we're on a mission from god

wendy so i got that going darling

i picked the wrong way to quit sniffing

blue light of my life

we enjoy your films

i thought they smelled bad on the

outside

welcome to vintage video where we're

re-watching the 80s so you don't have to

we'll be reviewing every major film

release of the 1980s in real time

over analyzing what you've seen and

spoiling what you haven't i'm patrick

o'reilly i'm jesse bayless and i'm roger

wells and today marks the 40th

anniversary of the release of the

fiendish plot of dr

fu manchu on august 8th 1980 it was

written by rudy dr man

which is the weirdest superhero wait

wait wait

how did we spell doctor man

d-o-c-h-t-o-r-m-a-n

so it's probably doctor men like

spider-man

or spaghett yeah after spaceman doctor

spaceman

um he wrote it with other people

uh it was written by rudy dr man and jim

maloney

and then peter sellers uncredited based

on the novel by sax romer

and directed by pierce haggard who was

credited

and richard quine who was not credited

okay wait so it's based on a novel

based on a novel is it basic characters

from a novel series so

there's a series of novels because

there's a series of movies yeah

okay um but it was directed by pierce

haggard who got the credit

and richard quine who did not get the

credit and john g

avelson who did not get the credit and

david lodge who did not get the credit

i think they are probably okay with all

this and peter sellers who did not get

the credit

and released by orion somewhere in the

19 oughts

author sax romer birth name arthur henry

ward

sat down with a ouija board and asked

what he should write about to make his

fortune

the board spelled out the word [ __ ]

thereby relieving rumor

of any responsibility for the racist

undertones of his entire body of work

this isn't the guy who built the

railroads just a racist ghost it wasn't

me

also dude [ __ ] is not the preferred

nomenclature

asian american please from october of

1912 to june 1913

roman issued the first fu manchu novel

as a serial

in total the fu manchu series spans 25

novels about fu manchu and naylan's

escapades the first film adaptation of a

fu manchu story the mystery of dr fu

manchu hit british theaters in 1923

movies were a little different in the

20s so actor harry lyons played fu

manchu in 15

feature films that year and another

eight the following year

none was longer than 20 minutes but for

some reason they were still called

feature films at the time

the first american adaptation the

mysterious dr fumanchoo

was released by paramount in 1929 and

starred warner oland

his first of four manchu movies who

would later find fame on the opposite

end of the acting spectrum for his

portrayal of charlie channel wait that's

the same thing but with a good guy

wait it was the same guy as charlie chan

yeah he played charlie chan also i mean

he's not the only person sydney toller

played him for a while and

other people took the role over but

that's what he's most famous for roland

in his last turn as the character in

murder will out

manchu faced off against sherlock holmes

and

philo vance a famous american detective

character of the same time

sounds like a star trek holodeck episode

yeah basically

in 1932 boris karloff assumed the role

opposite myrna loy for mgm's the mask of

fu manchu

which even at the time was considered

horrendously racist and suppressed for

many years before making its way to dvd

uncut finally

finally yeah thank god

the character was parodied for the first

time in 1946's unauthorized

spanish spoof el otro fu manchu the

other fu manchu

but aside from that the character was

largely forgotten until producer harry

allen towers rebooted the franchise in

1965 with christopher lee in the fu

manchu role

oh god and made a sequel every year for

the rest of the 60s

all starring lee this spoof film was the

last authorized appearance of the

character on film

but the character obviously served as an

inspiration for characters like charlie

chan

sumeru marvel comics the mandarin

indirectly and then more directly a

character literally just named fu manchu

that was later renamed for legal reasons

obviously

to zhang zhu who was actually the father

of shang chi

which is the one that's getting adapted

as a new character for the mcu as we

speak

okay um i would also include christopher

lee's reprisal of the character of

sender from the stupids

as a manchu type character which very

much seems like a fu manchu

drive b but marvel wasn't the only one

adapting the character to comics because

he also had his own series of dc comics

based on the early features and serials

fu manchu even makes an appearance in

alan moore's league of extraordinary

gentlemen

where he's referred to only as the

doctor in 2000

lionsgate was working to reboot the

franchise with antonio banderas

as an fbi agent trying to track him down

but an escalating budget doomed it to

development hell i don't understand why

they picked this up in 1980

let alone in the 2000s there's no room

for this to exist

in the current market other than as a

spoof at this point i mean what

what was it by the time it hit the 1960s

you said

they were already very aware that this

was taboo yes

so why would you ever have rebooted this

i don't know

to date the most recent portrayal of fu

manchu was in rob zombie's grindhouse

trailer for werewolf women of the ss

in which the part was played by none

other than the great nicholas cage

[Laughter]

