Sax Rohmer's The Castle of Fu Manchu (1969)

An evil Chinese mastermind plots to freeze the Earth's oceans.

Director:

Jesús Franco (as Jess Franco)

Writers:

Jaime Jesús Balcázar (dialogue: Spanish version), Manfred Barthel (screenplay)

Stars:

Christopher Lee, Richard Greene, Howard Marion-Crawford

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Christopher Lee	...	Fu Manchu
Richard Greene	...	Nayland Smith
Howard Marion-Crawford	...	Doctor Petrie (as Howard Marion Crawford)
Günther Stoll	...	Dr. Curt Kessler (as Gunther Stoll)
Rosalba Neri	...	Lisa
Maria Perschy	...	Marie / Ingrid
José Manuel Martín	...	Omar Pashu (as Jose Manuel Martin)
Werner Abrolat	...	Melnik (as Werner Aprelat)
Tsai Chin	...	Lin Tang
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Stanley Baker	...	Running Man (archive footage)
Dirk Bogarde	...	Running Man (archive footage)

Storyline

The evil mastermind Fu Manchu plots his latest scheme to basically freeze over the Earth's oceans with his diabolical new device. Opposing him is his arch-nemesis, Interpol's very British Dr. Nayland Smith.

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Plot Keywords:

giallo | spanish giallo | british giallo | turkish giallo | german giallo | 

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Taglines:

He's Back!!! The World's Most Evil Man with a Fiendish Plan of Conquest

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Genres:

Adventure | Crime | Horror

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Country:

West Germany Italy Spain UK Liechtenstein Turkey

Language:

English German

Release Date:

1972 (USA)

Also Known As:

Sax Rohmer's The Castle of Fu Manchu

Filming Locations:

Rumelihisari, Sariyer, Istanbul, Turkey

Company Credits

Production Co:

Balcázar Producciones Cinematográficas, International Cinema, Italian International Film

Technical Specs

Runtime:

92 min (DVD) 80 min (DVD)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The dam bursting scene is footage taken from the Sir Dirk Bogarde movie Campbell's Kingdom (1957). Bogarde is in the green checked shirt and Stanley Baker in the red shirt, both are recognizable in this footage.

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Goofs

On the boat in the harbor, after Inspector Ahmet tells Dr. Petrie to contact the Home Secretary's office, the sky and weather shift abruptly from blindingly sunny and clear to dark, overcast and windy with choppy seas (as if it were about to rain) for the shots of the scarf.

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Quotes

Fu Manchu: [Over the radio] This is my ultimatum; within the next few hours the Bosphorus and the city of Istanbul will be destroyed.
Dr. Petrie: It's not true! It can't be true!
Inspector Ahmet: Doctor Petrie, calm yourself.
Fu Manchu: [Over the radio] The powers of the world have relied upon one man: Nayland-Smith. Nayland-Smith is dead.

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Crazy Credits

Maria Perschy's character is called Dr. Ingrid Koch but on the credits her character's name is given as Marie.

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Alternate Versions

As usual in 'Jesus Franco' movies, the credits of the film contain different (and often incongruous with each other) info in every country's version. While the English version lists Peter Welbeck (nom-de-plum for Harry Alan Towers) as the author of the screenplay, the Spanish version (with a credits sequence that replaces the exterior shots of the castle from the original with a cheesy drawing of a red dragon) lists Manfred Barthel as the author of the story and screenplay, and Jaime Jesús Balcázar as the author of the dialogue. This version also credits some actors (such as Gustavo Re and Osvaldo Genazzani) and crew members not credited in the English version, and the cast order is different as well.

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Connections

Follows The West Case (1923)

User Reviews

The buck stops here

The fifth and final of Christopher Lee's Fu-Manchu outings – a planned sixth film was cancelled due to its overwhelmingly poor critical and commercial reception - and the second to be directed by schlockmeister Jess Franco. Played as a parody, 'Castle' might actually have been quite fun. Fu-Manchu is essentially reduced to a poor knock-off of a Blofeld (though I'm not sure he was ever much else). Lee actually brings his A-game here, having phoned it in previously in the series, lifting the ludicrous dialogue to the point where it's almost palatable, but everything else about the film seems to be mocking itself without knowing it. The production design is so camp it makes The Ipcress File look like The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. The action and violence is again tepid and clumsy (lest we forgot this is a Jess Franco film) and the plot manages to be confusing in spite of being threadbare. There are some babes thrown in, but this is a PG movie so, again, Franco fans expecting anything resembling titillation will be thoroughly disappointed. Unlike its predecessor, which is by far the more insipid and dreary of the two, 'Castle' has a handful of things going for it. One is Jess Franco in a supporting role, wearing a fez and dubbed to sound like… I don't really know. The score is totally derivative but actually rather nice. The wacky production design and multi-coloured fluorescent lighting add a lot of hammy fun. The attempt at seamless in-scene cutting between the various, disparate filming locations is endlessly amusing. Some of the dialogue is hilariously quotable, and played to the hilt by everyone involved. Frankly, though, the two high points of the show are the sizeable inserts from A Night To Remember and Campbell's Kingdom. While definitely a cut above its predecessor in some ways, I'm still struggling to give this any kind of recommendation.