The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

Charles Brabin

Writers:

Sax Rohmer (story)
Irene Kuhn (writer) ...

Release Date:

5 November 1932 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Horror | Sci-Fi

Plot:

Englishmen race to find the tomb of Ghengis Khan. They have to get there fast, as the evil genius Dr...

Plot Keywords:

Fu Manchu | Tomb | Mad Scientist | Bell | Human Sacrifice

Cast

Boris Karloff	...	Dr. Fu Manchu
Lewis Stone	...	Sir Denis Nayland Smith
Karen Morley	...	Sheila Barton
Charles Starrett	...	Terrence Granville
Myrna Loy	...	Fah Lo See
Jean Hersholt	...	Professor Von Berg
Lawrence Grant	...	Sir Lionel Barton
David Torrence	...	'Mac' McLeod
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Herbert Bunston	...	Undetermined Role (scenes deleted)
Gertrude Michael	...	Undetermined Role (scenes deleted)

Runtime:

68 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Finland:(Banned) (1933) | USA:Approved

Company:

Cosmopolitan Productions

Trivia:

Charles Vidor started directing this movie but was fired after a few days of shooting and replaced by Charles Brabin.

Goofs:

Continuity: Lewis Stone/Nayland Smith pokes around a Buddha. He sets down his gun, then falls through a trap door, with his gun clearly still on the Buddha. He gets up and pulls his gun out (of the same side of his coat, couldn't have two guns).

Quotes:

Sheila: [after Fu Manchu has reveald his murderous plans for her and Dr. Von berg] You yellow beast!

Movie Connections:

Edited into Mondo Lugosi (1987)

Scientific Rape

Many, many times a movie can be worthwhile when it does no more than create and display a strange world. Almost always that's the case where the world is new and/or synthesized from previous abstract sources.

"Metropolis" of five years earlier is often celebrated as a film. Its only value is in the art design, but that's miraculous in a way. Unfortunately the story is as thuggishly stupid as the notions it criticizes. And that mars a movie for me.

This one is even more clever in the visual world it creates. And yes the story is dumb, and also racist. But it is not hypocritical: all the people involved are dishonorable, worthy of a Tod Browning script.

The visual notions are astonishingly varied. Nominally this is a mystical Chinese (Northern Chinese, more deeply mystical) environment added to a 30's German-influenced visual depiction of science. There are lots of "electrical" visuals, zaps and blinkers. Abstractions of reality dominate: staircases that stand alone: monumental pedestals and other features in internal spaces; statues and icons that become characters from props.

The styles aren't Chinese at all but borrowed from any place or era with an association with the mystical.

Deep, deep shadows. Many ceremonial movements in everyday tasks (as well as ceremonies). Vast ambitions, though this was commonplace by then. Direct precode references to sex and the implication that somehow rape on a national scale had something to do with mystical/ scientific power.

(Remember, this is BEFORE Hitler's ascendancy.)

The story and most characters are irrelevant and that underscores the effect of the tone.

Watch Indiana Jones if you must, if you need movement. Watch this if you want to be saturated with cinematic color.

Ted's Evaluation -- 4 of 3: Every cineliterate person should experience this.