Sat 20 Apr 2013
Movie Review: THE VENGEANCE OF FU MANCHU (1967).
Posted by Steve under Action Adventure movies , Reviews[13] Comments
THE VENGEANCE OF FU MANCHU. Anglo-Amalgamated Films, UK, 1967. Christopher Lee (Dr. Fu Manchu), Douglas Wilmer (Nayland Smith), Tsai Chin, Horst Frank, Wolfgang Kieling, Maria Rohm, Howard Marion-Crawford (Dr. Petrie). Based on the characters created by Sax Rohmer. Screenwriter (as Peter Welbeck) and producer: Harry Alan Towers. Director: Jeremy Summers.
Christopher Lee spent half his career playing Fu Manchu, a role he was born to play, or does it only seem that way? This is the third of a series of five that came out in quick succession in the 60s, the others being:
The Brides of Fu Manchu (1966).
The Vengeance of Fu Manchu (1967).
The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968).
The Castle of Fu Manchu (1969).
I don’t know why I started watching this list of movies in the middle, but I did. And after watching this one, I really don’t know if I’ll watch the other four. It’s really that bad. Not bad in any sense that’s interesting, but just bad.
I suppose I ought to explain myself. When I watch a movie, I really would prefer that it make sense. I really kind of resent it when there are a lot of scenes that have no connection with the rest of the story, scenes that are there only to lengthen the running time of the movie and no other reason, and when a movie has a non-existent plot that also has holes in it, you really know you have one dud of a movie.
Christopher Lee really ought to have been ashamed to have taken money for this one. His only role in the film is to step out of the interior of his palace, squint into the light a few times, with an engagingly enigmatic expression on his face, and let his daughter (played by Tsai Chin with suitably impressive imperiousness, not to mention an equally suitable innate wickedness) have all of the fun. (Tsai Chin is still active in making films today.)
There is torture in this film, a beheading, lots of really phoney-looking sword and spear play, but not one hint of sex. What’s up with that? There is one very funny subplot of the movie, which is where the vengeance comes in, in which Fu Manchu manages to replace Nayland Smith by a surgically altered and waxen-faced lookalike who then commits a murder “Smith†is hanged for. Ha, ha!
That the British judicial system would fall for such nonsense is a pure comedy delight, one that I can almost recommend that you see for yourself, but I can’t, for if I did, you’d never believe another review I ever wrote again. And we can’t have that, can we?
April 20th, 2013 at 2:30 pm
Steve,
This is a Harry Alan Towers film. He can inarguably be called the “worst” film producer…Period. He never found a country that wasn’t supplying financing for public domain properties featuring film actors of the past that he did not show up in. I know many who knew him and found charm there. Must have been because the films are execrable. Charlton Heston did Call of the Wild for Harry in Norway. In his published reminiscence Heston wrote: “I fear I have fallen in with con men and amateurs.” Yes sir.
April 20th, 2013 at 9:42 pm
Your comments about this being a Harry Alan Towers production are well taken, Barry, so much so that I’ve added his name to the opening credits of the review.
It might (and perhaps should) also be noted that the presence of Maria Rohm in the film could possibly be attributed to the fact that she was married to Towers at the time (and for a long time afterward).
She does add some feminine presence to the movie, if not coherence, but it should also be pointed out that the two songs she sang were dubbed anonymously by Samantha Jones.
April 21st, 2013 at 5:08 am
THE FACE OF FU MANCHU is actually a good little period thriller. But then you do get Nigel Green as Smith, with some very nice direction from Don Sharp. It did rather well, but unfortunately this meant that Towers decided that he had discovered a cash cow, which he went on milking to death. You can tell how far the series went downhill when you notice that some of the later ones had Jess Franco in the director’s chair (he directed a thoroughly bizarre version of DRACULA for Towers, which has to be seen to be disbelieved). In his autobiography, Douglas Wilmer makes his contempt for the movie plain, and I’m willing to bet that this attitude was common throughout the cast.
April 21st, 2013 at 10:27 am
That bad, huh ?