in 1975 daily variety reported that

producer zev

braun was in talks with donald

sutherland and peter boyle to appear in

a film at the time called simply

foo manchu and the next year robert

kaufman was writing a script for it

which was intended to star peter sellers

and michael kane as the detective

character

directors richard kwine and john g

avelson were both fired from the project

before a script was even completed

sellers experienced health problems

including a heart attack on set which

repeatedly delayed production

sellers was ultimately disappointed with

his performance as fu manchu here

which i'm not sure is fair because i

would say the naylan performance was

just as bad

uh they were they're both weird they're

both very tired

yeah well something that i noticed

throughout was i felt like he just

dropped his

character yeah and he also pauses

constantly in the middle of his lines or

like repeats words

yeah but he like he starts off strong in

some scenes and then he just

is himself he's not the character

anymore right

but sellers did pass away from a heart

attack uh the day that the earthling

came out

uh he was not shot in warren bunkel

national park as earlier reported

and so as a final mercy he did not live

to see the film released

i don't know why he'd want to have done

this film i think he just wanted to

prove that he could keep working and

this is what people were offering him at

the time

i guess he was advised by doctors not to

take this part

and he was like not just for medical

reasons they read the script

that's good the script was not up to

seller's standards

so he took it to hollywood to rewrite it

himself and when he came back it was a

mess so the producers brought on pierce

haggard to fix it

he quarreled nonstop with sellers until

sellers officially petitioned for his

firing

and took the director's chair himself

but he did bring on david lodge to

direct

a few sequences uncredited but again the

only person with the credit

is haggard nobody else got anything but

that's weird

that he took it peter sellers took over

and then didn't he didn't get any credit

for it but he

wanted it to be his version like why

wouldn't you then fight for

this guy's name to be struck and yours

put on there and why as the original

director would you want your name

attached right

i think by the end of this movie he

wasn't going to fight

to put his name on it that's why i would

have fought

to have my name off of it right if i was

the director who was fired maybe haggard

had nothing to do with it

and he was just like you know what put

haggard's name on this

i hate that guy oh yeah i don't like

this movie put that guy's name on it

we start the film with a small piece of

classical organ music

specifically box takata and fugue and d

minor which for whatever reason

i've always attributed to dracula

specifically though my research suggests

that it's simply a horror trope

originally used in a

jekyll and hyde film and later in the

phantom of the opera

oh i thought that was original to the

fan of the opera i did not know that

we hear this music over footage of the

frosted peaks of the himalayas as we

approach the palace of dr phu manchu

inside we find an enormous three-tiered

birthday cake with presumably 168

candles around it

and 40 or so party attendants each of

whom begin a rendition of

happy birthday tofu

[Applause]

[Music]

