Matt B. from GETZVILLE, NY
Reviewed on 2/9/2011...
A quartet of spies from various backgrounds plan to blow up the French fleet pulling into Port Said, Egypt and thus sabotage the relations between allies France and Britain. Working for the” International Police” rather than dreaded Japanese secret service (as in the novels by John P. Marquand), Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre) follows their trail to break up their ugly plan.
Ricardo Cortez plays the ventriloquist to his Cockney dummy Alf. He bothers his girlfriend Virginia Field by making snide comments through the dummy – why is it movie ventriloquists almost always have creepy relationships with their dummies? George Sanders talks with an unidentifiable accent, but there’s no denying his ability to act smoothly as the urbane heel. Another familiar actor - John Carradine – looks odd in a fake beard but his inimitable voice helps us know it’s him. Virginia Field convinces us with a gutsy performance of a woman with a past who does the right thing. Something athletic and confident about her poise reminds me of a dancer or a swimmer.
Peter Lorre made eight movies in this character between 1937 and 1939. When asked how he was able to keep up such a fearsome pace of work, he said in his mordant way, “I had to take a lot of drugs.” But like Sanders and Field, Lorre screen presence shines.
More a spy movie than a mystery, the plot is sound, the incident sensible, the suspense plausible and the action is exciting.