The Dream Detective

Aether Ore

The Dream Detective
by Sax Rohmer
Dover Publications
ISBN: 0486235041

Sax Rohmer was the pen name of one Arthur Sarsfield Ward (among other variations of his name) and he was certainly best known for his many pulp adventures documenting the fiendish plots of his most famous character, Dr. Fu Manchu. I read all of those a decade or more ago and, I have to say, they weren’t anything like I'd imagined and were, indeed, fun adventures in the boy’s own adventure mode, to a great extent. This is the first time I’ve read anything of his not featuring that character and I have to say that, while I am somewhat disappointed that this selection of nine short stories comprising The Dream Detective, first published in 1920, doesn’t go quite as far into the realm of what I would doggedly call ‘fantastical fiction’ as I would have liked, the concept is certainly sound enough to reach such a classification and ultimately, I did enjoy reading about the central character in this compendium. That central character being Moris Klaw, the titular detective of dreams who is often accompanied in his investigations (apart from the ninth and final one in this tome), by his beautiful daughter Isis Klaw.

Each short, chaptered tale is called “Case of...” and then the specific case name. So in the case of this 1977 Dover Publications edition, they are the nine stories which were in the first British edition published in 1920 and are as follows... 1. The Tragedies In The Greek Room, 2. Potsherd Of Anubis, 3. The Crusader’s Axe, 4. The Ivory Statue, 5. The Blue Rajah, 6. The Whispering Poplars, 7. The Headless Mummies, 8. The Haunting Of Grange and 9. The Veil Of Isis. Now, it pains me to say that I wasn’t aware, when I managed to source a second hand copy of this book, that the US 1925 edition (and only that particular edition from what I can find out), included a tenth short story but, alas, I don’t think I am able to pick up one of these, almost antiquarian, copies for a reasonable (aka cheap) price. Why the tenth story has not seen the light of day since the 1925 edition is something I am unsure of although, I could hazard a guess at one or two possibilities.

Just like Holmes had his chronicler, Dr. Watson, Moris Klaw has his own biographer and, just like the Conan Doyle stories, it is his acquaintance who takes on the narrative voice of the stories. We hear everything from him first hand as a witness to Klaw’s exploits, after he meets this almost unique character in the first tale, The Tragedies In The Greek Room. I say unique because, okay, like Holmes the character is a master criminologist but that is not what gives this character the little something extra which makes this volume worth a look. By trade, Moris Klaw is an owner of a positively grubby antique shop stuffed to the gills with bizarre and archaic items, which he runs with his daughter and a drunken shop assistant. However, his interests in the realm of the supernatural and his study of an inexhaustible catalogue of the properties of rare and ancient archeological artefacts are the perfect companion to his prime talent... that of his belief and practical application of the mind’s ability, if properly trained, to read the psychic impressions left in the aether of a particular place. 

 That is to say, with the aid of his sterilised pillows, he will lay down at the scene of a crime for an hour or a night and lay open to the very clear psychic impressions left in a location by a thief or murderer (or, indeed, dead victim) and this will go some way in showing him what has happened and where best to uncover the evidence which will solve the mystery for the local police, one of whom sometimes impresses the narrator to persuade Klaw to involve himself in the stranger of the cases which come their way.

The stories will usually start off with either a baffling puzzle such as a traditional ‘locked room mystery’ or a beguiling mystery, such as the proposition of whispering voices in the night or the bizarre motivation of someone who will break into museums and private collections to decapitate the heads of specific mummified Egyptians... and then Klaw will spend some time, for the most part, napping at the crime scene... and then pursue his theories with the aid of his daughter and the narrator. My main disappointment is that, like the ending of a good Scooby Doo cartoon, he will more often than not reveal to the people investigating the mysterious crimes that, despite his somewhat supernatural powers in acquiring ‘dream photographs’ of the various shenanigans, the crimes in question have been committed by a flesh and blood perpetrator and definitely do not fall under the realm of the other wordly. That being said, in all but one of the tales, he arrives at his easily provable conclusions by a talent that is gifted to him by a realm, not of this earth and, of course, this makes him a literary antecedent to popular fictional investigators (or sometimes just unlucky souls) who can ‘see’ the specifics of a crime that has been committed. Perhaps the most popular kindred character to him in recent years is Frank Black, from the wonderful 1990s TV show Millennium.

