Mr. Moto is a fictional Japanese secret agent created by the American author John P. Marquand. He appeared in six novels by Marquand published between 1935 and 1957. Marquand initially created the character for the Saturday Evening Post, which was seeking stories with an Asian hero after the death of Charlie Chan's creator Earl Derr Biggers.
In various other media, Mr. Moto has been portrayed as an international law enforcement agent. These include eight motion pictures starring Peter Lorre between 1937 and 1939, 23 radio shows starring James Monk broadcast in 1951, a 1965 film starring Henry Silva, and a 2003 comic book produced by Moonstone Books.
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In Marquand's novels, Moto calls himself I. A. Moto, though it is made clear in some of the books that this is almost certainly an alias. Most of the novels are about intrigue in Pacific Rim countries in the 1930s. The central character is usually an American, a military veteran, who becomes accidentally enmeshed in the action and meets Moto. The ex-military American character usually does not realize that Mr. Moto is an imperial agent until late in the story.
Mr. Moto is a master at working under cover. Though capable of ruthlessness and deadly violence, he appears to be merely a harmless, easygoing eccentric. Through a series of fast-paced adventures, the characters gradually comprehend how important and formidable Moto really is. Marquand tends to keep Mr. Moto in the background rather than at the center of the action, with the spy's more dramatic exploits typically described second-hand. It lends a further air of mystery to the character.
In the first five novels, set in the era of expansionist Imperial Japan, Mr. Moto is an agent of the empire. In the final novel, set in the 1950s inside Japan, he is a senior intelligence official in the pro-Western Japanese government. This final novel, titled Stopover: Tokyo (a.k.a. Right You Are, Mr. Moto) is a more conventional spy story and a somewhat darker tale than the earlier novels. The American who encounters Mr. Moto is not an innocent abroad but an agent on the trail of a pro-Soviet assassin, and he senses early on that Moto is not what he seems to be. Virtually all the characters in the novel are in the spy business.
He is physically described in Think Fast, Mr. Moto:
Mr. Moto was a small man, delicate, almost fragile. … He was dressed formally in a morning coat and striped trousers. His black hair was carefully brushed in the Prussian style. He was smiling, showing a row of shiny gold-filled teeth, and as he smiled he drew in his breath with a polite, soft sibilant sound.
This basic description carries through most of the novels, with the slightly different description in Right You Are, Mr. Moto which is set 20 years later than the first five novels. In this novel he is described as being “middle aged,” and his hair as being “grayish and close-clipped.” In two novels, Marquand describes Mr. Moto's build as "chunky".
He is often described as wearing formal evening clothes that are impeccably tailored. On occasion his sartorial style is somewhat misguided such as in Mr. Moto Is So Sorry when he appears in black-and-white checked sports clothes with green and red golf stockings. When his outfits are commented upon, Mr. Moto makes childlike excuses about it.
Mr. Moto rarely discourses on his personal life but in Think Fast, Mr. Moto he talks about his many talents.
Yes, I can do many, many things. I can mix drinks and wait on table, and I am a very good valet. I can navigate and manage small boats. I have studied at two foreign universities. I also know carpentry and surveying and five Chinese dialects. So very many things come in useful.
In Mr. Moto Is So Sorry he states that one of these foreign universities was in America where he studied Anthropology. It is also noted in this novel that he has enough knowledge of America to be able to distinguish regional accents.
The novels always involve a romance between the main characters (often a disenfranchised expatriate American) and a mysterious woman. While Mr. Moto often despairs of the hero's attempts at saving the girl, he notes in Mr. Moto Is So Sorry that he himself is not immune to their charms.
“So often,” he said, “I have seen such gracious ladies disrupt political combinations.” He sighed and still stared at the ceiling seemingly lost in memory. “Such a lovely girl in Washington – I was so much younger then. She sold me the navy plans of a submarine. The price was thirty thousand yen. When the blueprints came, they were of a tugboat. Such a lovely lady. Such a lovely lady in Tokyo. She took me to see the goldfish in her garden, and there were the assassins behind the little trees. Not her fault, but theirs that I am still alive – they were such poor shots. I do no understand lovely ladies, but I still trust them sometimes.”
While he is a devoted servant of the Emperor, he is often at odds with the Japanese military. He believes in the manifest destiny of the Japanese to expand into China, but unlike the military, wants to achieve this slowly and carefully. Millicent Bell in her biography of John P. Marquand notes how this may have impacted the audience:
There is political significance, too, in the calculated appeal to American readers of the ever resourceful Mr. Moto, the representative of Eastern subtlety combined with Western efficiency, who emerges as a gentleman of wit and charm. Up to 1939 it must have seemed possible to some that Japan would be moderate and reasonable in its expansion in the Far East – that the Mr. Motos would defeat the Japanese military fanatics. Pearl Harbor, of course, put an end to American neutralism as well as to hopes of Japanese moderation – but not before Marquand's Moto series had become one of the most popular fictions ever to be run in an American magazine.[1]
Between 1937 and 1939 eight motion pictures were produced by 20th Century Fox starring Peter Lorre[3] as Mr. Kentaro Moto.[4]
Unlike the novels, Moto is the central character, a detective with Interpol, wears glasses (and has no gold teeth), is a devout Buddhist (and good friends with the Chinese monarchy). He is always impeccably dressed in Western suits. The stories are action-oriented due to Moto’s liberal use of judo (only hinted at in the novels) and due to his tendency to wear disguises.
Mr. Moto is described as being just over 5 feet tall in the film Danger Island. (Lorre was actually 5 feet 5 inches). While Lorre resented playing Mr. Moto, he is the first authentic martial arts film "hero" in the West.
