical Japanese gentleman but when he gets serious and drops the act, and starts ass-kicking, I can see how he came to be known as one of the great horror icons. There's some judo-tossing action(including an impressive overhead tossing of a spy to his overboard death!) with an obvious stand-in for Lorre and it moves along fast enough at just over an hour that it's worth a look just for Lorre fans who don't mind a simple mystery plot. Being a Jew from Hungary he never does seem very Japanese to me but hey these were very different times and if this offends you you probably had terrible parents and are too sensitive to watch anything outside of modern-day children's programming and Hollywood superhero movies.

 Mr. Moto series:
1. THINK FAST, MR. MOTO (1937)
2. THANK YOU, MR. MOTO (1937)
3. MR. MOTO'S GAMBLE (1938)
4. MR. MOTO TAKES A CHANCE (1938)
5. MYSTERIOUS MR. MOTO (1938)
6. MR. MOTO'S LAST WARNING (1939)
7. MR. MOTO IN DANGER ISLAND (1939)
8. MR. MOTO TAKES A VACATION (1939)