The Mask of Fu Manchu

 Fu Manchu, who is a doctor of philosophy (Oxford), science (Cambridge) and medicine (Harvard), plans to acquire the death-mask and sword of Genghis Khan.  Armed with these accessories, he will lead a yellow horde who will wipe out the White man and enslave their women.  Curiously, Fu Manchu's henchmen are all giant, mostly naked Black men who are very photogenic when they kidnap writhing blonde women in lingerie.  MGM's 1932 horror film, The Mask of Fu Manchu (Charles Brabin) sounds like kinky, disreputable fun -- after all, it stars Boris Karloff as the Oriental Menace.  But the movie is stiff, poorly plotted, and soporific despite its modest 68 minute running time.  It would be fun to report that this film is some kind of masterpiece maudit disregarded by polite society because of its wildly offensive racism.  But this simply isn't the case -- the picture is close to being unwatchable.

Some archaeologists from the British Museum (really just looters in safari gear) believe they have found the Khan's grave on the edges of the Gobi desert.  They are aware that Dr. Fu Manchu lusts after the grave-goods which he believes can be used to foment a rebellion against the White Devils. On the way out of a secret explorers meeting in the British Museum, a Malaysian thug creeps out of an Egyptian sarcophagus and kidnaps one of the archaeologists.  The poor bloke is spirited away to Fu Manchu's palace, a place that has no exterior (it's all shadowy corridors, torture chambers, and altars on which to sacrifice lissome Caucasian women).  The captive is subjected to the Torture of the Gong to make him reveal the location of the grave of the Khan.  (The Torture of the Gong involves tying the victim under a huge bell, ringing the bell incessantly to "liquefy the ear drums and magnify all sounds until they are unendurable -- or something like that.  Now and then, Fu Manchu appears to taunt the starving gong-mad victim with grapes or provide him salt water to drink to exacerbate his thirst.  The gong torture seems to be just as much an affliction on those perpetrating the atrocity as the victim.  Doe Fu Manchu have sound-proof chambers in his vast palace?)  While the Gong Torture is underway, the scientists are busily digging a big hole, also on some sound set -- the movie has no exterior shots except a couple file images of a sunset, a ship at sea, and London in the fog.  The archaeologists bust into the tomb of the Khan, lowering a host of explorers down into the crypt where they force apart several ornate double doors to find the corpse of Genghis Khan wearing a mask, holding a sword, and enclosed in elaborate armor. (When they remove the death mask, a big spider is crawling around in the Khan's eye-socket)  The guy undergoing Gong Torture dies, I think -- although I drifted off to sleep during this part of the movie.  Fu Manchu uses his Black giants to abduct Sheila the daughter of the hapless Gong Torture victim.  Pretty soon, all the archaeologists are trapped in Fu Manchu's labyrinthine palace where they are subjected to various kinds of elaborate and ridiculous tortures.  One elderly gent is poised over a pit full  of snapping, aggressive crocodiles -- this character is played by Lewis Stone, the fellow who impersonated Andy Hardy's father, the Judge, in the later Mickey Rooney comedies.  Another guy who speaks in a German accent (or, even, in German) -- this is Jean Hersholt -- finds himself in a chamber with razor sharp spikes slowly advancing to impale him.  Sheila's boyfriend, who has been subjected to The Whips (pretty much what it sounds like) now is in the thrall of the scrawny Myrna Loy playing Fu Manchu's sadistic and nymphomaniacal daughter -- she is, as Karloff bellows, "my ugly and magnificent daughter".  Sheila is being sacrificed to a mob of Black and Asian extras in a dark room when Tony comes to his senses, wields a Tesla coil death-ray and electrocutes all of the bad guys.  The movie is so negligent it doesn't even accord Dr. Fu Manchu with a spectacular demise -- I can't recall what happens to him.  In the last scene, everyone is going home from the Gobi desert on a steamer and the Brits have the mask and sword of Fu Manchu for their collections at the Museum.  

Karloff is unrecognizable under heavy make-up that turns his eyes into black slits and otherwise distorts his features. He shouts and threatens in his exquisite accent but isn't even remotely frightening. Myrna Loy is likewise disfigured and inconsequential.  Sheila wears a form-fitting pre-Code slip that shows off her figure impressively.  The special effects, mostly involving discharges from Tesla coils, are risible.  There is one incredibly impressive shot:  this is an image about ten minutes into the film introducing Fu Manchu.  The villain stands with his face magnified and horribly distorted by some sort of convex mirror next to his head, tinkering with a machine that produces sudden vivid bolts of artificial lightning.  Find this shot on your DVD or stream, watch it and, then, ignore the rest of this movie.  Probably, the picture raises interesting critical questions as to how the filmmakers managed to convert the spectacularly lurid scenario into something so unbearably dull.  But to accomplish this the critic could need to formulate a theory about boredom and, then, apply it to this movie and that task would be dull in and of itself.