Review of Mr. Moto Takes a Chance

A curious Oriental/Occidental pulp romance, in which various spies appear in a tiny eastern country not far from Cambodia. One spy is Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre), disguised as a timid archaeologist, and the other is aviatrix Victoria Mason (Rochelle Hudson), who fakes a crash landing in the kingdom. Round this out with two Yank movie guys, one handsome and in charge, the other something of a comic sidekick—he takes one look at Moto and says, "If that guy was in movies, he'd be cast as a murderer." There's also the supposedly dim Raja (J. Edward Bromberg) and an oily, conniving high priest, Bokor (George Regas). High priest of what? The god Siva (pronounced "C-vuh"). Moto discovers a German-supplied arms cache, the Rajah, not so dim after all, intercepts Moto's passenger pigeons and steals a march on Bokor. Moto also assumes a full head-mask and intervenes as a holy man from the top of the world. Bokor wants to throw out the French and all Europeans and keep Asia for the Asians; the Rajah wants to become a real Rajah; they both want the German weapons, but they both die in the explosion, and so the good news, apparently, is that the Germans haven't managed to destabilize the region. As Stephen Crane might say, the natives aren't even nouns, they're only adverbs. Though amusing, this movie is also a bizarre patchwork Orient, with Balinese-costumed dancers, a national religion worshipping Shiva, a Rajah named Ali, soldiers with uniforms like the Chinese around the time of the Boxer Rebellion—no match for the bonhomie and natural prowess of the Yanks and their clever Japanese friend. Another white man playing a clever oriental. Anyway, they all four sail off in a small ship. They're wearing suits and making jokes.