The Mr. Moto Books

[nuranar]

Acting on jordannamorgan's recommendation of the Mr. Moto films and Wikipedia's description of the Mr. Moto books by John P. Marquand, a couple weeks ago I found myself the proud possessor of four out of six novels.  Unsurprisingly, given my track record, I zoomed through all four in less than a week.

Wikipedia supplies a lot of analysis in a lengthy and slightly

Comments

[jordannamorgan]

Interesting! Glad they turned out to be worthwhile. (If you've watched the Moto movie I sent, I'd love a comparison.)

Honestly though, I'm still not wild about the idea of the character of central interest being a secondary presence. You seem to enjoy that arrangement well, but for me, it would be like having the Saint turn up a few times in a book that spends most of its time on Peter Quentin. :Þ

What I really want is the rest of the films. TCM is running an entire day of Peter Lorre next month, but none of those are on the slate, alas.

(I should also add that, based on the one film I have seen, I wouldn't call MovieMoto either "benevolent" or a "hero". He got rid of the bad guys to satisfy his own sense of honor; helping the token boring-nice couple was a mere side effect of that intention. An antihero definitely, but not a guy to be trusted to serve any interests but his own. Maybe that impression would change with the other films added to the context, but that's what I got so far--and that's the whole reason I found him so

[nuranar]

Well, I just actually finished Daughter of the Dragon and went on to Mr. Moto tonight. The boys had friends over and claimed John Carter for their games, so what else could I do but monopolize the TV? *eg*

Off-the-cuff word is that while MovieMoto is certainly not the nice guy Wikipedia claims, he's still certainly not the single-minded Imperial agent BookMoto. He's definitely ruthless, and his "help" for Tom Nelson and the Joyce girl is purely incidental, also coincident with the books; but the thing that sets BookMoto apart is his single-mindedness when it comes to... what the Western world would call duty, but is something else in the East. Perhaps I missed some dialogue, (periodic explosions and gunfire plus screaming and yelling are hard to compete with), but he didn't seem much like a bona fide Interpol agent to me

[jordannamorgan]

It doesn't seem to me like MovieMoto is the agent of some organized group, either. He strikes me as very much a mercenary and freelancer.

Philip Ahn is my favorite Asian actor in classic films. :)

[nuranar]

That makes his comparative ruthlessness all the more intriguing, and at first blush contradictory. I wonder what his personal code of honor would be in that case. Working him into the LXG would depend heavily upon that. BookMoto would never be a part of it. He wouldn't think twice about using it or its members, though. Hmm. Come to think of it, he would be a fascinating not-foe not-friend for the League to deal with.

He's in two I Spy episodes! Squee! One in particular is excellent - "Affair in Tsing Tao." I actually think you'd like it. And I see he's Korean - *headdesk* I really should have guessed that. For some reason, my years at A&M gave me the ability to usually guess what country an Asian is from.

[suededsilk]

Interesting review. :) I always like hearing about potential new reading material! I've never seen the movies or read the books, so they'd be brand new to me