THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU! (1968)

Dir. by Jess Franco
Star. Christopher Lee

The fifth and final entry in producer Harry Alan Towers’ Fu-Manchu series (which must have been politically incorrect even 40 years ago!) is actually the only watchable film in the entire bunch! A few of the earlier films were directed by Don Sharp, a generally good, workmanlike director, but the scripts were so lousy and the budgets so low that they smelled like that 3 month old carton of General Tso’s chicken stuck way in the back of your refrigerator! Throw that puppy out!

Of course, they’re all based on the popular Sax Rhomer novels of the 1920’s which were based on American paranoia about a Chinese or Japanese invasion of the mainland, but they actually read like early Ian Fleming novels, with Nayland Smith playing the James Bond role.

By this entry, Christopher Lee, as Dr. Fu-Manchu, is basically sleep-walking through the role, with his Fu-Manchu moustache and his Chinese finger puzzle on his fifth finger, but co-star Richard Greene actually conveys some excitement and the photography and sets (supposedly shot on location in Portugal and Spain, but actually lensed in Brazil) are mesmerizing.

In this one, Fu has kidnapped some eminent British scientist and has forced him to develop some crystals that freeze huge bodies of water. Thus, Fu can create huge icebergs near whatever ships he wants to sink and he pretty much does a “Titanic” on them. He also threatens to turn every ocean in the world into skating rinks unless the Western countries pay him a huge sum of loot.

Nayland Smith of Scotland Yard (played by Richard Greene, by then in his mid-50s, but still jumping, kicking, and boxing away with Chinese assasins) is called in to solve the mess and put an end to the evil doctor. Unfortunately, Fu and his army are holed up in a Portuguese (i.e. Brazilian) castle which has been rigged with all kinds of booby traps which dump tons of ice water on any chump silly enough to try to escape.

First off, forget about the plot. It’s silly and probably didn’t even make sense when these books were written almost 80 years ago! “The Castle of Fu-Manchu” is a genuine hoot and the credit goes to the always unpredictable, uneven, cult horror/Euro-Trash director, Jess Franco.

Franco, who made his name with “The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock” series in the early 1960s and has been making virtually incoherent direct-to-video features for the last two decades (the budgets of Franco’s “films” from the late ‘80s onward make Ed Wood’s movies look like “Gone With The Wind”), really delivers the goods in this movie, making it look far more expensive than it is, and keeping the action (pedantic as it may be) going at a lightning pace.

Franco takes the plot and themes of the film completely seriously (no camp whatsoever) and his gambit pays off!

The DVD which I saw was on a small label which also had interviews with Chris Lee, Franco, and producer Towers. Jess commented that he was paid about five times his normal salary to do “Fu Manchu” so he was upbeat from the start. Towers, looking uncomfortable in a typical English living room, seems begrudgingly respectful of Franco’s direction, but also says that Franco did the impossible—he finally killed Fu Manchu (this was the last film of the series). That’s probably due far more to growing political sensitivity, more sophisticated audiences not being interested in a hysterical villain from the ‘20s, and extremely poor distribution for the later movies, none of which reasons were Franco’s fault.

Additionally, Towers claims that his Fu Manchu series was the only one to ever make money. Huh???? What about the extremely successful big-budget 1930s films starring Boris Karloff as Fu Manchu and Myrna Loy as his evil daughter? I think those pictures made more in a week than all 5 of Towers’ Fu Manchu pictures added together! And with all due respect to Lee, Karloff is the actor people associate with the role.

Lee seems, as always, a bit grouchy as an interviewee, and doesn’t really say anything positive about anybody, while acknowledging that he sort of remembers the film and thinks it’s the last Fu movie. That interview and a quarter will buy you a phone call.

Forget about the dyspeptic and hysterical politics of the film, and just enjoy it for the wonderful sets and exuberant acting (by Greene) and Franco’s superb and puzzlingly effective direction. And don't believe Fu when he says "I Will Return!" He didn't.

THE SHE BEAST! (1965)

Star: Barbara Steele; Mel Welles

Barbara Steele and her husband are aimlessly speeding through Eastern Europe, when they stop at a rundown hotel operated by a uxorious communist-quoting landlord to whom they act condescending and then beat the crap out of when they catch him peeping on them later in the evening. They then speed out of town, not knowing that the landlord messed with their car brakes, and they end up crashing into a lake that isn’t anywhere near the road, whereupon Barbara Steele is killed, but she returns to life as a hideous, foul-mouthed, hermaphroditic, insane cleaning-woman-monster with really bad breath.