As usual with Rohmer, at least in my experience, you come for the character but you stay for the prose and, once again, the author manages to render even the most commonplace things like the heralding of a caller at a door, into a poetically charged experience thusly, “... a ringing on the doorbell, followed by a discreet fandango on the knocker”. I also enjoyed his escalation of almost throwaway afterthoughts to render his prose with a kind of laid back attitude to a fuller picture, such as, “They had an appearance of dried twigs and an odour so wholly original as to defy simile.”, which I thought was pretty cool and made me smile.

It would be folly to say that these particular stories are either sparkling tales of great realms of the fantastic or, indeed, anything like essential reading but they do make for an interesting diversion of a collection and The Dream Detective is a character I could see taken up by other authors as one worthy of further explorations in future years. Perhaps, for example, his character would not be out of place for revival in the annual Tales Of The Shadowmen publications put out by Black Coat Press (indeed, he may have already turned up in one or two but I just can’t remember them). So, if you have not encountered Rohmer before then I would certainly point you in the direction of his many and varied Fu Manchu novels as a first resort but, this collection of Moris Klaw tales will probably hold a fascination for a certain section of his audience, there’s no doubt of that.

The Castle Of Fu Manchu

 

Cold Cuts

The Castle Of Fu Manchu
UK/West Germany 1969
Directed by Jess Franco
Indicator Blu Ray Zone B

Okay, so I said that, as much as I love Jess Franco, after seeing his previous effort in The Fu Manchu Cycle, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to this one and, frankly, I was right to be thinking that. That being said, The Castle Of Fu Manchu is actually slightly better than The Blood Of Fu Manchu (reviewed here).

Once again we have the regular cast of Christopher Lee as the titular character, Tsai Chin as his daughter and Howard Marion-Crawford as Nayland Smith’s assistant Dr. Petrie. Marion-Crawford died shortly after filming this one and, frankly, he does kind of look on his last legs here (check out Stephen Thrower’s extra feature on the previous disc in the series to get a quite credible explanation of just why the performances in the two Jess Franco films look a little half-hearted and phoned in). Returning from the last film we have Richard Greene in his second go round at Nayland Smith and, I’m happy to say, he has a lot more to do here too. Not a huge deal but, you know... more.

I knew this was a troubled production as soon as I started watching this one when I realised that pretty much the entire pre-credits sequence was edited footage from two completely different movies. One of them being from the climactic scenes of the earlier film The Brides Of Fu Manchu (reviewed here) and the other I somehow managed to correctly identify (although I’ve never actually seen the film itself) as being from the black & white 1958 movie A Night To Remember, with the Titanic doubling as a ship destroyed by what I think must be Fu Manchu’s deadly ice weapon... although the true nature of the device with which he threatens the world seems to be deliberately unclear, at least in scientific terms. For some reason, the footage mixed in from A Night To Remember is dyed blue, possibly because the producers were maybe trying to distract the audience to thinking they were using some kind of night footage, perhaps? I’m not so sure it’s... well it’s pretty obvious and just looks completely out of place and, also, way more interesting than a lot of the rest of this film.

So yeah, budgetary problems which would make sense seeing that Fu Manchu decides to destroy a big dam with the weapon as another demonstration but a) there seems to be no explanation of how the dam is in any way affected by the mechanism that causes its destruction, the writers don’t seem to give a damn, so to speak and b) because the actual footage of the dam bursting is tracked in from a film I’d not heard of before called Campbell’s Kingdom. Which explains why, if you look carefully, you can see Dirk Bogarde and Stanley Baker running around in one or two shots (which is what prompted me to investigate because, I was pretty sure they just weren’t around as background extras in a scene).

Also, once again, Fu Manchu threatens the world with some bizarrely indescribable destruction unless ‘the world obeys him completely’ but... and this now seems to be a theme in series... it’s still not really made clear what he actually wants. Just that he wants it... or else.

And in this film especially, everybody seems to be either discovering a necessary clue a fair few times... such as Smith figuring out the source of the opium required is in Panama, then making the revelation again later and then somehow figuring out they need opium which, yeah, they also already knew... or in the case of Fu Manchu himself, asking for information he already has. Such as when somebody tells him that he has Nayland Smith in the building just across the water and they will give him over to him if he releases a certain prisoner... and then Fu Manchu interrogates him as to where Nayland Smith is and, you know, he gives him the exact same information again, like everyone is just going around in circles. I can only suspect that the script was changing here at an alarming rate and scenes were maybe shot and then different ones also shot as an alternative and then, maybe, with not enough money to finish the shoot, all the versions of scenes or logical deductions were just edited into the same picture to pad it, hence the further need for tracking in footage from other films too. I have no idea but it’s as good a guess as any, I suppose.

