MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: MR. MOTO’S GAMBLE (1937)

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Monday, May 26, 2008

MR. MOTO’S GAMBLE (1937)

The third of eight MR. MOTO films is Moto in name only. When Warner Oland pulled out of his Charlie Chan pic (he would not live to complete another), 20th/Fox reworked the script just enough to substitute Peter Lorre ’s sly pussycat for Oland’s aphoristic detective. It works, more or less, on Charlie Chan terms (Key Luke hangs around as Number One son), but it’s a waste to find Moto adrift in the flat visuals and flat-footed detective procedural steps of that other Oriental dick. Hack megger James Tinlin is no kinetic dynamo and usually just plants his camera front & center. Best to think of this one, about fixed boxing and gambling rings, as a bonus Moto title that’s just barely worth it’s running time.

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A last thought before we go.

Well, enough from me. But before we sign off, here's a great quote from Emile Zola's L'OEUVRE (THE MASTERPIECE), which is about painting rather than the yet to be invented medium of film, but which points a fine critical eye toward the whole idea of art criticism. It's a good, if chilly, thought to keep in mind, especially when you surf the net.

"Has it ever struck you that posterity may not be the fair, impartial judge we like to think it is?

"Suppose the artist's paradise turned out to be as nonexistent as the Catholics, and future generations prove just as misguided as the present one and persisted in liking pretty pretty dabbling better than honest to goodness painting. There are some accepted masterpieces for which I myself wouldn't give a twopenny damn.

"Classical training has given us a wrong view of everything and forces us to acclaim as geniuses a lot of fellows who are no more than well-balanced, facile painters, while what we might really prefer is the work of more emancipated but less even artists known only to an initiated few. Immortality at present depends entirely on the average, middle-class mind and is reserved only for the names that have been most forcibly impressed upon us while we were still unable to defend ourselves...

"Perhaps that's the sort of thing that's best left unsaid. It's certainly the sort of thing that gives me the shudders!"- Emile Zola

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Monday, May 26, 2008

MR. MOTO’S GAMBLE (1937)

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A last thought before we go.

DROP ME A LINE