All the Rajah

I know I've mentioned our love for the terrible Peter Lorre Mr. Moto series. Mr. Moto Takes a Chance (1938) may be our favorite yet.

It starts with a woman, Rochelle Hudson, flying over Angkor Wat, then setting her plane on fire and bailing out. She lands near where Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre in lamentable yellowface) is excavating an ancient temple. There are also a couple of newsreel photographers in French Indochina on spec: Robert Kent and Chick Chandler.

They all get taken to see the Rajah, chubby J. Edward Bromberg. He is pretty well disposed towards the foreigners, but the priest, George Regas, claims they are trouble. When the Rajah's first wife dies suddenly, the priest gets the two photographers condemned to death.

As the sentence is about to be carried out, an old guru comes out of the temple to ask them to spare these men. He does a few tricks and convinces even the priest. He even pretends to be on the side of the traditional priest as opposed to the modernizing Rajah and the French. He is also clearly Mr. Moto in disguise.

It turns out Moto is on a mission to find the weapons that the priest has been stockpiling to overthrow the Rajah. He has figures out that pilot Hudson is on the same mission. As Moto, he is a slightly greasy archeologist who never gets involved with other cultures. As the guru, he is a mysterious ancient seer. He often eggs on a character in one guise while taking the opposite view in the other.

There's a good deal of action in this, plus the comic Rajah who turns out to be ahead of Moto in some ways. But I mostly liked the exotic locale, north of Angkor. There are nice touches like kris daggers, gong orchestras with Thai/Balinese dancing, etc. Even one or two Asian cast members. I'm not sure this is the first one to check out, but watch it before deciding that the series is too silly to watch.