So, yeah, cheap and cheerful but way better than the previous film, although that’s obviously not saying much. However, there are some nice things to watch out for. For instance, Rosalba Neri wearing a fez... that’s got to be worth the price of admission alone. And, yes, she looks ridiculous but, you know, enjoy it while we have it. Also, although this is certainly not Franco at his best as a director (and not too far from his worst), he does manage to get in some more creative shot designs as in some of his other, more lionised films and there’s some lovely lighting used in Fu Manchu’s castle where he pitches a lot of purple against green and sometimes red. This film looks very nice in some sequences but, in this case, a good looking film does not add up to it being more than the sum of its dire parts, alas.

Actually, one of the more ‘creation through necessity’ Franco moments comes when Christopher Lee is spliced into the footage watching the destruction of the damn. Some of it is from master shots of something which actually belongs to the scene and other stuff in close up is spliced in from what is obviously an entirely different studio setting, possibly where Lee’s wearing a different costume too. It actually put me in mind of some of those earlier Russian propaganda films by the likes of Sergei Eisenstein, where he would deliberately take a character out of context for the close ups. So that was kind of interesting. It’s also nice to see, again, Franco turning up in one of his own movies (at least he’s not focus pulling with his spare arm while still in the shot on this one, I presume) in an uncredited but in no way minor part. I always enjoy seeing him pop up like this so, if you’re a Franco fan, you might definitely want to check this one out.

That being said, the film is still a bit of a mess and I definitely wouldn’t recommend it to most people. Indicator have, as usual, pulled out all the stoppers on this box set Blu Ray restoration of The Fu Manchu Cycle but, while this disc has a few extras, such as The Coughing Horror, a restored half hour episode from the silent film serial sequel, The Further Mysteries Of Dr. Fu-Manchu, I noticed that this is the only disc in this set where they couldn’t find anyone to record a commentary track. Maybe it was time reasons or maybe, you know, they just couldn’t find anyone to say anything polite about the movie but it’s a shame they couldn’t get Francophile Stephen Thrower to do a commentary for this. That being said, the film is still a valuable addition to the set and I think Indicator have, once again, done themselves proud. A sturdy release of a not so sturdy sequel. Grab this box set though because, yeah, it’s precious treasure in Blu Ray form. 

The Harry Alan Towers Fu Manchu Cycle at NUTS4R2

 The Face Of Fu  Manchu

The Brides Of Fu Manchu

The Vengeance Of Fu Manchu

The Blood Of Fu Manchu

The Castle Of Fu Manchu 

The Blood Of Fu Manchu

Zoom Manchu

The Blood Of Fu Manchu
UK/West Germany 1968
Directed by Jess Franco
Indicator Blu Ray Zone B

Wow, this is a terrible movie. In my review of The Vengeance Of Fu Manchu (which you can read here), I said that at least the next one would be more interesting. Well, I was right in so far in that it does have a couple of points of interest but, honestly, these didn’t stop the film from being a truly dull affair and, for me, an even lower water mark in the series than the previous.

So, The Blood Of Fu Manchu is the fourth of the Harry Alan Towers produced cycle, restored and uncut for this truly wonderful The Fu Manchu Cycle 1965-1969 boxed edition from Indicator. Once again the film stars Christopher Lee, Tsai Chin and Howard Marion-Crawford as Fu Manchu, Lin Tang and Dr. Petrie respectively. The film also stars former Robin Hood, Richard Greene, as the latest screen incarnation of Nayland Smith and Maria Rohm, who I believe was Towers’ personal love interest at the time. She certainly appears in a fair few of both his and Jess Franco’s movies from this period. And there’s also an appearance from former Bond girl Shirley Eaton which, frankly, was spliced in without her knowledge (until years later) from one of the Sumara movies she made (possibly The Girl From Rio, directed by Franco, although that one wasn't released until the following year). In fact, the card on screen reads... “Guest starring Richard Greene as Nayland Smith and Shirley Eaton”... so if you read that the wrong way you could be forgiven for thinking that Richard Greene is actually playing Shirley Eaton himself but, alas, he doesn’t put on a blonde wig so he can start acting like a femme fatale in this one.

