MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*
MGM’s
loose adaptation of Sax Rohmer’s same-title novel, published in the
same year, presents a mixed bag to the acolytes of Fu Manchu.
On
one hand, the film is much more entertaining than the so-so novel.
The three credited writers clearly display familiarity with the
overall mythos of the devil-doctor as it had developed up to that
point, and they sought to build upon Fu’s reputation for ingenious
tortures, less evident in MASK than in the earlier books. The script
dispenses with the book’s dull device of a fictional Muslim
revolutionary, and instead imagines that the Chinese evildoer seeks to inspire
an uprising of diverse Easterh factions by finding the relics of the
formidable conqueror Genghis Khan. Arguably, this trope—that of
unifying the East to rebel against Europe’s colonial authority—is
a major source of Fu Manchu’s appeal, and this stand-alone film
certainly captures all the implicit horros of such a rebellion, far
more than the two films starring Warner Oland (reviewed here and
here).
On
the other hand, even though the tortures are inventive, the
torturers, Fu and his daughter Fah Lo Suee, are much more
one-dimensional than they are even in the least of Rohmer’s novels.
To the writers, both villains are merely unregenerate sadists, and
though both Boris Karloff and Myrna Loy chew the scenery with vim and
vigor, no one would think of this Fu and Fah as, respectively, a
“superman” and a “superwoman.” Karloff’s Fu boasts of his
numerous collegiate degrees, but the script doesn’t really play up
his intelligence or his ferocious dignity. Perhaps it’s a measure
of the script’s antipathy for the character that it’s the only
English-language Fu-film in which the venerable villain is killed at
the end, with no ambiguity about his return.
The
rather fusty plot of the novel is accelerated here. Fu’s continual
enemy Nayland Snith is first seen informing archaeologist Lionel
Barton (played here as a standard English gentleman, not the egotist
of the novels) that the latter’s quest to unearth Genghis’s tomb
is of the utmost importance. Smith is somehow aware of Fu’s
plan to acquire the Khan’s relics—a scimitar and a golden mask—in
order to unite all of Asia against the West. Despite giving Barton
this warning, Smith does nothing to protect the scholar, so that he’s
abducted by Fu’s men quite easily. This incident gives the writers
ample opportunity to subject Barton to a memorable torture. However,
sicne Barton’s absence doesn’t prevent his expediton from
proceeding to Mongolia to unearth the tomb, it seems peculiar that
the oily mastermind even bothers trying to pressure the archaeologist
for inside info. Karloff’s Fu never says anything to justify the
torture, and since the audience never sees Barton break, it seems
like a massive waste of the villain’s time and effort. I found
myself wondering, “Given how highly visible the expedition is, why
doesn’t the evil mastermind just shadow the Europeans until they
reach their goal?”
Indeed,
apparently the writers realized this was their best course too.
Despite Smith’s lectures about the monumental consequences of
unearthing the tomb of Genghis, he doesn’t take along any armed
guards. Aside from Mongolian coolies, the expedition consists of
Smith, a handful of archaeologists (one of them, Van Berg, named for
a character in the fourth novel), and the standard romantic couple.
In the novels the romance originates from Lionel Barton’s niece
Rima and her English suitor Shan Greville. The movie-script changes
these to Barton’s daughter Sheila and her suitor Terry Greville,
both of whom are thoroughly American despite Barton’s
Brit-heritage.
After
the expedition unearths the tomb and collects the relics (despite a
supposed curse compared to that of King Tut), Fu’s assasins attack
the party, albeit unsuccessfully.
Providentially,
Fu happens to have transported Barton all the way to China, and he
attempts to extort Greville into surrendering the relics in exchange
for the freedom of Sheila’s father. Greville takes the relics to
Fu’s hideout, but unbeknownst to him, he’s carrying counterfeits
of the originals, which Smith had made for reasons that are never at
all clear. Fu’s wrath against Greville leads to a scene which may
be the film’s most perverse use of torture: the villain orders the
stalwart hero whipped, and Fah, who has obviously formed an
attraction to Greville, watches the whipping and excitedly commands
the slaves “Faster! Faster!” A subsequent scene implies that she
intends to enjoy Greville without his consent, but Fu has another
plan, using one of his many mind-control drugs to make Greville his
pawn. Whereas in the novel Fah Lo Suee entrances Greville to simulate
ardor out of a melancholy desire for romantic connection, here it’s
obvious that sex with the Chinese villain’s daughter signifies
nothing but degradation.
Greville
obeys Fu’s will and brings the villain not only the Genghis relics,
but also his fiancée. Considering that the film is famous for a line
in which Fu exhorts his followers to “kill the white man and take
his women,” the Asiatic mastermind shows no interest in degrading
Sheila. He only wishes to use her in a pagan sacrifice to his gods,
to further inflame the Asian tribes when Fu shows them the relics
that prove his fitness to be the new Khan.
Fu
also captures both Smith and Van Berg and subjects them to torturous
traps, but following a tradition rightly parodied in the AUSTIN
POWERS films, the villain assigns no guards to watch the captives.
Smith escapes and frees both Van Berg and Greville, leading to a
violent conclusion in which the white guys not only slay Fu but also
massacre all of the rebellious tribesmen with Fu’s own weapon, an
electrical arc capable of being used as a death-ray. The slaughter is
then followed by a light-hearted coda in which the white men feel
relief when they behold a dim-witted Chinese fellow working in a
position subservient to their authority.
It’s
hard to know how seriously the director and writers took this farrago
of racial myths. Certainly they weren’t concerned about offending
Asians of either the Near East or the Far East, nor is there any
suggestion that any Asians might have a legitimate beef against
colonialism. Even the first Warner Oland film is a little more
liberal on that score. Still, the film’s racial myths seem too
outlandish to inspire the conviction of even the full-fledged racists
in the audience. The alteration of Fah Lo Suee from a melancholy
superwoman into a man-eater is one example of the outlandishness, as
is a follow-up scene in which a tearful Sheila “de-programs”
Greville with the power of her love, and so triumphs over her
iniquitous rival. In her autobiography Myrna Loy regarded the film as
trash and claimed that she and Karloff were the only ones who tried
to have fun with it, but it’s possible to see the writers amusing
themselves with the overheated melodrama, rather than trying to make
the material convincing, as Sax Rohmer did. Thus MASK is fun on the
kinetic level, but its greatest signifance may be that its basic plot
was recycled, with far greater poetic resonance, in the superior
serial DRUMS OF FU MANCHU.
To
touch briefly on the film’s phenomenality, most of Fu’s devices
register as uncanny, even his mind-drugs, which as mentioned aren’t
as infallible as the ones in the book-series. However, the electrical
arc-cum-death-ray is enough to transport the movie into the realm of
the marvelous.
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