THE MASK OF FU MANCHU

US, 1932, 73 minutes, Black and white.
Boris Karloff, Lewis Stone, Karen Morley, Myrna Loy, Jean Hersholt.
Directed by Charles Brabin.

This is an early film in the exotic adventure genre, not usually made by MGM. However, Boris Karloff was in demand because of Frankenstein. He is cast here as the Chinese megalomaniac, Fu Manchu, and carries of this performance with verbal aplomb and commanding body language as well as exotic costumes. His daughter is played by Myrna Loy in a very early role. Both actors are encouraged to make the Chinese characters seem evil, leering, unscrupulous, and definitely not like anybody in the west, especially in Britain.
The film is based on the novels by Sax Romer, very popular at the time, in the vein of an adventure novels like those of John Buchan. Christopher Lee became Fu Manchu in the 1960s. And there was a spoof, The Fiendish Plot of Fu Manchu, with Peter Sellers in 1979, his last film.
The film concerns the search for the tomb of Genghis Khan, a grouo of British explorers and authorities and secret service wanting his sword and mask to prevent Fu Manchu from getting them, setting himself up as a re-E incarnation of Genghis Khan with the power of his sword and mask. American Lewis Stone is the British secret agent, with a touch of American accent and always pronouncing the word ‘museum’, as in British museum, with emhasis on the first syllable. Karen Morley is the daughter of the explorer. Jean Hersholt is the doctor.
The film has some elaborate studio sets and costumes.
However, in retrospect, it is the underlying prejudice and racism in the west and attitude towards the Chinese and to people of the orient, that seems odd and unacceptable in the present.

1. The popularity of the Fu Manchu stories? The twenties and thirties? Later?
2. The Chinese settings? Perspective on China at the period? The Far East? Exotic, dangerous? Implicit superiority? Racial issues?
3. The British, the empire, museums and history, espionage, confronting Chinese powers, only decades after the Boxer Rebellion?
4. The basic plot, Fu Manchu and his wanting to find the tomb of Genghis Khan, to have the sword and the mask, to have world power? Dominating the west? The response of the west, explorers, secret service?
5. The discussions in England, the explorer and his going, his search, discovery, his death, Fu Manchu’s sign on his forehead? Neyland Smith, the secret service, the commission, his motivation for wanting to find the tomb? The daughter of the explorer and her participation? The young man?
6. The trip to China, the discovery of the grave, Neyland to Smith and the substitute sword? Giving it to the young man, taking it to Fu Manchu, captured by him, the electric testing of the sword and its disintegration? Torture, the whipping? The daughter, her leering look, urging on the whipping, attracted to the young man, tending him?
7. The young man, the drug, Fu Manchu controlling him, his going back to the group, their trying to save him?
8. The capture of Neyland Smith after his going through the subterranean tunnels? Tied up? The crocodiles and his escape?
9. Releasing the doctor from his torture? the group assembling, the issue of the sword, the real sword, Fu Manchu and his triumph, the machine and the rays and destroying Fu Manchu, his followers?
10. On the boat going home, the decision to throw the sword overboard, the joke with the waiter, the happy ending?