So, yeah, Jess Franco is a director I find very hit and miss. He often made several films a year (his total just before his death, according to the IMDB, was 207 films directed by him) and often also starred in them and, in one anecdote about him, was also pulling his own focus when he was appearing in a shot... at one point reaching around the frame for the camera controls. He often, from what I can tell, secretly diverted the budget for one film into two or three movies and, I suspect that’s what possibly happened with this one, which was filmed back to back with both the next (and final) movie in the sequence. He is, quite rightly, a legend in the world of directing and I’ve covered a few of his films here such as Countess Perverse (reviewed here), She Killed In Ecstacy (reviewed here), Female Vampire (reviewed here) and his classic, Vampyros Lesbos (reviewed here).

Now, I’ve marvelled at some of his films and the brilliant shot designs. I’ve also heard people complain about the amount of times he uses zoom shots and rack focusing in his films but, often, I’ve found that they can come off as a quite creative use of this technique when he’s got his eye in. Here, alas, the film is filled with irritating zoom shots and... yeah, most of the shot compositions did nothing for me, to be honest.

It’s a dull affair but, even the ludicrous nature of the story doesn’t make up for things. The plot is that Fu Manchu sends out his young ladies to kill his enemies with their poison lips. First the victim goes blind, as is the case with Nayland Smith at the start of the movie and then, after a number of days, said victim succumbs to death. Indeed, in some territories like the US, the film was renamed Kiss And Kill, which just goes to show how the initially successful run of films had got distributors losing confidence in the ‘Fu Manchu brand’ in such a short space of time.

And, yes, we all know of the female assassins in history who have been slowly primed to become immune to deadly poison and carry that poison in their lips to send a victim to the grave. Here, however,  the method of despatch makes no sense in any way shape or form. Basically, the villain gets a certain snake to bite a girl and then, instantly, she’s somehow immune to the poison without dying from in and we see that, in less than a minute later, her kiss carries the deadly poison to another. What the actual...? And then, to pile on the insults to the negligible intelligence needed to recognise the preposterousness of such a proposition, we are told that the girl’s blood is also a vaccine for the poison. This allows Petrie to pull a last minute rescue for the now blind Nayland Smith towards the end of the picture by giving him a makeshift blood transfusion. And when I say makeshift I mean it. He just cuts a girl’s arm and then Smith’s arm and... just squishes the scars together which, more or less, serves to heal Smith in what seems like minutes.

Not only that but, there’s a subplot in the film about a kind of Mexican style bandit and his gang who are killing the good and bad guys willy nilly and... it’s just awful but it also takes up a good majority of the screen time and threatens to completely swallow up the main through line of the movie. Fu Manchu and Nayland Smith really do seem to take a back burner to the action in this one.

Being as it’s Jess Franco we’re talking about, there is actually some limited nudity in this one (which is now finally restored to the prints) but, yeah, it doesn’t really add anything to the impact of the movie, or lack thereof. The music by Daniel White is also quite terribly married to the on screen visuals and one gets the impression that it might even been written ‘away from the images’ and then just needle dropped into completely inappropriate places by Franco.

And that’s really all I’ve got on The Blood Of Fu Manchu... I like Jess Franco, I really do. But this is a truly dull and lifeless affair and it’s such a contrast to the snappy direction that Don Sharp brought to the first two movies in the cycle. As usual, Indicator pulls out most of the stops and the disc is full of extras including a talk with Franco expert Stephen Thrower, which sheds some light on certain elements of the making of the last two in the series and also a wonderful half hour episode, The Fiery Hand, from the 1923 silent film serial, The Mystery Of Dr. Fu-Manchu. But, yeah, extras aside, I couldn’t recommend this one at all. Easily one of the worst Jess Franco movies I’ve seen, I’m sad to say. Not expecting too much from The Castle Of Fu Manchu now but, yeah, that will be the subject of my next review.

The Harry Alan Towers Fu Manchu Cycle at NUTS4R2

 The Face Of Fu  Manchu

The Brides Of Fu Manchu

The Vengeance Of Fu Manchu

The Blood Of Fu Manchu

The Castle Of Fu Manchu 

 

The Vengeance Of Fu Manchu

The Manchu Candidate

The Vengeance Of Fu Manchu
UK/West Germany 1967
Directed by Jeremy Summers
Indicator Blu Ray Zone B

The Vengeance of Fu Manchu is the third of the five Fu Manchu films produced by Harry Alan Towers, starring Christopher Lee as Fu Manchu, Tsai Chin as his daughter Lin Chan and Howard Marion-Crawford as Dr. Petrie... and it can be found in the new Blu Ray restorations presented in Indicator’s recent, wonderfully put together boxed set. Along with these three regular actors of the series, this was also Douglas Wilmer’s second and final go around as Fu Manchu’s nemesis Sir Dennis Nayland Smith. Other notable cast members are popular actor Tony Ferrer, Maria Rohm, Horst Frank and Peter Carsten (who I spotted straight away from his roles in The Quiller Memorandum, reviewed here and Dark Of The Sun).

