Die dreizehn Sklavinnen des Dr. Fu Man Chu (1966)

Die dreizehn Sklavinnen des Dr. Fu Man Chu: Directed by Don Sharp. With Christopher Lee, Douglas Wilmer, Heinz Drache, Marie Versini. Fu Manchu and his army of henchmen are kidnapping the daughters of prominent scientists and taking them to his remote island headquarters. Instead of asking for ransom, Fu demands that the fathers help him to build a death ray, which he intends to use to take over the world. But Fu’s archenemy, Sir Denis Nayland Smith of Scotland Yard, is determined not to let that happen.

“The nefarious Fu Manchu is bent on world domination, and he has built a heinous gizmo in the Atlas Mountains of French Morocco which will bring the worldu0026#39;s governments to heel. His contrivance is able to transmit massive energy charges in the form of soundwaves. In order to handle the technology, Fu Manchu needs western scientific experts, and he acquires these men by the fiendish ploy of kidnapping their daughters (all beautiful 20-somethings) and threatening to chuck the girls into his ghoulish snakepit. Unfortunately for the Chinese arch-villain, Assistant Commissioner Nayland Smith of Scotland Yard is on the case ….u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIf the u0026#39;Fuu0026#39; films which came after this one were considerably worse in quality, then they must have been execrable. This dire effort is difficult to watch, and two reviews would not be sufficient space to list all the improbabilities and nonsense contained herein. Portentous music and mock-heroic acting by Douglas Wilmer (Nayland Smith) and Christopher Lee (Fu) sit uneasily with cheap fibreglass sets and weak stunt choreography.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eNayland Smith and his sidekick Dr. Petrie are obviously meant to be Holmes-Watson imitations. The film is set in some vague period of the early 20th century, with Edwardian touches (uniforms of jailers and nurses, telephone handsets) but with aircraft and automobiles of later periods. Marie Lenz (Marie Versini) dresses like a 60u0026#39;s girl, with her short skirts and mink coat. The captive girls and Fuu0026#39;s daughter Lin Tang (Tsai Chin) sport the ultimate in 60u0026#39;s lacquered coiffure, which seems to stay in place no matter how they are chained to pillars, held over snakepits or roughed up by Fuu0026#39;s guards. One of the girls has a very exposed black bra, hardly an Edwardian garment.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWhen Marie and Franz are attacked near the Tower of London, Fuu0026#39;s men obligingly come at Franz one at a time, rather than overwhelming him – a curious behaviour trait repeated elsewhere in the film. Marie is a nurse, but she attends the ballet in a mink coat and sits in the royal box.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eu0026quot;They live only to serve me,u0026quot; says Fu of the beautiful girls whom he can hypnotise with a glance. So why does he chain them to pillars? Petrie has a suspiciously modern-looking wireless set in his home, and an even more suspiciously convenient uncle at the BBC. Nayland Smith laughably orders u0026#39;three carloadsu0026#39; of police officers to accompany him to Limehouse, and makes a personal call to the Home Secretary on a whim. Worse follows.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBert Kwouk, the ever-present British-Chinese actor, plays Feng, Fu Manchuu0026#39;s reliable technical boffin. Feng is worried about the power loads that Fu is demanding, because they might start a u0026#39;chain reactionu0026#39; (an electro-magnetic chain reaction? huh?) Nobody even attempts to explain how the millions of tons of equipment found its way to Morocco and got assembled without the knowledge of the French authorities. Why do the men in the sham police vehicle drive to the scene in Fu costumes, and put on police uniforms once they are in situ?u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAt the end, the ominous voice of Fu Manchu tells us that we will hear from him again. That is the most dreadful moment in the film – the threat of a sequel.”