User Reviews

Given its location filming and, while not quite A-list, serviceable cast, this film is a major disappointment. The plot is one that normally is associated with a thriller: A government courier's point of contact is murdered and with the aid of a beautiful women whom he has just met, take up solving the murder and stopping the plot behind the murder. But it's not a thriller, not a mystery, not much of anything. With Breen providing both the screenplay and direction, it's difficult to determine in which role he failed more epically. The movie runs 100 minutes but feels interminable, primarily because so little happens in that time. There are numerous plot threads that lead nowhere but eat up the minutes. Principal among these is with the murder victim's young daughter. Wagner meets her at her house and after killing time going room-to-room with her doing small talk, he puts her to bed while giving her a "your father is dead" speech only to have her fall asleep leaving this speech to be repeated later in the movie. Finally Wagner gets to what he intended to do when he arrived, search the house. The plot line finally makes some plot progress when O'Brien shows up just long enough to put Wagner on the scent. So 5 minutes unnecessary setup for that particular scene. And then it's introducing the Koko to Collins and putting her to bed there. And then bringing Koko back to Collins at film's end where Wagner says goodbye to her after again going through the "your father's dead" speech. Probably 15 minutes could have been saved by just eliminating the role and having O'Brien show up while Wagner was searching the house. Having mentioned Collins, her role is equally as irrelevant as written. There really isn't much romance and she's mainly around to make phone calls. Which then gets to Ken Scott. He's in and out of the script and the country as well. He's there mainly to provide the third side of a romantic triangle except there really isn't a triangle because there's minimal romance. Collins heaves Scott over the side for Wagner but accepts neither of them is going to fall for any women because their work is more important to them than any woman. So Wagner and Scott are off to the wild blue yonder leaving Collins and Koko behind with Collins having to deal with what to do with Koko. A fitting ending for a dismal movie.

The location filming and some mid-level stars show this wasn't a tiny budget production but Breen the director couldn't see that Breen the writer had thrown in a lot of needless fat. Dumping the Koko line, adding some intrigue, spicing up the romance and love triangle (or better still, just eliminating Scott's role entirely) and this wouldn't have been a blot on the careers of all involved. With more night shooting and some rewriting (OK, I understand, it has color photography), this could even have been a good noir film. As it is though, it's far too tedious for any enjoyment and an exercise in how to choke the life out of an intrigue / mystery film.

Stopover Tokyo tells the story of a US Secret Agent named Mark Fannon (Robert Wagner). He's sent to Japan to foil a communist plot to assassinate the American High Commissioner. His main contact is murdered soon after he arrives. Before Mark can stop the assassination, he gets himself tangled in a love-triangle with a fellow agent and a woman named Tina (Joan Collins).

Stopover Tokyo is one exceptionally dull movie. It took me almost three viewings to get through the thing – I kept falling asleep. For an espionage film, there's very little action. Until the last few minutes of the movie, the most exciting thing I can remember was Mark being locked in a steam room. Not exactly a thrill a minute. I could forgive the lack of action if the rest of the movie was good – which it's not. The Mark/Tina relationship is about as boring as everything going on around them. Robert Wagner is a fine actor. I've enjoyed his work in a number of things he's done over the years. And Joan Collins is one of the most criminally underrated actresses to ever work in film. But here, they look about as disinterested as I was. Maybe it was the dull screenplay or the uninventive direction, whatever, they look bored. The only reason I haven't rated the film lower is for some wonderful post-WWII Japanese photography. Really nice stuff.

A mixture of spy film, romantic triangle and bereavement drama that doesn't quite gel together. It might have worked by concentrating on one aspect like the courier agent's deepening involvement with the plot to assassinate the High Commissioner but it keeps going off on tangents. I liked the personable cast; Robert Wagner, Joan Collins, Edmond O'Brien and Reiko Oyama as the sweet Koko but their dialogue is not that interesting. Based loosely on a Mr. Moto novel by John P. Marquand but oddly without Mr. Moto in it, which was a mistake. The cinematography in colour and widescreen was attractive particularly in the Japanese locations so it was good to look at at least.

By the end I expected the American agent (Wagner), the Welsh airport clerk (Collins) and the Japanese child (Oyama) to get together as a new family as they doted on each other but surprisingly they didn't which made the ending quite poignant.

"Stopover Tokyo" is a loose adaptation of John P. Marquand's famous novel, "Right You Are, Mr. Moto," the final entry in the Mr. Moto literary series. In the novel, two American intelligence agents, Jack Rhyce and Ruth Bogart, land in Tokyo on a secret CIA mission. Mr. Moto greets them at the airport and, together, the trio unmasks a dangerous international spy ring. Sadly, Marquand's briskly-paced novel has little in common with this lackluster film.

In true Hollywood fashion, the plot of the novel was largely discarded in its transition to the big screen. In the film, the intrepid American hero is renamed Mark Fannon and he is glibly portrayed by Robert Wagner with a wavy '50s pompadour. Fannon is a flippant code clerk in American counterintelligence who is sent to Tokyo on a routine courier mission. He soon uncovers an assassination plot hatched by crazed American communist George Underwood (Edmond O'Brien). Fannon races against time to stop the assassination, but the suspense quickly fizzles as the film's ending is boringly anti-climactic.

The ending of the original novel is far more poignant. In the novel, Communist agents kidnap the romance interest, Ruth Bogart, and throw her out of a high window. She plummets to her death, and the guilt-ridden hero resigns from the CIA. Yet, in this film, the skilled female operative of the novel has been downgraded to Welsh airport clerk Tina Llewellyn (Joan Collins). Collins imbues her character with a superficial triteness that oddly complements the film's dull script.

Overall, "Stopover Tokyo" is ploddingly slow and is similar to John Wayne's "Big Jim McLain" (1952) with the macho American agent thwarting evil Communists in the Pacific. Unsurprisingly, the Japanese characters are condescendingly stereotyped as child-like individuals who easily understand American slang, yet speak in Pidgin English. If you enjoy these types of movies, I suggest the vastly superior "Blood on the Sun" (1945) with James Cagney and Sylvia Sydney battling the Imperial secret police in prewar Japan.