Also hopping aboard this one is director Jeremy Summers and this may or may not be the reason why, out of the ones I’ve rewatched in my first revisit to these since the early 1970s, this one seems the most tedious of these films to me, so far... although I can’t imagine the next two, directed by the great Jess Franco, can be anything other than interesting, no matter how bad they might have turned out. I’ll know soon enough, I guess.

This one has a plot which, in this case, centres more against the lead protagonist figure of Nayland Smith. Fu Manchu comes up with a plan to replace reputable police commissioners and important, law abiding types with surgically altered doubles who will be compelled through the powers of the mind to commit murder and die in their place, thus publically cementing his reputation as the new super criminal of the world. However, this does seem to be his secondary motivation and though he does successfully replace Nayland Smith, discredits him and sees his double publically trialled and executed for murder, you get the impression that it’s just Smith who Fu Manchu is interested in... the rest of the scheme is just icing on the cake.

Ironically, Wilmer, who was so wooden in the previous film, actually plays the character more naturally in this one, making him a more interesting screen presence this time around (although still no great substitute for Nigel Green in the first movie, The Face Of Fu Manchu, reviewed here). Perhaps this is a quite deliberate choice because, when he is taking the role of his trance-like, unspeaking, hypnotised double, he really is quite wooden and stoic but... that’s because he’s supposed to be and it, of course, further pushes the contrast between the two iterations of the man behind the face, so to speak.

Of course, to get the plastic surgery done right, Fu Manchu needs to once again kidnap an expert in the field and threaten his daughter with torture to acquire said scientist’s cooperation so, yeah, the template for this movie doesn’t really deviate that much from the last two. Which, in a way, doesn’t do it any favours because the previous two, directed by Don Sharp, were much more creative with the shot designs and also a heck of a lot more pacier. There are the requisite amount of fisticuffs in this one but they don’t do much to soften the dullness here, to be honest.

That being said, there are some nice little details to watch out for like the fact that Smith is, at one point, on his way to set up the organisation ‘Interpol’ and, when the plastic surgeon who can somehow alter the skin pigment as well as the face of his subject (seriously folks, this film is ridiculous) is kidnapped from his practice... you get a nice look at a standing Shaw Brothers set. And there are, to be sure, the odd touches of creativity thrown into the mix here and there...

Such as the transition from a close up shot of a detail in a burning village to a shot of a fiery brazier. Or, when the good doctor is performing surgery on the face of the stocky Chinese lad who will unbelievably be transformed into Douglas Wilmer, focusing on the various, blood stained instruments being put into a container of water to aid the mind into imagining the gory details which have been deliberately left off screen.

There’s also a nice, if more traditional score to this installment by Malcolm Lockyer, who provided the music for the movie adaptation Dr. Who And The Daleks, which fits the action quite well. That being said, I would have liked Indicator, who are a very thorough company, to have had the option of putting the German print on here too, which had a replacement score by Gert Wilden... that’s got to be worth hearing (I think I may have one cue from this by him on a compilation CD of his scores from Krimi Films somewhere).

And there’s not a heck of a lot more I have to say about this one. Once again this film gives us no clue as to how Fu Manchu and Lin Chan escaped death at the end of the previous movie and, once again, the film shows them dying in a big explosion for the third time, followed by Christopher Lee’s face superimposed on the background proclaiming his usual line of, “The world has not seen the last of Fu Manchu”. Actually, the one other thing I could say is that, as you expect from this wonderful boutique label, the extras on here a pretty good and there’s a brilliant, informative talk on here about Christopher Lee’s career path leading up to and during the production of these films, which is supplied by film historian Jonathan Rigby who, frankly, is always worth listening to... and his books are definitely worth picking up too. So, yeah, The Vengeance Of Fu Manchu is certainly not the best of these films and I wouldn’t really recommend it but, I am looking forward to re-discovering just what Jess Franco did for the next two. Once again... the world has not seen the last of my Fu Manchu blog reviews!

