Now I realize that the Mr. Moto features were B pictures from 20th Century Fox and I have a low bar set for them accordingly, but you would think that a film set in Puerto Rico would have at least one person of Latino background as a character. Even a small scene where Peter Lorre goes to a library to do research the librarian could have been a librarian from Kankakee, Illinois. Darryl F. Zanuck should have been more alert here.
With that the film does sink to below average in ratings. As for the plot itself, Mr. Moto On Danger Island finds the intrepid Japanese sleuth hired by a consortium of diamond merchants to put a stop as to his smuggling the gems from Puerto Rico. It's important enough so that the territorial governor of Puerto Rico, Paul Harvey is in on it and is giving him full cooperation. Not that it does Harvey much good, because Harvey winds up a homicide victim and Colonel Richard Lane of the army who had been investigating the situation previously winds up with the blame and the suspicion of being the man in charge of the smuggling.
Such folks as Robert Lowery, Leon Ames, Douglass Dumbrille and Jean Hersholt are in the cast, any one of them a likely villain. And for comic relief the intellectually challenged Warren Hymer is along as a professional wrestler who strikes up the acquaintance of Peter Lorre while on the boat bound for Puerto Rico and attaches himself to Lorre.
Fans of the series will like this, but I fear few others.
With that the film does sink to below average in ratings. As for the plot itself, Mr. Moto On Danger Island finds the intrepid Japanese sleuth hired by a consortium of diamond merchants to put a stop as to his smuggling the gems from Puerto Rico. It's important enough so that the territorial governor of Puerto Rico, Paul Harvey is in on it and is giving him full cooperation. Not that it does Harvey much good, because Harvey winds up a homicide victim and Colonel Richard Lane of the army who had been investigating the situation previously winds up with the blame and the suspicion of being the man in charge of the smuggling.
Such folks as Robert Lowery, Leon Ames, Douglass Dumbrille and Jean Hersholt are in the cast, any one of them a likely villain. And for comic relief the intellectually challenged Warren Hymer is along as a professional wrestler who strikes up the acquaintance of Peter Lorre while on the boat bound for Puerto Rico and attaches himself to Lorre.
Fans of the series will like this, but I fear few others.