The Mr. Moto mysteries were some of the better ones, and no doubt Peter Lorre had a lot to do with that. He was extra ordinary in the role.This one deals with a master criminal whom Moto suspects is going for a big heist in a museum.Moto is part Sherlock Holmes and part Indiana Jones. His films are more Indiana Jones adventures than mysteries. We usually know who the culprits are, and this movie is no exception.The performances and comic relief are the best things going for this one. It has lots of good atmosphere, and the bumbling pal who makes life tough for Moto pretty much saves the show, along with Lorre himself.The trouble is the script. Like many modern scripts, it is poorly written. There is just too much contrived into it. It becomes a "round robin" sort of script, where each character introduced becomes another covert super thief in disguise, like a second writer wanted a second character to be another subplot, a third writer a third subplot, and on and on tediously. After a while, a viewer says "enough is enough". After a while, it becomes horribly dull. We no longer care after each person becomes a member of another group of thieves.And that's the big problem here. The joke of everyone being a thief just isn't enough to carry a full length film. Even "Romancing the Stone" didn't become this ridiculous.

A team of archaeologists uncover a real treasure – the Crown of the Queen of Sheeba. From Egypt, the crown is to be transferred via steamship to San Francisco. But it won't be an easy journey. There are plenty of would-be thieves who would love to get their hands on the priceless jewels contained in the crown. Fortunately for all involved, Mr. Moto is on hand to guard the crown on its journey. However, that doesn't mean someone won't try to get their hands on the treasure.After the disappointment of Mr. Moto's Gamble, I went into Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation hoping for the best, but, admittedly, fearing the worst. But within the first 10 seconds of the film, I knew I would find it more enjoyable. I'm a sucker for a 1930s style mystery that features anything to do with archaeological digs in Egypt. And seeing Moto disguised as a German archaeologist (Imagine that, Peter Lorre playing a German?), the beginning scenes really drew me in. While the movie may have quickly shifted to the less exotic San Francisco, it remained just as enjoyable. Dark, sinister characters lurking in the rainy night; gunshots fired from open windows that narrowly miss the hero's head; sophisticated and supposed foolproof alarm systems just begging for someone to test them; and master criminals believed to be dead – these are the kind of elements found in a lot of the really good 1930s mysteries that I love. And Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation's got 'em all. A couple other bonuses for me included the always enjoyable Lionel Atwill in a nice little role, comic relief from G.P. Huntley that's actually funny, and a return to form for Mr. Moto. I've already mentioned his disguise in the movie's opening scenes, well the athletic Moto comes out near the film's finale. Moto is a like a Whirling Dervish of activity as he goes after his prey. All this and I haven't even mentioned the wonderful performance turned in by Lorre. Any way you look at it, Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation is a winner.As much as I hate that the Mr. Moto series had to end after this installment, it's understandable when you think about it. WWII was just around the corner. And after Pearl Harbor, a movie with a Japanese hero wouldn't have gone over very well. At least the Mr. Moto series ended on a very positive note.

Like most of the Charlie Chan movies of the same era, it might help to keep a score card here to keep track of all the players. Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre), true to characterizations in earlier films in the series, relies on his skills as an anthropologist as well as a detective to solve this, his final case. He's on the trail of a psychopathic criminal genius long presumed dead, coaxed out of hiding by the discovery of the crown of the Queen of Sheba on an Arabian dig. Not only does Moto don a disguise in the film, so does his adversary, the evil Metaxas, before the case is put to rest.The last couple of Moto films paired the Japanese detective with a comic sidekick, this time around it's G.P. Huntley as the Brit, Archibald Featherstone. His gimmick consists of outing Moto's undercover alias a number of times and taking numerous pratfalls. Someone like Reginald Denny might have been more effective in a less physical role, but hey, we take what we get in the Moto films, all of which are to be viewed for entertainment value and Lorre's understated portrayal. I got a kick out of the scene at the Fremont Museum in Professor Hildebrand's office when it's discovered the phone line has been cut. Instead of simply stating that, Moto offers - "Someone deprived this instrument of all utility". Couldn't have said it better myself.It would have been cool to see Mantan Moreland show up in the Moto series, but instead Willie Best appears in this one as a driver with a few quick lines and a fender bender. He also had a few moments in the Moto adventure on Danger Island. The real surprise for this story is the appearance of one of the better known and respected veterans of the era, Lionel Atwill, usually cast as a villain or mad scientist. The finale almost has you hooked into believing him to be Moto's quarry, but of course that was just a red herring.I'm still thinking about how Moto solved this case, explaining that the scoundrel Metaxas' footprints on the carpet changed from a walk to a limp when he entered the Professor's office. It sounds good, but how does one detect a limp in a footprint? It might have made more sense to have the cane as part of that set up.Anyway, not to be too harsh, this film is just as much fun as any in the series, which in retrospect might have been all too brief. The Charlie Chan movies ran to forty two films, not counting a couple for which the prints seem to have been permanently lost. However three different actors portrayed the Oriental detective in most of those flicks, but one would probably agree that the only actor to own the Moto role would rightfully be the wonderful Peter Lorre.

This is one of my favorite Mr. Motos, and I have seen them all. As usual Lorre is his charming self as the debonair Mr. Moto. Lionel Atwill plays a delightfully zany museum curator, the usual comic relief is quite funny here, and there are lots of suspects on whom to cast an eye. It's fast paced and fun.The archaeologist doesn't have quite the same flair as Thomas Beck, the usual second lead in these programmers, but he's adequate. Stepin Fetchit is on board, and while he speaks in a stereotypical manner his lines are funny, not demeaning to his intelligence, and he actually saves the day in his brief time on screen.