The Harry Alan Towers Fu Manchu Cycle at NUTS4R2

 The Face Of Fu  Manchu

The Brides Of Fu Manchu

The Vengeance Of Fu Manchu

The Blood Of Fu Manchu

The Castle Of Fu Manchu 

 

The Brides Of Fu Manchu

The Devil Brides Out

The Brides Of Fu Manchu
UK/West Germany 1966
Directed by Don Sharp
Indicator Blu Ray Zone B

The second of the Harry Alan Towers produced Fu Manchu films, as put out in a beautiful new boxed edition from the Indicator label, The Fu Manchu Cycle 1965 - 1969, is The Brides Of Fu Manchu. Although, it has to be said, that the brides in question, who suddenly lose their free will in the presence of Lin Tang (the movie name of the daughter of Fu Manchu here), are somewhat ineffective in their use and employment and are really there merely to be hostages to get the various brides’ ‘science expert fathers’ to cooperate with the diabolical doctor.

Once again Lin Tang is played by Tsai Chin with Christopher Lee as Fu Manchu himself. The only other ‘regular’ back in this one is Howard Marion-Crawford as Nayland Smith’s faithful assistant Dr. Petrie. Alas, Nigel Green chose not to reprise his role of Smith in this one and instead Douglas Wilmer, who was known for his lead role in one of many Sherlock Holmes television shows, took over for both this film and the next one. Alas, although he’s a solid British authority figure, he doesn’t have the brutal, no nonsense charm that Green had brought to the role and his absence is sorely missed here. Green seemed to ooze gravitas where Wilmer seems just a little light weight in comparison.

Rounding out the main cast are Marie Versini as one of the scientist's daughters and Heinz Drache as her boyfriend (who is young enough to get into more fist fights). They both do a fine job although, it has to be said, even though Marie is actually French, her accent in this seems to be more of an exaggerated French accent than anything authentic... I’m wondering now if she was re-dubbed to sound more like a stereotype of UK and American expectations of such. Guess I won’t know anytime soon.

Don Sharp also returned to direct this installment and it’s therefore a quality looking production, considering the stunted budgets these things had. Once again he uses a lot of interesting angles, such as looking down onto a fight scene to give you a sense of what’s going on before cutting back to the standard shots of people hitting each other. He also seems to really favour vertical sections in this film. The first shot of the movie, after the tacked on American prologue which replays highlights from the final scenes of the last film (if you so choose that option on this new disc), is a scene where actor  Rupert Davies is being taken through a tunnel by dacoits and the sides of the shot are in darkness, making a mobile phone sized shape of the corridor on-screen and framed vertically by black. When the shot changes, as he is pushed through a door and everything opens up, the columns inside the latest ‘lair of Fu Manchu’ continues to push the idea of verticals.

Indeed, the various prison cells housing the brides in this are also used by the director to emphasis the verticality of this crazy world and there’s a lovely shot where we see one character through the bars in front of the screen talking to another in a cell which dovetails onto her own on the left... so you have the background character talking from behind one set of bars to the foreground character behind her own set of bars framing all that. It all helps give the shot a huge amount of depth and perspective.

Another thing he does to push the contrast of the depth, like he did in the previous movie, is to pitch foreground objects such as the back of one actor, knocking out one part of the screen, against the rest of the shot where the real action or focus is. It’s nice stuff and really gives the films a certain look to them.

The plot is extremely similar to the previous movie, with Fu Manchu this time developing a radio transmitter than can destroy a whole city if he so wishes... although it needs to be perfected somewhat by the various scientists he kidnaps. Once again though, Fu Manchu’s biggest enemies are his propensity to announce to the world what he intends to do days before he actually does it (thus given his opponents time to prepare a way to combat it) and, also, to work to a deadline which is not doing any favours to his servants who are trying to perfect and improve the range and power of his machine. One of whom is actor Burt Kwouk, seen in countless James Bond and Inspector Clouseau movies ("Kato, you fool!"), who actually disobeys Fu Manchu at the end of this one, getting a bullet in the back from his master for his trouble which, alas for the main antagonist, accidentally brings about the demise of his somewhat vague scheme even quicker.

Like the previous movie it’s quite fast paced and, at just over an hour and a half in length, doesn’t quite get to overstay its welcome. The music is, perhaps, a bit less interesting than the last film. This time it’s the contribution of a composer I don’t know, Bruce Montgomery, who did a fair number of the ‘Doctor’ and ‘Carry On’ films in his time. It’s not exactly subtle but, I guess that wasn’t in the brief. I notice, though, that it’s conducted here by Philip Martell, who was heading up the music department for Hammer films.

