Tonight's movie was "Mr. Moto's Last Warning" (1939), in which we find Moto in Port Said, Egypt, trying to foil a terror plot to mine the harbor there. The terrorists are led by a ventriloquist named Fabian, who performs nightly at a local theater. Only in a Moto film would you have a ventriloquist as a terrorist. But yeah, this guy (played by an actor named Ricardo Cortez) is disgruntled, and he intends to place mines in the harbor in order to blow up some ships that belong to the French naval fleet, which will soon be arriving in port to perform joint military exercises with ships of the British fleet, which are already stationed in Port Said due to British oversight of the fledgling Egyptian government . Fabian's intent is to blow up French ships as they arrive, and make the British look like the culprits. In doing so, he hopes to break up the French/British alliance and start a war.
It is never stated which country Fabian is from, but his scheme includes a nationalistic British ship captain, and a British spy - played by John Carradine - who is actually an undercover agent trying to stop the terror plot.
Moto is in disguise (as always) as a local shopkeeper who sells ancient Egyptian relics and souvenirs. He's got his eye on the whole thing, and he recruits Carradine to lead him closer to the ventriloquist's inner circle so that he can infiltrate the gang and put a stop to their dastardly scheme.
In the meantime he has a few chances to use judo on various bad guys. After finishing one such fight, he politely explains to an associate that "bystanders" often assume he is using ju-jitsu, but it is really judo.
I think he means me, cause I was saying in earlier Moto movie reviews that it was indeed ju-jitsu. And I think I said that because I read it somewhere. Or maybe Mr. Moto said it himself!
I mean : think about it. Being deceptive is part of his job. He uses disguises; he uses aliases; he uses doubles.....
So maybe he is trying to play me with the ju-jitsu/judo thing, because he knows I'd never know the difference, even though I took a years' worth of Judo lessons myself when I was ten years old.
That was at the Los Angeles Athletic Club, under Judo Master George Damon. I didn't really love my Judo lessons cause I don't like fighting, but I did learn to "throw" an opponent just like Moto does, and I learned a Judo hold that is virtually impossible to get out of. Back in the late 60s and early 70s, there was Judo and there was Karate, which was all about throwing Karate Chops at someone. :)
Then all of a sudden there was Ju-Jitsu, and then a few years later there was all this really weird stuff like Hapkido, and then.....(drumroll please).......Kung Fu!
Kung Fu was Chinese, not Japanese, and it also became a hit TV show.
So much for Judo, which was seen as old hat.
But I think Judo may have made a comeback due to the Olympics, which after all does not include karate or kung fu. Mr. Moto would be proud.
"Mr. Moto's Last Warning" was a great movie, of course, and one of the best Motos, but there is a tinge of sadness in my heart tonight, because.....it was the last Moto Movie available from The Libe.
What am I gonna do? Yes, there are two more Motos available on Amazon. Eight films were made in total; I have seen the six that you can get from the Libe. But the two other Amazon Motos are high priced, and it seems that they are rare, and perhaps that is why they are not part of the Library collection. I love Moto, but I can't pay 90 bucks for a film.......
Sigh.
Well, I think that remonstration tells you how much I enjoyed these films. It was Peter Lorre's performance as Mr. Moto that gave every film in this series it's personality, and he knocked it out of the park. I read that Lorre was addicted to morphine while he was making these movies from 1937 to 39. He had health problems related to the addiction, and his biographer said that he was basically not well and even sick during that time period, and was in and out of sanitariums, now known as rehab. This makes his performances as Mr. Moto even more extraordinary, as you would never suspect anything was wrong when you see him on screen and in character.
Man, what a great actor he was, and with so much personality and screen charisma. The Moto Movies made a big Peter Lorre fan out of me. :) ////
This afternoon I also finished Phillip Nelson's blunt force truth book, "Who Really Killed Martin Luther King"? I could go on tirade after tirade about what I read, and Mr. Nelson's research and credentials are impeccable, so it's not a question of if he's got it right.
The only remaining question is this : What is the United States of America going to do to right this wrong, and to right all the other wrongs that it has held secret for so many decades, and even centuries? I am only concerning myself with the period from 1963 onward as I ask this specific question, but really folks : what are we going to do?
We can tell the truth about what has gone on in our country. That is one option.
Or we can continue to ride down the same path we've been going down for 55 years. This is the path that has resulted in a completely dumbed-down and angry populace, with a criminal as president.
What should we do about telling the truth in America? What do you think?
We are gonna have to do it someday, just like the Germans and Russians had to.
Because if we don't, if we don't lay out the truth about what happened to Martin Luther King, and to John F. Kennedy, and to his brother Robert, then we are hiding their murderers, who were the highest level officials of our government, LBJ and J. Edgar Hoover and others.
Other countries have had dictators. These were ours.
We have to come clean to the world about them, especially because we have a madman as our president right now, a guy whose whole objective is to start trouble.
I know that you probably won't read a book like the one I am talking about, but you should.
You should because America is not invincible, and that means that your freedom and your American lifestyle is not invincible. You should care about the truth, and as you know I speak from personal experience.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
No comments:
Post a Comment