Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Mischa Redfern I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

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

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Terrell-4 "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.

ccthemovieman-1 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!

classicsoncall The fourth in the series of Twentieth Century Fox films featuring Japanese detective Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre) opens with jungle stock footage right before aviatrix Victoria Mason (Rochelle Hudson) sabotages her own airplane and parachutes to safety in the Cambodian wilds of Tong Moi. The logistics of that plane crash and her parachute landing practically right on top of Mr. Moto on an archaeological dig isn't very believable, but it does set up a fast paced adventure involving native revolutionaries and a secret munitions base. As in the first two Moto films, Lorre dons a disguise for part of the story, this time as an aged Hindu wise man. You know it's Lorre all the while, but it adds some melodrama to the occasion, and he does get to spout some appropriately sage advice to friends and foes alike.There's an early tribute to Lorre's brilliant portrayal in the 1931 Fritz Lang film 'M'. As the two newsreel reporters continue on their way following the first encounter with Moto, Marty Weston (Robert Kent) comments to partner Chick Davis (Chick Chandler) - "If I was casting a horror picture, I'd have him play the murderer".If you pay attention the first time Moto reaches for a carrier pigeon to relay a message to his government contact, you'll note that the cage door is already open. Makes you wonder why the pigeon stayed put! J. Edward Bromberg adds to the colorful proceedings as Rajah Ali, walking a fine line between Bokor's (George Regas) native upstarts and his French government superiors. This time around, in addition to Moto's clever detective work and martial arts skill, he also shows he can be deadly with a machine gun. Unlike his Oriental counterparts Charlie Chan and Mr. Wong, Moto can mix it up pretty well with the bad guys, and leaves a trail of dead bodies in his wake that would make Dirty Harry proud.All in all, an offbeat and different kind of mystery for Mr. Moto, reminiscent somewhat of the much later Charlie Chan film, 1948's "The Feathered Serpent" which takes place in an Aztec jungle setting. In that one, Roland Winters portrays Chan, and scurries around the steamy wilderness in the trademark white suit, tie and top hat. At least Moto looked more comfortable in a safari suit.Oh, and lest I forget, let me get my vote in now for Rochelle Hudson, the actress with the sexiest shoulder of the 1930's!

JoeKarlosi I've only seen the first three Mr. Moto films at this point but this was easily the least of them so far. Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre) poses as an archaeologist in a Cambodian jungle to sabotage the anti-government plans being cooked up by leader Rajah Ali (J. Edward Bromberg). He is helped out by a female spy (Rochelle Hudson) who has "conveniently" crashed her own plane on the island. This one plays very much like an old Republic serial. Detracting much from whatever enjoyment there is here are two silly American newsreel photographers who work their way into the story, providing what I suppose they think is comic relief. ** out of ****