And... it’s a fine entertaining film with not much innovation in it, although I did enjoy that a minor plot point was, well, in the words of one of the characters... “For that we need the co-operation of the British Broadcasting Company.” I wonder if Nayland Smith and Petrie had to be pay them a licence fee in order for them to assist in jamming the frequency of Fu Manchu’s death machine this time around. The Brides Of Fu Manchu is all a bit of nonsense and a good, fun film. As usual for the Indicator label, the disc is loaded with extras including another nice introduction to author Sax Rohmer, this time around by that stalwart of British film criticism and horror fiction Kim Newman, who I always enjoy in these kinds of documentary extras. And that, as they say, is that. Once again, Fu Manchu heralds his own return from death as a 'voice over' message to Smith at the end of the movie. And so, like Fu Manchu, I will simply say, the world has not heard the last of NUTS4R2’s Fu Manchu reviews.

 

The Harry Alan Towers Fu Manchu Cycle at NUTS4R2

 The Face Of Fu  Manchu

The Brides Of Fu Manchu

The Vengeance Of Fu Manchu

The Blood Of Fu Manchu

The Castle Of Fu Manchu 

The Face Of Fu Manchu

Fu’s On First

The Face Of Fu Manchu
UK/West Germany 1965
Directed by Don Sharp
Indicator Blu Ray Zone B

The Face Of Fu Manchu is the first of a box set of five new Blu Rays put out by the Powerhouse/Indicator label called The Fu Manchu Cycle 1965 - 1969. It’s the first really great package for these films on home video in the UK (after countless releases on far away shores) and, like many of the Indicator releases, crammed full of extras, a booklet, postcards, posters and beautiful HD restorations of the films.

I first saw these on BBC2 in the early to mid 1970s, when they used to show around about 5.40pm. It was one of those things we watched as a family, at the time, on a black and white TV set and, I’m sure, in a ‘pan and scan experience’ (which became the bane of my life in terms of trying to watch films on television in this country in the 70s, 80s and 90s). Now, this wasn’t the first time the infamous Chinese doctor had appeared in film but the cinematic scene for his particular brand of devastating villainy was less in demand by the 1960s. There were silent film serials, three talkies for Paramount starring Warner Oland as the devil doctor (before he went off to play Charlie Chan in a whole series of movies), one with Boris Karloff and Myrna Loy, and a TV series with Henry Brandon in the 1950s which didn’t really go anywhere and which, I seem to remember, was just about beginning to seem a little ‘politically incorrect’ for its time... not that they had that catch all buzz phrase to excuse censorship back then.

So when quickie exploitation producer Harry Alan Towers, who had produced some successful German Krimi, came up with the idea of bringing back the role of a running super villain into cinemas, he bought the character rights from Sax Rohmer’s widow and then came up with his own scripts (written under a nom de plume), because it was cheaper than buying the rights to the actual books.

Sax Rohmer was the popular pen name of Arthur Henry Ward who, after some initial success with the character with the first three books, after a very long pause, wrote another ten. I read these around about 15 years ago and they weren’t what I was expecting. Fu Manchu is not all about torturing and killing people (although the subject does tend to turn up)... they were more pulp adventures in the style of many of the time and I have to say I loved them. The main protagonist for a number of them was Nayland Smith, sometimes aided by Dr. Petrie... although the regular protagonists did tend to come and go and then return again as the stories were written. Asides from Fu Manchu himself, his evil daughter Fah Lo Suee was also a regular character, although she is often given a totally different name, depending on which film series you watch. In these five she is played by Tsai Chin, who starred in this full cycle alongside Christopher Lee in his ‘Chinese make-up’ as the title character. She regrets doing them now, I believe.

Howard Marion-Crawford is also in all five films as Dr. Petrie but the actor playing Sir Nayland Smith chops and changes a few times. Marion-Crawford would die fairly early in life, the same year that the last of these was released, in 1969. In this one he is assisting Nigel Green in the role of Smith, an actor who I always like although he also died early, in 1972, from an overdose (possibly accidental) of sleeping pills. He plays the role absolutely beautifully, I have to say and it’s really a shame that he didn’t go on to do more of these ones.