as we reveal in a spotlight that fu

manchu himself has been playing the

organ

during this entire introduction fu

manchu it should be noted is in fact

peter sellers in yellowface for the

third time in a decade

after undercover's hero in 1974 and

murder by death in 1976

i would say the middle one is the most

acceptable of the three

but he's playing a charlie chan

character yeah but at least murder by

death is

full parody and so it's intending to

parody

you know yellow face not right b8 i

think this was supposed to be parody too

oh oh they didn't do parody

i don't think they did either fu manchu

credits his longevity to his elixir

vitae

and an assistant walks in with it on a

silver platter

but accidentally lights his sleeve on

fire with the cake candles

and drops the tray and then dumps the

vitae all over his arm to extinguish the

flame

i thought that was really kind of a

ridiculous thing i'm like if you're

gonna light the guy's

arm on fire just haven't dropped the

bottle it doesn't have to pour it

on his arm i i thought it was funnier

that he took this all-important thing

and he didn't actually drop it and he

still had it to do that successfully

grabbed it and then poured it out

the assistant is sentenced to torture

live burial in a red ant hill and the

removal of his left ear

fumanchu explains to his army that they

have six months now to collect the most

closely guarded ingredients in the world

to concoct a new elixir vitae

they will be splitting up and headed to

london and washington tonight the only

super meta joke happens right here

but the rest of the movie doesn't really

use them i guess there's one more later

but here he says

i must think of a good title and then

the title comes up yeah

there was another bit that comes up

later yeah the transition shot

uh well we'll get to it and the title

comes up and foo says

very nicely it hadn't occurred to me

before this film but the character of

lopan is likely based on fu manchu

that whole movie is about him getting to

the end of another life cycle and

needing this

curative ceremony to take place to

make him young again is that the general

story of fu manchu i mean i haven't seen

any of the other

versions of it i haven't either but i i

do think that part of the

part of the legend is is that he's sort

of immortal

like a rasa ghoul kind of yeah so that

that is

probably a running story thread yeah

okay

we see a montage of fu manchu's army

training by firelight

under the opening credits in the titles

i noticed executive producer hugh

m hefner in association with playboy

productions incorporated

which means that so far on our podcast

we have covered two helen mirren movies

one produced by bob guccione and

penthouse and one by hugh hefner and

playboy

she needs a better agent we cut to

washington dc

possibly around 1933 according to the

title

aerial footage is clearly much later

than 1933.

