MR. MOTO TAKES A VACATION (1939) ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Norman Foster
Peter Lorre, Joseph Schildkraut, Lionel Atwill,
Virginia Field, John King, Iva Stewart,
Victor Varconi, Honorable Wu, George P. Huntley Jr.
When the newly discovered Crown of the Queen of Sheba goes on display in a museum in San Francisco, a world-famous detective with impeccable manners and bad teeth undertakes its protection from a master thief he knows will try to steal it. A whodunit with elements of slapstick (and traces of period racism), plus an excruciating performance by George P. Huntley Jr. as a would-be Scotland Yard detective whose crime-fighting skills rank somewhere below the Three Stooges. This was the last of Lorre's Mr. Moto movies. He joked later that he grew tired of playing a character who solved murders instead of committing them, but with war on the horizon and Japan a potential threat, it was time for Mr. Moto to take a long vacation, anyway.
