The Mask of Fu Manchu

Charles Brabin
1932

Quite the sweet plum indeed. One made all the more rewarding by being dismissed almost completely in critical history for being racist and of poor quality. Those with an overabundance of sensitivity need not apply, but let it be known that there are no teeth present in the filmmakers' naive depictions of the Orient. Part of the film's charm is that it hearkens a time when it was kosher for different cultures to be exotic, and more importantly, a foil for high adventure. And let's be honest here: for all it's outdated faults there's little difference in mentality between this film and Spielberg's "Indiana Jones" series.

The wicked Dr. Fu Manchu wishes to acquire the sword and mask of Genghis Khan from its entombed interment. The master plan is to unite all of Asia under this symbolic banner to utterly crush the Western world. The mask prop is criminally unadorned but thankfully the sword prop makes up for it in sheer size. Fu Manchu's opposition is a group of snooty British archaeologists determined to nullify the oriental tide.

Karloff's Fu Manchu is adequate but not stellar. Instead, the bizarre trappings of a fictional East, and the amusing and quaint depiction of a strange land imbue the film with enough genuine fun and intrigue to race it through runtime. Fu Manchu's various methods of torture are a riot, as is all the science-fictioney equipment in his laboratory (when the audience is first introduced to the bad M.D. he's whipping up a crazy mad-genius concoction with tons of smoke floating everywhere). He's also got a giant tesla coil with which he melts wringer swords brought to him by treacherous Brit-dogs. His daughter Fah Lo See, memorably played by Myrna Loy, is also a wonderful addition as she exchanges bitchy insults with her father and drools lustily over the visiting white men. Her twisted desires come to fruition when she orgasmically whips her beefy round-eye hero/prisoner. This scene is a one-of-a-kind, gold nugget of pre-code psychosexual sadism.

The film is, for the most part, a lost treasure but things are nearly soured by a stomach-churning instance of genuine racism in the form of a final gag. Words don't do it justice, so come for the great film, but stay for the awkward ending!