Tag Archives: Ricardo Cortez

Mr. Moto’s Last Warning

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Movie night!

The year; 1939.

The challenge; can you take a cast consisting of Peter Lorre, George Sanders, Ricardo Cortez, John Carradine, and Robert E. Lee’s cousin (Virginia Field) and prevent World War II?

Well yes you can……at least for a year or two.

It’s exotic, it’s silly, it’s Mr. Moto’s Last Warning.

Points of interest for this Z-movie freak;

  • Virginia Field made a mini career of working with Asian detectives played by non-Asian actors. She appeared in three Mr. Moto flicks and a Charlie Chan.
  • Ricardo Cortez is always a charming villain; always. As an actor…Ricardo Cortez is always a charming villain.
  • In this epic, Mr. Cortez pumps air to an underwater diver with one hand while watching the French fleet though binoculars with the other and all the while his double-Windsor-knotted cravat and his Panama are never compromised. What style!
  • But that’s lollygaggin’ compared Mr. Moto, our persistently bespectacled hero. Mr. Moto dives underwater (in his eyeglasses), KO’s George Sanders underwater (still in his eyeglasses), blows up the enemy land mines underwater (yes, still in his eyeglasses), climbs out of the water onto the dock (you guessed it, still…), beats up Ricardo Cortez, disarrays his Panama and double-Windsor, and flings him into the Mediterranean (IN HIS EYEGLASSES!) It’s an astounding spectacle (see what I did there?).

I loved it.

Ripe for Redemption

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Movie night!

And we’re slummin’ on Poverty Row, Hollywood again. This time we’ll be sampling one of the low-budget efforts of Republic Pictures.

Tonight’s delight is a forgettable little wisecracking-detective saga from 1946; The Inner Circle. The title has nothing to do with the flick…but it is fun to say out loud in your best funereal voice. There are interesting performances by Ricardo Cortez, William Frawley (the definitive Fred Mertz, Lucy & Ricky’s neighbor), and the almost delightful Adele Mara.

But what makes the film worth watching is Will Wright.

WARNING: a geezer moment is about to ensue.

Will Wright is one of those faces that haunts my TV-watching childhood. To me, his career sounds like a dream. In the movies he worked with Tracy & Hepburn in Adam’s Rib (1949), Peck & Mitchum in Cape Fear (1962), Powell & Loy in Shadow of the Thin Man (1941), and Brando in The Wild One (1953). That should be enough for anyone, but then there’s his television resume. Mr. Wright was in The Dick Van Dyke Show, Perry Mason, The Real McCoys, Rawhide, 77 Sunset Strip, Leave It to Beaver, Cheyenne, Sugarfoot, Maverick, Father Knows Best, I Love Lucy, and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Animal stars flocked to him in Lassie, Rin-Tin-Tin, Mister Ed, and Fury (“The story of a horse and the boy who loved him.”- you can also say that in your best funereal voice). He portayed town skinflint Ben Weaver in several episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, including a Christmas episode that pretty well shattered my pre-teen heart.

Mr. Wright was born old, was often mean, but seemed always ripe for redemption.

…ripe for redemption…

Maybe that’s what’s missing in some of our elected leaders these days. I fear they’ve drifted far from being ripe for redemption.

Maybe we could use an actor like Will Wright for these troubled times.