The Doc
April 21st, 2013 at 9:18 pm
There’s an interview with Christopher Lee on the DVD for one of these films in which he wonders why when they paid money to buy the rights to the Fu Manchu stories they never based any of the films on the original stories but wrote their own stories. I used to come across these in the days when TV used to air them on Sunday afternoons. I found them wonderfully mindless stuff. Towers was responsible for several series on old time radio, including The Lives of Harry Lime and The Scarlet Pimpernel.
April 21st, 2013 at 9:34 pm
Randy —
The radio work was really of interest. Obviously something happened to the Towers world view and personality over the course of a decade. Early fifties work excellent. Sixties and beyond in film, not only worse but worse and ultimately, even more so. To prove the point, see the films.
April 22nd, 2013 at 3:48 am
I vaguely recall watching CASTLE OF FU MANCHU at a drive-in movie about 1AM and wondering if my life had any meaning.
April 22nd, 2013 at 9:30 am
Towers Of London
That’s what Harry Alan Towers calls his company.
A company which has had roughly the same effect on the literary properties it has made as the real-life Tower had on those who wound up in its custody.
What I remember mainly are Towers’s decennial reboots of And Then There Were None, from the ’60s through the ’80s.
Actually, the ’60s version (with Wilfrid Hyde-White and Hugh O’Brian) isn’t bad at all; really top-drawer cast, and competent direction.
The ’70s version (Richard Attenborough and Oliver Reed) was a notch or two down; tighter budget, more gimmickry.
The ’80s version (Donald Pleasence and Frank Stallone) … well, that pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?
Towers hasn’t done a newer Ten Little Indians since; I guess the Christie estate got the rights back.
When I was much younger, my brother and I saw Vengeance Of Fu Manchu on a late-night movie. Sean and I were pioneering Riff-Trax with this one,as we often did with late-night cinema cheeze.
I believe we led off with a song: “Tie A Yellow Peril ‘Round The Old Oak Tree …”
It got even better from there.
At this point we were into Britcoms on the local PBS ststion, and Sean mistook Douglas Wilmer for Geoffrey Palmer, who was in many of these last; I didn’t correct him.
I have to look up Harry Alan Towers on IMDb,
because I know there have to be some gems I might have seen without realizing it.
April 22nd, 2013 at 12:23 pm
‘Gems’, Mike ?
Rather glass-beads for the savages, from all reviews .
The Doc
April 22nd, 2013 at 1:00 pm
I saw one of these films in a theater in New York in the summer of 1968. The theater had once been a mecca for art films (I think), but had fallen on hard times … maybe there’s a lesson or a metaphor here. Yes, one can hardly imagine the same Harry Alan Towers was responsible for those radio shows.
April 22nd, 2013 at 1:04 pm
Doc,
It isn’t only that the films are so poorly done, but there are so many of them. And, while the actors are almost always there for something better, that’s it on the plus side. Frank Stallone’s performance in Ten Little Indians notwithstanding. He actually belongs in a Towers production.
April 23rd, 2013 at 4:01 pm
Since yesterday, I’ve recalled yet another Harry Alan Towers “klassik”.
Five Golden Dragons, from 1967, possibly made at the same time as Vengeance of Fu Manchu.
We start off in Hong Kong, as four master criminals converge in order to consolidate their international Crime Syndicate.
The four Bosses are Dan Duryea, Brian Donlevy, George Raft, and Christopher Lee.
In the story, they’ve never met face to face, and they also haven’t met a fifth partner who’s going to bring the whole gang to the absolute top of crimedom.
So the big four get together in ceremonial robes and dragon masks (hence the title) and make their plans while waiting for Number Five to arrive.
This is where Bob Cummings comes in, as a goofball American tourist, whom the Big 4 come to believe is No. 5.
Or something like that.
It’s been years since I’ve seen this slam-doozie, and the details have faded over time.
But I’m sure you’ll recognize the Towers Touch that means so much – schlock.
Donlevy passed on not long after making this; Duryea went on to TV’s Peyton Place for what proved to be the last year of his life, which was probably a relief.
Anyway, that’s Five Golden Dragons.
Don’t miss it if you can!
April 26th, 2013 at 6:15 pm
The first in the series, “The Face of Fu Manchu,” is excellent. “Brides” is not quite as good, and the last three are awful. “Castle” was shot in color, but released to the drive-in circuit in black-and-white.