Mr. Moto

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Mr. I. A. Moto is a fictional Japanese secret agent created by the American author John P. Marquand. Moto's name is apparently an alias, and he is better known simply as Mr. Moto. Marquand originally created Moto for the Saturday Evening Post, which encouraged him to write Asian-flavored mystery stories after the death of Charlie Chan's creator, Earl Derr Biggers.

Moto is small in stature but strong and an expert in judo. He was the title character of a series of books, beginning with No Hero (1935; British title: Mr. Moto Takes a Hand, reprint title: Your Turn, Mr. Moto), and of eight films between 1937 and 1939, in which he was portrayed by Peter Lorre. With the beginning of World War II, Mr. Moto fell out of favor with Americans, and no new books or movies about him appeared between 1942 and 1957.

A dedicated and cold-blooded spy for Imperial Japan, Moto is not a conventional hero. He does not look for opportunities to commit violence but has no problem with killing people who obstruct his plans, and he would not hesitate to take his own life if necessary. But he is a master of concealing his true nature while under cover, and usually appears dull, naive, utterly harmless. He does not try to correct the bigoted attitudes of Westerners toward him and other Asians, and is not above encouraging such condescension. It often works to his advantage, leading Westerners to ignore or underestimate him.

Moto usually appears only at critical points in the novels, the real protagonists being disillusioned expatriate Americans or British men caught up unknowingly in international intrigue. Much of the books' appeal is that the protagonists regain their ideals and enthusiasm for life through the harrowing experiences, but this is incidental to Mr. Moto, who is not primarily concerned with their well-being.

In the last Mr. Moto novel, Stopover: Tokyo in the mid-1950s, global politics have altered the Japanese spy's relations with Americans. Now middle-aged and back in Japan, he's a reluctant mentor to U.S. agents as they battle a Soviet espionage ring in Tokyo. This Cold War spy novel is noticeably darker in tone than earlier Moto works and stylistically more like Marquand's award-winning "serious" books.

The Mr. Moto films of the 1930s are considered to be inferior to the books but are undoubtedly familiar to more people today. They gave Moto the first name of "Kentaro" and softened his character considerably. Moto, played by Peter Lorre, was not a steely, morally ambiguous Japanese agent, but instead a rather exotic member of the "international police" (whatever that may be). In 1957, the film version of Stopover: Tokyo eliminated Moto's character altogether. In the 1960s, the character was briefly revived in a low-budget movie starring Henry Silva.

[edit] Mr. Moto novels

No Hero (aka Mr. Moto Takes a Hand and Your Turn, Mr. Moto) (1935)
Thank You, Mr. Moto (1936)
Think Fast, Mr. Moto (1937)
Mr. Moto Is So Sorry (1938)
Last Laugh, Mr. Moto (aka Mercator Island) (1942)
Right You Are, Mr. Moto (aka The Last of Mr. Moto, Stopover: Tokyo and Rendezvous in Tokyo) (1957)