In the film Mr. Moto's Last Warning a list is shown which describes him as:
Throughout the other films other abilities have been noted:
The motion picture Mr. Moto’s occupation is defined as an agent for Interpol.
In the first film, Think Fast, Mr. Moto, he reveals that he is the managing director of the Dai Nippon Trading Company and had decided to investigate the smuggling activities that were hurting his business. He claims to be a detective "only as a hobby."[5] In the second film, Thank You, Mr. Moto, the definition of his occupation/hobby begins to get murky. He tells a woman that he is an importer whose hobby is detective work but only after showing her his identification which indicates he is a Confidential Agent for the International Association of Importers. However, in a climactic chase sequence he flashes a badge at a guard and says that he is from the International Police (to be understood as Interpol).
In subsequent films Mr. Moto works alternately for private organizations such as the Diamond Syndicate (Danger Island) as well as for world governments (Mr. Moto's Last Warning and Mr. Moto Takes a Chance)-- but only when it is in Japan's interests.
As a member of the International Police, he garners respect from local police around the world. In cities such as London, Shanghai, and San Francisco he is given full cooperation for his investigations. In Mr. Moto's Last Warning he works side-by-side with British Secret Service agents and in Mr. Moto Takes a Chance he is spying for an unknown government agency. He is also known for his close relationship to the Chinese Royal Family.
Mr. Moto's personal life is rarely touched upon. In Think Fast, Mr. Moto he tells Bob Hitchings that he went to Stanford University, graduating in 1921 as an honorary member. There he set a pole vaulting record and was a member of the fraternity Alpha Omega.
He travels a great deal but somehow manages to have his cat, Chunkina, along for the journey. Besides his cat, women in his life include Lela Liu (played by Lotus Long in the film Think Fast, Mr. Moto), a hotel telephone operator whom he asks out on a date, and who proves to be an agent who helps him in his investigation. In Mysterious Mr. Moto another agent, Lotus Liu (also played by Lotus Long credited as Karen Sorrell), pretends to fall for his charms so they can be alone to compare notes in their investigation. Like his literary counterpart, Kentaro Moto believes that a "Beautiful girl is only confusing to a man"[5] but has been known to use a woman’s feelings to aid his cause. In Thank You, Mr. Moto he tells the disillusioned Madame Tchernov, "I am so grateful for your suspicious nature. It is not the first time a woman’s jealousy has been fatal to the man she loved."[6]
Mr. Moto is quite charming and polite (even to rude or obnoxious people). He is always respectful of other cultures but sometimes makes wry comments. For instance, in Think Fast, Mr. Moto he derails the drunken American’s party tricks with a little judo. After putting the tipsy Bob Hitchings to bed he sadly shakes his head and says, "Strange people these Americans."[5]
Despite his charm, politeness and general respect towards people, Mr. Moto, as befits his occupation, could quickly become dangerous. As portrayed by Lorre, he could also be quite sinister when the need arose.
Mr. Moto’s religion is never stated; but in Thank You, Mr. Moto, when his friend Prince Chung (played by Phillip Ahn) has died, it becomes clear Mr. Moto is a devout Buddhist, as he chants expertly before the statue of the Buddha while holding the prince in his arms.
The family crest or mon on Mr. Moto’s yukata, as seen in the films Thank You, Mr. Moto and Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation, is three bars in a circle. This is similar to the Maruno uchini mitsuhikiryō (丸の内に三引両),[7] the mon of the Sakuma clan who served under Oda Nobunaga.[8] This would imply that Moto is from a samurai family.
A film version of Stopover Tokyo, made in 1957, stars Robert Wagner as an American spy. This film eliminated Moto's character altogether. It disregards the plot of Marquand's novel, and was not a commercial or critical success.
In 1965 Mr. Moto's character was revived in a low-budget Robert Lippert production filmed in England starring Henry Silva. In Mr. Moto Returns, a.k.a. The Return of Mr. Moto, Mr. I.A. Moto is now a member of Interpol. The extremely tall Silva conveyed an almost James Bond-like playboy character; in the fight scenes he is clearly not proficient in martial arts. He speaks in a lazy 'Beatnik' manner. Nowhere in the film is it even mentioned that Moto is Japanese. He is referred to as an "oriental" and, oddly, in the trailer, Moto is referred to as a “swinging Chinese cat.” It is only when he is disguised as a Japanese oil representative, Mr. Takura, that a more stereotypical portrayal of a Japanese businessman is given.
The graphic novel Welcome Back, Mr. Moto by Rafael Nieves and Tim Hamilton published by Moonstone Books in 2008 portrays Mr. Moto as an American of Japanese descent helping Japanese-American citizens after World War II.[17]
The graphic novel was originally published in 2003 as a 3-issue comic book miniseries:
Ken Ta Kashi, an angry young man of Japanese descent, is released from an Idaho detainment camp at the end of WW II. Estranged from his mother and sister, enraged at the mysterious death of his beloved father, Ken is easily trapped in a web of deceit, double-cross, and death by sinister forces in the U.S. government.[17]
From May to October 1951, the NBC Broadcasting network produced and aired 23 half-hour episodes starring James Monk as Mr. I.A. Moto, International Secret Agent. Mr. Moto is an American of Japanese descent born in San Francisco but still retaining his international connections.[18]
The show focused on Mr. Moto’s fight against Communism although occasionally he also solved more mundane mysteries such as murder and blackmail.
Peter Lorre brought the character of Mr. Moto to many comedy radio programs.[20]
Porky's Movie Mystery (1939) Features Porky Pig as the detective "Mr. Motto." "A mysterious phantom is causing trouble at the Warner Bros. studios. The police call in Mr. Motto (Porky) to investigate."[21]