The MASK OF FU MANCHU

   Film (1932). Cosmopolitan/MGM. Dir Charles Brabin, Charles Vidor, starring Boris Karloff, Lewis Stone, Karen Morley, Jean Hersholt, Myrna Loy. Screenplay Irene Kuhn, Edgar Allen Woolf, John Willard, based on TheMask of Fu Manchu (1932) by Sax ROHMER. 72 mins, cut to 67 mins. B/w.

   Rohmer's Oriental supervillain has since been brought to the screen many times (FU MANCHU) but this first, visually lavish version, produced by Irving Thalberg, is the most memorable. It is based on the 6th book in Sax Rohmer's intensely popular, racy and racist Fu Manchu series. Malignscientific genius, torturer and murderer Fu Manchu (Karloff), pitted against his old nemesis Nayland Smith (Stone), lisps his way poisonously through the film with the assistance of his sadistic daughter (Loy), who has a wonderfully fetishistic scene (assisted by Nubians) where she whips and then caresses one of their heroic enemies. Fu Manchu seeks Genghis Khan's death-mask and sword, which he intends to use as symbols to arousethe Oriental races in a war against the White nations; tarantulas and a zombie serum play roles in an eclectic plot which mixes sf and occult devices. In a spectacular climax Fu's electrical DEATH-RAY machine is turned against Fu's generals by Nayland Smith. The bizarrely stylized sets were by Cedric Gibbons and the electrical effects were by Ken Strickfaden. This is the sort of pulp adventure classic later imitated enjoyably bySteven SPIELBERG's Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).

   PN/JB