In installment one , I did examine the Lemmy Caution series, coming to the conclusion that he did not kill that one off, but he did use Eddie Constantine (the star) for a last time in eurocrime with his 1969 movie "Residence for Female Spies".
2. The Case of Fu Manchu
The Fu Manchu series is a well known pulp ficton novel series from the 1910s and had already been filmed numerous times. The prime example for this must be the hilariously pre-coded "Tha Mask of Fu Manchu" with Boris Karloff in the title role. Prior to this, Paramount had already produced three talkies about our asian businessman that had already spawned a female spin-off with "Daugther of the Dragon".
From the start, these movies had been - well - sensationalist, basically leading to calls for censorship which was introduced in late 1933. But I advise any one of you to watch the newly restored, uncut version of "Mask" to witness its kinkyness in all its glory.
After the 1940 serial "Drums of Fu Manchu", things became quieter however and Fu Manchu was relegated to the cheapo tv-series league. The renaissance of eurotrash, however, brought our trusted diplomat and worldshaker back into view, curtousy of the Brits:
The Harry Alan Towers "Fu Manchu" series
In 1966 he actually co-produced a "real" Edgar Wallace "Circus of Fear". In between he tried to establish his own eurospy-series called "Mike Foster" but that was unsuccessful.
In the search of something to compete the Dr. Mabuse Films of CCC, he stumbled upon the Fu Manchu series and obtained the rights to the name (but not the novels).
Thus the HAT-Fu Manchu cycle was born with "The Face of Fu Manchu" in 1965. Spending basically all his money on the actors, Towers was able to get the best of both worlds and basically the hottest names in the genre field at that time: Christopher Lee as Fu Manchu and Joachim Fuchsberger (Scotland Yard Inspector) as well as Karin Dor (dame in peril, of course), who were THE faces of the Edgar Wallace krimis. Directed on the cheap by Hammer's Don Sharp, this is an enjoyable action-romp, set in the 1900s. The movies were co-produced by the german Constantin-Film, who had their fingers in basically every krimi-soup back then.
Bringing together the exotic locations of the EW-Sanders series and Fu Manchu in what clearly was a cost-effecient move. locations are then moved from London to some jungle,
At this point, Towers had made connection via the american distributor of "Cartes sur la table / Attack of the Robots" (see Part 1) with Jess Frano. That distributor was acquired by CUC who obviously saw a good investement and set the Towers/Franco tandem up to do their magic. And - oh boy- did they do magic (The whole story is well documented by Stephen Thrower in his marvellous fist book on Jess Franco "Murderous Passions").
But after 3 years, the 3rd installment of the Fu Manchu-series had bombed, reaching an audience of roughly 700.000 (german sales), so the intent to put in much more money was basically very low.
Starting off with "The Blood of Fu Manchu", Jess Franco introduces us to his own vision of supervillains whose sole interest is to dominate the world and their only way to do so is to put women in chains. What a concept. Somewhere in South America, magical spells are woven, bones and feathers are cast into a pot of bubbling blood and the results are those deliriously famous masterpieces like "Girl from Rio", "99 Women" and of course the last two Fu Manchu movies.
Case opened: "The Blood of Fu Manchu"
Now, however, Towers has to step up the production to meet the growing demands by CUC and the returns on Manchu#3 had not been good. Here comes Franco, who in a space of 4 years directs numerous HAT-movies, starting with "The Blood of Fu Manchu" in 1968.
The Plot: Fu Manchu has found a secret venom to kill all the men in the world somewhere in cheap South Amerca (tbh. there are actual venem-raiders walking in the jungles to find some unknown species to sell them to the pharma-industry to produce profitable vaccines - so this is not as far fetched as it sounds).
Women are immune but can pass the venom on by kissing men. Sure. Basically Towers had invented Aids. Where is the conspiracy theory for that? Now Jesse comes in and cries: "Mind control, put in mind control" and so the women are of course telepathically controlled to kiss men. What a plan.
And so? Yes we are in Francoland. 10 films shot simultanously with actors being paid to appear in only one, but with their footage appearing in all the other ones to. Why not chop-it-up and stick-it-back together. BTW no-one cared (maybe the actors who did not get paid). Co-Production is handled by Bad-Movie-Bank-Tax-loophole Terra Films who always got what the rest did not want (here it was Constantin, handling only the distribution). Needless to say, Manfred Köhler (who gave us "Daughters of Darkness" and the EC-Dietrich epic "Coffin from Hongkong") messes up the screenplay as good as possible, but he gets "mind control" in there somehow (I am pretty sure it was Franco himself while shooting and giving sht about any scripts).