we move inside a museum exhibit about

leningrad workers and a woman with a

thick russian accent walks a tour group

through examples of modern day russian

appliances

we notice one person in the group is not

wearing shoes

because that's too complicated of a

disguise i guess

she leads the group to the star of

leningrad diamond one half of a pair of

canary diamonds owned by cousins

tsar nikolai and king george v of

england

the diamonds are identical in every way

we cut to

after hours and one of foo's men the

barefoot man emerges from an appliance

in the exhibition

and sets down a small cage with a

tarantula in it

he lifts it out and it switches

mechanically until the henchman puts a

key into it to wind it up

so why did we have it in a cage why is

that a

tarantula at all yeah and because this

whole situation is totally ineffective

because i don't get what it's supposed

to do i have a theory

uh he taps it to get it started and the

tarantula comically spins in a half

circle before crashing into a wall

he gets it moving again and it just

crashes repeatedly into the display case

for the star of leningrad

so he picks it up and puts it on a

fishing line to lower it into the

inexplicably open top of the case where

the diamond is being held

it grasps the diamond in its fangs but

there's no reason for the tarantula at

all unless it was

intended to be a real tarantula and they

thought the prop looked so fake

that the joke would be that it's a bad

mechanical tarantula

oh maybe that's all i could come up with

for why this was here

oh and like it was supposed to like

actually grab the diamond with its legs

and it was supposed to come down on its

web

that would make at least a little bit of

sense yeah it does look terrible

but they also didn't do anything like i

thought maybe they were going to scare a

guard off with it

and that didn't happen and it also

doesn't really make sense because they

tried to

wrap it back into the story later by

saying fu manchu

is like really skilled at making

mechanical things

but this one's terrible this is terrible

and it's obviously terrible

but the only service that that it

provides is literally just

a hanging and grasping mechanism that's

all it does

which you could make very simply without

needing to employ

remote control or yeah the the

exterior of a spider furnace maybe they

just thought that the absurdity of it

all

made it funny but it just doesn't make

sense so it

it stops you from being able to laugh at

it because you're like why are you doing

this

yeah the other dumb plot device here is

leaving a calling card at the scene of

the crime

needlessly tying together a series of

crimes that should have been

discreet collection of ingredients were

the wet bandits

yeah london also possibly around 1933

giuseppe capone and pete williams from

the fbi are visiting commissioner avery

and his assistant and nephew detective

inspector townsend

robert townsend which was confusing to

me

capone warns pete that they will be

offered tea repeatedly this joke

goes nowhere yep j edgar hoover needs

the yard's help

to identify this calling card avery

offers them tea

and recognizes it immediately as the

sign of the psy fan

every recommends they meet with naylan

smith but unfortunately he was captured

by the sci-fan

and has never been the same since he's

retired now

at naylan smith's home he is mowing the

lawn with the sprinklers running

under an umbrella he's under an umbrella

not the sprinklers that doesn't make

sense

the fbi guys ride a tandem bike and the

scotland yard guys take a horse and

carriage up to the house

neyland seems very excited to see avery

when they arrive but he seems a little

out of it

he taps the lawnmower and says this

lawnmower is of more use to me than you

could ever imagine

it's become something

the friend avery introduces the fbi men

which reminds nayland of j edgar hoover

understandably

who he helped once in san francisco

which reminds him of the song san

francisco

from the movie san francisco starring

clark gable jeanette macdonald

and spencer tracy

the four men around nayland share

uncomfortable glances with each other

like he's totally off his rocker but

naylan's tangent isn't rambling enough

to warrant this

in the real world they probably would

have just said oh yeah i like that song

and then told them their business here

if there is any explanation for their

confused looks it might be that the

movie san francisco wouldn't come out

for three more years

and the performance he was praising had

yet to exist i did consider that the

titles reading

probably 1933 was a loophole to get

around this anachronism

but it turns out that queen mary

abdicated the throne with the passing of

her husband

in january of 1936 and the film san

francisco wouldn't premiere for another

five months

so unless naland worked on the set

there's no way he would have known that

performance

while mary was still queen but maybe he

did i don't know

you did far too much research into this

dumb

joke they follow him as he continues

mowing the lawn

and eventually show him the calling card

when he suggests they move inside

all of the physical comedy that he's

doing is so subtle that

it barely qualifies as a joke most of

the time and when they're trying to make

him seem

befuddled and confused it's never so

confused that

it's weird or comical and and then this

is kind of the end of that befuddlement

because otherwise he's pretty on the

ball he's like a little

slow in his manner of speaking but he's

always got a good idea

and knows what he needs to do and he's

ahead of everybody else

i think it's supposed to be funny that

they're in the yard with the sprinkler

even

but they no nobody gets noticeably wet

so it's just not funny

the one guy does walking in he gets shot

in the crotch with a sprinkler

which never comes like no one like calls

attention like going

so many of these things never come back

like i was waiting for the entire

movie to wrap up the thread of the

lawnmower

like why is this lawnmower so important

to him like i figured it was some sort

of it had something to do with his last

experience with foo manchu and they

never come back to it i don't know if

it's like

something from the books or something

from the previous films but

to to introduce that and be like

wouldn't it be funny if he was obsessed

with a lawnmower and it's like

no but you could do that if you want

it's funnier to say it that way i guess

on the way into the cottage williams

stops so a sprinkler can spray his

crotch

and just stands there holding his crotch

for a minute

so that the camera can tell what's

happening he knows it's happening the

whole time he's not like surprised by it

or notices it after it started

but he chooses not to move away in favor

of being bewildered by the physics of

water and sprinklers

nayland offers them tea inside and the

americans roll their eyes like

geez that's twice now in a couple days

we've been offered tea by british people

nayland inspects photos of the crime

scene for a moment and determines that

the diamond was definitely stolen

by a complex mechanical spider unless

they left the spider behind

i'm not sure how he came to this

conclusion he concludes further that

only the insidious dr fu manchu could

develop

a spider so complicated as to combine

both a dangling and pinching function

to support this argument he produces an

exact replica of the spider he collected

during an earlier encounter with fu

manchu

this fellow followed me 500 miles up the

nile until eventually i cornered it in a

pyramid

now this joke would go basically the

same way if he had

an actual tarantula pet right

so assuming that they were supposed to

look real

maybe the joke is that they have trained

spiders and that he captured a trained

spider and kept it as a pet and then

they smash it here in this scene

or maybe i'm just grasping at straws but

he sets it on the floor and he gives it

try to make this movie feel better

the the spider crawls across the floor

towards the visiting detectives

when williams enters with a sufficiently

moistened crotch

and stomps on the spider in terror

[Music]

