The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932) on Netflix
G19321h 8mAdventureHorrorSci-Fi
Dr. Fu Manchu races a team of Englishmen to the tomb of Genghis Khan. Sheila Barton knows the way, and with her fiancé and his associates she joins the expedition.
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- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb6.2/104,145 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes88%
Trailer
Plot summary
Sir Denis Nayland Smith, an agent of the British Secret Service, warns the Egyptologist Sir Lionel Barton that the race for the tomb of Genghis Khan must be won before Dr. Fu Manchu reaches it. With the conqueror's sword and mask, Fu Manchu intends to declare himself Genghis Khan reborn and set Asia and the Middle East at war against the white race. Barton is kidnapped and held, and Fu Manchu offers him his own daughter, Fah Lo See, if he will reveal where the tomb lies. Barton holds out and is made to lie beneath a huge, constantly ringing bell. Sheila, his daughter, joins the expedition in his place, since she knows the tomb's location; her fiancé Terence Granville, Von Berg and McLeod go with her.
Cast
- Allen Jungas Coolie (uncredited)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- After MGM staff viewed the rushes and feared another financial failure like Freaks, the studio shut down production, fired director Vidor with most or all of his footage removed from the finished film, and replaced him with Charles Brabin.
- MGM re-released the film in 1972 as a triple feature, and the Japanese American Citizens League wrote asking the studio to remove it from its catalogue, calling Fu Manchu "an ugly, evil homosexual with five-inch fingernails" and his daughter "a sadistic sex fiend"; MGM did not respond.
- Boris Karloff had to sit two and a half hours in the makeup chair to get Cecil Holland's Fu Manchu makeup, which he called "extremely bad", and while there he received four sheets of paper that became the film's opening shot.
- A 1992 release was cut by about one minute and five seconds, mostly of Karloff's dialogue scenes, including his lines about wiping out the white race; later DVD releases restored the scenes.
- Myrna Loy, who played Fu Manchu's daughter Fah Lo See, said the studio "tossed" her into the film, and told a producer she couldn't do it, calling the character "a sadistic nymphomaniac".
- Author Sax Rohmer used his memory of a man he believed led a dope-smuggling gang in London's Chinatown as the basis for his first Fu Manchu novel, The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu (1913).
