The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932) – C. Brabin

A time capsule from Hollywood history when being brazenly racist (in this case, against the Chinese) seems to have been A-OK.  But the film is so outlandish – and the Chinese baddies so unrealistic, that really they may as well have been alien invaders from outer space (perhaps I am thinking of Ming the Merciless?).  Still, it is disheartening to think that American audiences would have thrilled to a battle between the “White Race” and the “Yellow Peril”.  But let’s set that aside if we can and just see the baddies in the film as evil archetypes (who over the course of a century or two might switch their race/culture/subgroup in the popular American imagination but yet still retain their archetypal ways).  Boris Karloff plays Fu Manchu, the evil leader lusting for the power represented by Genghis Khan and his long lost mask and scimitar, and Myrna Loy (!!!) plays his sultry but sadistic daughter – both in bad Asian make-up (Karloff is nearly unrecognisable again).  The plot sees British archaeologists working for the British Museum racing to locate and excavate Genghis Khan’s tomb before Fu Manchu can get there and use Khan’s treasure to whip his followers up into a frenzy to begin a new empire.  The Brits do get there first but then Fu Manchu uses all of his diabolical tricks to abscond with the treasure and subject the heroes to terrible tortures (tying them under giant ringing bells, suspending them over hungry alligators, and subjecting them to slowly closing walls with huge spikes).  I’m sure the audience gasped!  And although the required happy ending is soon served up, one ends with the feeling that the heroes have been a little too bland and faceless and the almost campy over-indulgence of the evil side was the real drawcard of the film (hence the title).