sufficiently what justifies us

sufficiently

to ask him naland instructs his butler

perkins to sweep up the spider

peggings sweep that up will you i'll

repair it later keep a sharp lookout for

any small screws

yes of course naland assures him that

it's possible that fu manchu is alive at

168 years old

and nylon tells them about the elixir

vitae he also says he was gonna fix the

spider later

yeah like it has been smashed to bits

yeah i get it that you're looking out

for

loose screws but like perkins is very

careful when he's collecting all the

pieces and sweeping them up

but he he this is when he introduces the

idea that fu manchu is like some sort of

genius and they're i mean they're trying

to reinforce that

but yeah okay so he's supposed to also

be

yeah they're they're equals all right

nylon tells them about the elixir vitae

he was there the last time foo stole

ingredients for it there were

three apparently unconnected robberies

the imperial japanese diamond

disappeared

the yeti mummy went absent from the

zagreb museum

and the balkan region diamond vanished

without a trace which is how they should

have done it this time

yeah not connecting the crimes uh

intentionally

but the detectives invite naylan to

investigate with them in london

a group of fu manchu's men carry a crate

like pallbearers

into the british museum when they are

stopped by museum guards

they explain that there's a mummy in the

box and present the requisite

authorization papers

and are directed to the egyptian room

the next day the newspaper headline

announces a mummy was stolen from the

museum of course they were bringing an

empty box to smuggle a mummy out

another sci fan card is found at the

british museum so we've connected

the first stolen diamond and this mummy

i'm not clear why they're stealing the

mummy

well that's we get to that's what but

that's what went missing last time it's

one of the three ingredients right but

we he only they only talk about the

diamonds yeah

i guess i guess they need some other

thing from one of these

mummies i'm assuming some kind of dried

up

something who knows you know there's a

there's a

color of paint called mummy brown that

they actually use ground up mummies to

make the paint

it's a real thing yeah yeah they just

they also had candied mummies that you

could eat no

my god this is an outrage i was going to

eat that mummy

sounds like a thing right the vai thai

recipe calls for the exact weight of the

twin diamonds

so the next ingredient to be stolen is

likely the george the fifth diamond in

the tower of london

the head here to give security a heads

up and in the background we see an

elderly guard nearly falling asleep at

his post

not totally clear but it may have played

some part in inspiring a scene from the

minions movie

where they try to steal the crown from

the tower

and face off against the blind elderly

keeper of the crown

fu manchu sits through a test of a

revitalizing electric chair

connect the wires

it seems to have some temporary effect

nayland announces that

rather than steal the diamond fumanchu

will probably hold a royal hostage for

it

he suggests employing doubles not

doubles decoys

bait they hold auditions exclusively

constables are trying out to play the

queen

constable alice rage takes the stage

with a saxophone

after a girl on a unicycle gets booted

she moves on to perform a song and tap

dance to the good ship lollipop

[Music]