With a certified 3% audience score in Rotten Tomatos you know you will be disappointed. Even to me, this is tame and uninspired. Yes, there are rows of scantily-clad women hanging in chains from the ceiling, but Franco had done better on previous occasions. Maybe it was the presence of Christopher Lee or some kind of hesitance towards the Fu Manchu character, but this is neither as sleazy as it should be, nor as enjoyable as it could be. BO-returns however were on-par with the predecessor "The Vengeance of Fu Manchu", so why not throw another one in there:
Further Investigation: "The Castle of Fu Manchu"
Still in Barcelona, where he mostly shot the interieurs for his HAT-films, Franco came to an end with his spy-films with "The Castle of Fu Manchu" - and yes, it is still 1968.
The castle in question was re-used for Franco's HAT-Dracula production "The Count Dracula" with Lee a few years later (when Lee, like Eddie Constantine before him had run out of lucrative roles).
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| "The Torture Chamber of Dr. Fu Man Chu" |
I do agree with S. Thrower that this is the better movie, simply because it is technically the worst one of the two Franco Manchus. There is so much do be delighted by: shobby landscape, cheap sets, completely boneless plot. It is no wonder that after this farce, the only way to film another Fu Manchu was an obvious comedy with Peter Sellers 1980 which, however, is far less entertaining than this one.
If there is a movie that cries out: I'm off. Let's finish this thing. Then it is that one. And yes, when the end credits roll, you just don't want to see another one. So did the audience - with around 370.000 tickets sold in germany, this is by far the worst of all the Fu Man Chu - BO returns (though better than Bava's Planet of Vampires with 310.000....) .
Tower had obtained "lifelong" rights to the character of Fu Manchu (70years after the author's death), so obviously he was willing to produce another Fu Manchu movie. But I honestly believe that after "The Castle of Fu Manchu), there were no investors to find for such an enterprise.
Franco finished and buried this series for good.
Verdict: Guilty as charged.
Joint Plaintiff: Collateral Damage to the "Four Daughters of Fu Manchu" in "Slaves of Crime"
Right at the beginning I wrote about the Fu Manchu - spinoff "Daughter of the Dragon" (1931) in which Fu's daughter Ling Moy tries to take over the world herself. In the Boris Karloff vehicle "Mask of Fu Manchu" (1932), he has a daughter called "Fah Lo Suee" who was born to his russian lover and is into all kinds of kinky stuff (did I tell you to go and watch this miracle of a movie?).
In our HAT-series, the daughter is called Lin Tang and she was played by chinese-born actress Tsai Chin in all 5 movies, so in the two JF as well.
The 1986 Jess Franco production "Esclavas del Crimen" now introduces us to the fourth daughter of Fu Manchu called ..... Tsai Chin (yes, he uses the actresses name!!). Other than stated in some sources, this is not an audult movie but bascally an updated version of the first one, played for laughs and with some wicked humour.
Tsai Chin (in best Dr. Mabuse fashion) is able to communicate with the spirit of her late father (as Franco wrote the script we got the prove that he in fact murdered Fu Manchu!!!!!). Knowing that world domination does not come cheap she raises money by abducting rock stars on tour in china. She lures them into her high-end brothel, just to press the money out of them and then discharges them into the asian sea. We get Lina playing the title-character and she is quite convincingly yellow-faced. 
Dark Mission then even stars Christopher Lee, so maybe something had been cooking broodingly under the surface in these years. As it is, this movie has good ideas but basically lacks funding, so Franco has to conjure things up his way. Nevertheless this is a good JF movie. Until now, all that is out there is a spanish VHS-cassette, and no-one's sure whether or not this movie actually made it to the spanish cinemas....
Parole Violation: Dr. Wong (1983)
Here Franco uses the "Wong"-spoof of "FuManchu" (from "The Mysterious Mr. Wong" 1934) but to make clear, who this is about, he calls him Dr. Wong
Dr. Wong's Virtual Hell (2001)
Taken seriously the concept of people being captured in VR and held ransom is a very clever and prophetical one. Given some more resources, this would have become a very interesting movie.
Sax Rohmer, who had written the pulp novels on Fu Manchu also had a female supervillain in store: Sumuru. Towers had obtained rights for both at the same time (2 for 1-deals are clever). Needles to say, Franco was given the task to handle this Manchu-Spinoff as well and so we get:
Jess Franco vs Sumuru
Stephen Thrower. Murderous Passions - The delirious cinema of Jesus Franco
Peter Osteried: Fu Manchu (Der Klassische Kriminalfilm Band 4)