Oh, I forgot, before they’re peeped upon by Mel Welles (playing an unsympathetic character with an extremely bogus accent), Barbara and her husband are visited by a dithery, pompous, impoverished, incoherent old British dude in a tatty tweed coat and a worn-out bowler hat, who tries to warn them about the curse of this weird witch who’s supposed to come back on this particular day to wreak vengeance upon the superstitious villagers who executed her three hundred some-odd years ago.
They also ignore and make fun of the old putz. But after the accident, he’s the only hope to turn the insane, smelly, bad breath monster back into sexy Barbara Steele.

Sadly, the movie sounds like a lot more fun than it really is! Director Michael Reeves (“The Conqueror Worm” “The Sorcerers”) isn’t quite up to speed yet as the director he would become and the pedestrian look and frenzied pacing of the film bemoan its extremely small budget (most of which probably went for Steele’s salary) and, probably, rushed shooting schedule. There’s also an extremely unfunny and tiresome ten-minute scene (that feels like 50 minutes!) involving some Eastern European Keystone Kops who keep driving around and around and around (in sped-up footage, of course) chasing Steele’s husband and the tatty English guy. Was that trip really necessary?

In fairness, the public domain prints of this film are all fuzzy and faded, with barely adequate sound, so no one I know has actually seen a watchable print of it. There may also be scenes that are cut out that would might make some of the incoherent scenes a bit more coherent. We can only hope. Supposedly, some company is getting ready to release a cleaned-up definitive print, so check that out---but regarding the currently available P.D. prints, as Mr. Clampett’s kin advised him, “Jed, move away from there!”

FORBIDDEN JUNGLE!

Forbidden Jungle (1942)
Star: Don C. Harvey

A shallow, yet self-analytic, big-game hunter who is being payed big bucks to find a boy who was lost 15 years earlier in an uncharted jungle (and who keeps repeating “I’m just doing this for the money!”) learns the meaning of friendship and altruism when the noble jungle boy saves him from being killed by a slow-moving stock-footage man-eating tiger (who never eats a man during the film).

An introspective jungle movie---that’s right! Most of these mid-WW II quickies were satisfied with showing George Burrows running around in a gorilla suit and maybe a public domain animal stampede or two, plus endless low-budget dialogue to fill out their 65 minute running time, but “Forbidden Jungle” is different.

For one thing, it was lensed in 1950, near the end of the “jungle flick” cycle, and it reflects the freedom people felt after the claustrophobic war years of the 1940s. Secondly, it reflects America’s growing need to have fun and watch bikini ladies. There’s about two long scenes of village women wearing extremely small sarongs that seem to have no reason justifying their existence other than to spotlight beautiful ladies wearing skimpy jungle apparel. As Paul McCartney sang: “And what’s wrong with that? I want to know.”

Finally, there’s the character of the big-game hunter, himself, as played by Don C. Harvey, a prolific actor who died in his mid-50s, but not before starring in over 150 productions. Harvey started out as a B-serial actor, then got into jungle films and gradually went heavily into TV in the mid-50s, acting in everything from The Roy Rogers Show to Combat to The Outer Limits. His last film (and final acting job) was “It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” (1963).

Harvey plays the hunter as a well-meaning guy (he’s hesitant to shoot anything!) who keeps trying to sell himself on the idea of being a highly paid mercenary when he actually spends much of the movie wondering about the other characters’ motivation and questioning his right to take the jungle boy back to civilization. Even when an unfriendly native messes with his drinking water and gives him jungle fever, Don never really harbors a grudge!

OK, I like jungle movies. Always have. These absolute bargain-basement films—usually shot in shabby Burbank back lots and spiced up with stock animal footage--were a staple of Saturday afternoon local television programming everywhere in America throughout the 1960s. Tarzan (Gordon Scott was my favorite, though Denny Miller was a close second); Jungle Jim (Johnny Weismuller); Bomba ( Johnny Sheffield)—I loved ‘em all.

I even enjoyed that cheesy late’60s Tarzan tv series, shot on a very low budget in Mexico, that ran for a few years and starred Ron Ely. And I’ve had the opportunity to meet most of my heroes (except for Weismuller) with the added bonus of chatting with Irish “Sheena of the Jungle” McCalla! Life really doesn’t get much better than that.