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.
Character in the novels
In Marquand's novels, Moto calls himself I. A. Moto, though it is made clear in some of the books that this is an alias. Most of the novels are about intrigue in Pacific Rim countries in the 1930s. The central character is usually a Westerner who becomes enmeshed in the action and meets Moto, not realizing initially that he is a Japanese agent. Through a series of adventures, the lead character comes to realize how important and formidable Moto is, but never learns all his secrets. Marquand tends to keep Mr. Moto in the background rather than at the center of the action, with his exploits often described second-hand. It lends a further air of mystery to the character.
In the first five novels, set in the era of 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.
Physical description
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 exception of 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.”
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 the outlandishness of his outfit is pointed out, he says he wears it because it doesn't go out of press.
Personal life
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.”
Politics
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.
Novels
- Your Turn, Mr. Moto (aka No Hero and Mr. Moto Takes a Hand (British edition)) (1935) - Originally serialized in the Saturday Evening Post in 1935 under the title, No Hero .
- Thank You, Mr. Moto (1936) - Originally serialized in the Saturday Evening Post in 1936. An expatriate American gets involved in intrigue in Peking when he tries to save an American woman from unscrupulous art dealers. Moto tries to save them both from a military takeover of Peking.
- Think Fast, Mr. Moto (1937) - Originally serialized in the Saturday Evening Post in 1936. The heir to an American banking firm is sent to Honolulu to clear up a family matter involving a gambling house. Moto is also drawn to Hawaii to stop money being channeled into China to support revolutionaries.
- Mr. Moto Is So Sorry (1938) - Originally serialized in the Saturday Evening Post in 1938. An American on the run from authorities encounters Moto on a train journey through China. Moto is on his way to a life-or-death showdown with Russian spies and draws the hapless American into the situation when a secret message accidentally falls into the possession of a beautiful woman.
- Last Laugh, Mr. Moto (1942) - Originally serialized in Collier's Weekly in 1941 under the title Mercator Island .
- Right You Are, Mr. Moto (aka Stopover: Tokyo and The Last of Mr. Moto ) (1957) - Originally serialized in the Saturday Evening Post in 1956 and 1957 under the title Rendezvous in Tokyo . The original book was called Stopover: Tokyo and subsequent editions were called The Last of Mr. Moto and finally Right You Are, Mr. Moto .
Anthologies/"omnibus"
- Mr. Moto's Three Aces (1939) reprints Thank You, Mr. Moto ; Think Fast, Mr. Moto ; and Mr. Moto Is So Sorry .
- Mr. Moto: Four Complete Novels (1983) reprints Your Turn, Mr. Moto ; Think Fast, Mr. Moto ; Mr. Moto Is So Sorry ; and Right You Are, Mr. Moto .
Character in the films
Between 1937 and 1939 eight motion pictures were produced by 20th Century Fox starring Peter Lorre as Mr. Kentaro Moto.
Unlike the novels, Moto is the central character, wears glasses, and no longer has gold teeth. He is still impeccably dressed in primarily Western suits, only wearing a yukata when he is relaxing at home. 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).
Abilities
In the film Mr. Moto's Last Warning a list is shown which describes him as:
- Age 35-40
- Jiu-Justu expert (meaning Judo)
- Uses various disguises
- International police
- Adept at magic
- Usually works alone
- Able to walk silently
- Known to use doubles
Throughout the other films other abilities have been noted:
- Ventriloquism
- Able to speak at least four languages (English, Mandarin, German, and Japanese)
- Writes haiku
- Draws caricatures
- Plays the shamisen
- Knows how to cure a hangover
Occupation
The motion picture Mr. Moto’s occupation is somewhat undefined; however he is primarily an agent for the International Police. This fictional organization is not to be confused with the modern Interpol which in 1937 did not exist as it is today.
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." In the second film, Thank You, Mr. Moto , the definition of his occupation/hobby begins to get murk
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