Completing the main cast are Joachim Fuchsberger... who acts as a kind of additional, younger Dr. Petrie supplemental figure to take on more of the physical action... and Karin Dor as the daughter of a scientist who Fu Manchu kidnaps, to perfect a killer virus to wipe out cities in England if his demands are not met. I found it interesting that, after showing his hand and announcing he will be making his demands in two days, the plot is foiled and we never get to see just exactly what his demands are. Also, be on the look out for a couple of nice cameo scenes by famous British actor James Robertson Justice... as the head of a museum which has the ‘final secrets of the black poppy potion’ that Fu Manchu needs to enable the scientist to concoct his deadly poison. I found it interesting, since I’m writing this article days after a possible vaccine to Coronavirus ‘may’ have been found*, that one of the primary concerns is keeping the poison at the correct cold temperature so it isn’t rendered useless.

Anyway, despite being very cheap but, absolutely cheerful and, perhaps, because all of the cast are playing it absolutely straight... the film was a huge success (especially in America where the publicity department had Fu Manchu For President posters made up during the elections... apparently he got a lot of write in votes and, if you pre-ordered the box set direct from Indicator as I did, you’ll get an additional reproduction poster added to the set... alas, mine arrived with a torn corner). So a new, mini franchise of diminishing returns (and possibly diminishing quality from what I’m hearing... I really can’t remember these films very well) was born and thrived at a rate of one picture per year for five years.

And it’s a real humdinger of a pacey story... beginning with the execution by beheading of Fu Manchu himself at the start, witnessed by Sir Nayland Smith. It’s a great scene and the aftermath, a static long shot of everyone leaving the square in which the execution took place, leaving Smith and the headless body in the centre of the screen while the rain and thunder starts hammering down, is when the opening credits play out, without music. Actually, the film is very sparsely scored indeed, with very few musical cues and the only thing I can think of regarding this is... orchestra time isn’t cheap and these were made on a very small budget.

The film looks great though and Sharp does some really nice stuff with some of his shot compositions. For example, there’s a great scene where Fu Manchu and his daughter are waiting to hear some news on the radio. Her head is in close up filling the left third of the screen, looking at the big radio also in close up filling the right third of the screen. Framed between them in long shot is Fu Manchu sitting on his throne. Yeah, visually interesting shots like these are why I watch movies, to be honest.

There are some curious things happening too. For instance, there are quite a lot of ‘day for night’ filters used in some sequences but, in one scene only, the screen is also washed a dark blue. It looks great but I could find no visual correlation between this and the way the rest of the night sequences in the film were handled. Also, when Fuchsberger and Green have a fist fight in a darkened room before it’s revealed that the intruder is Smith himself, there was no way I would have recognised it was Nigel Green’s character because the guy doubling for him during the fight is way fatter and looks nothing like him. Such is the easy charm of these films that I love these little glitches rather than having them spoiling the movie for me.

There are some very nice moments too. For example, I haven’t heard the term ‘pea souper’ in relation to the London fog for a very long time (even in movies), so that was nice. Also, Fuchsberger has a narrow escape when he clambers up a load of cardboard tubes in a warehouse which are tied up with string  and, as two of Fu Manchu’s dacoits run up after him, he cuts the string as he jumps off and the rolls all... well... roll away from under the feet of his pursuers. Admittedly, the stunt would probably have been more dynamically staged nowadays but, it’s a nice idea and I appreciated it.

The film finishes with the supposed death of the title character, which you totally don’t believe because you always hear him just before the end of the credits of each film heralding his return... but I was a bit surprised that Smith and his allies thought it was okay to blow up a whole Tibetan monastery of people just to kill the villain and make good their escape. I see that as more than a little problematic.

All in all, The Face Of Fu Manchu is a total romp and I had an absolute blast with it. The presentation is fantastic too and, among the extras on this particular disc, is a nice piece by Sir Christopher Frayling who talks about the author, the character and the continual proliferation of the racially prejudiced undercurrent ready to latch on to the threat of The Yellow Peril... a point he makes with a bang up to date story about a student who was beaten up during the coronavirus lockdown. I’ve said before that there are quite a few absolutely brilliant Blu Ray boxed editions which have found their way onto the marketplace recently and, honestly, this is one of the best of them. If you have an interest in the character or this particular period of British movie making then it’s definitely one to pick up. Absolutely brilliant and I can’t wait to watch the next one. The review will follow shortly.

*Sorry, my scheduling of these reviews depends on various other factors and this review was supposed to go up last year.

 

The Harry Alan Towers Fu Manchu Cycle at NUTS4R2

 The Face Of Fu  Manchu

The Brides Of Fu Manchu

The Vengeance Of Fu Manchu

The Blood Of Fu Manchu

The Castle Of Fu Manchu