not clear if they have any idea that

they'll be doubling the queen

well i think the whole thing is like we

need to hold auditions

right and then it just cut the joke is

that they're having talent

auditions well they can't they obviously

can't say you're going to be doubling

for the queen because they're right

everyone knows but you think they would

be like acting in victorian garb or

something something along the lines of

acting elegant yeah but it's literally

just

what is it's america's got talent yeah

kind of thing i want to know if she's

supposed to be doing a good performance

because it's not good i don't think it

is either actually

um naylan reads an article about a

planned appearance by the queen

at the botanical gardens for the

presentation of a rare plant

and we cut to fu manchu who's teaching

his henchmen about a plant he's acquired

that exhales

tranquilizing spores the next day

during the the queen's speech but it's

the double exhales and knocks out

everyone on the stage while she's

addressing the public

naland is there in time to handcuff the

double to the handrail before she can be

stolen by foo's henchmen

the good guys are also passing out when

capone just starts firing a gun at the

plant to kill it

which actually seems to make the problem

worse because more gas is escaping this

planet

once everyone's down the henchmen

quickly find that the queen is locked in

place and turned to leave empty-handed

despite the attempt on the queen's life

today the king phones the detectives

directly

to demand that they stop using doubles

because they want to see a play later

this week

constable rage is brought in and half

fired she won't need to double the queen

anymore

but she might still need to double the

queen we move to the theater opening

where naland and others are locating

several potential assassins in the crowd

from their box

as people stand to honor the king and

queen multiple devils appear in the king

and queen's box

and we cut to manchu dressing down a row

of disheveled assassins unclear exactly

they're not actually assassins

because they're trying to kidnap them

right right but

royals they're not assassinating them i

don't get what happened

between the last scene and this scene

well they they saw that they were they

couldn't figure out which one was the

real king and queen so they abandoned

but they all look beat up when they get

back to fu manchu

yes i imagine the that he beat them up

he did it oh yeah like that that the

further failure they were roughed up

but it seems like they're introducing

him to the idea that they failed when

they come in

and then he says this is good news and

they're like why is this good news and

he says because i can't take any more

bad news or something like that

so i'm not clear what they're implying

well

so this is where i get the one of the

meta jokes for me

oh okay when after like he says like

i'll you know i'll start paying you in

order to find you

in order to find you for your punishment

yeah and then he sits there and goes

well

on to the next bit okay like a monty

python that's enough of that sketch yeah

it's silly on to the next sketch

yeah in the night the lawnmower nalen's

been lugging around this entire time is

stolen from his room

and replaced with a calling card again i

don't know why they do this

um i think that this happens because

they needed a reason for peter sellers

not to be in a bunch of scenes

oh yes he had a heart attack during the

movie and he was gone for a while

that makes sense fu manchu sits near

delight the lawnmower

and calls for his henchmen who appear

instantly in a jump cut

and he says you can't fool me with cheap

cinematic tricks

which is another meta joke the next day

foo's men kidnap a man

named charles rotten a lifelong friend

of the queen

and replace him with foo in disguise foo

is passing out at rotten's desk until

his men plug his fingers into light

sockets

and flip the switch to jolt him awake

there is no sound effect

in this scene yeah it's really really

bothersome would there be

there are sound effects no every other

time they electronically in a cheesy way

yes you have to have you know if you

want it to be a comical

electrocution you make a zapping sound

but if you want it to look like fu

manchu playing a funny prank

you just have him put his fingers in the

socket to go

and that's what happened that's what

happened like like alan grant

yeah exactly

constable rage enters as the queen again

and gives herself away by not

recognizing foo as an impostor

while foo slash rotten gives her a tour

she notices

a rug approaching her from across the

room and evidently thinks nothing of it

later it's thrown over her head just as

the detectives arrive outside and she's

whisked away to fumanchu's compound

he walks through a tunnel built from

tesla coils to recharge himself again

unraveled the queen's double complains

that she might have suffocated rolled up

in that rug and fumanchu says

fear nothing your majesty you would not

have suffocated

there are several large moth holes in

that carpet

you are safe in my care dr fu menchu

removes his disguise

and introduces himself properly this is

where we learn that his doctorate is in

veterinary medicine

from the university of indiana

he's also a dds

in response she introduces herself

accurately and announces that they are

all under arrest

at first he seems furious but then

enchanted by her beauty

and immediately offers her a vintage

wine fumanchu invites her to

address him with the less formal fred

which is what he was called at eaton

he later elaborates that he just ran

their laundry at eaton

in keeping with a lot of other racist

jokes that i've been mercifully glossing

over in this abridged scene-by-scene

analysis

fred fumanchu is actually a reference to

a 1955 episode of the goon show

called the terrible revenge of fred

fumanchu which also starred sellers in a

small role

thankfully sellers has completely

dropped the chinese accent for the scene

and i'm not sure what he's doing now but

it's less painful to listen to

fred asks what she'd rather be doing

than being a constable

and when she says she dreams of

performing in musicals a dream

fred evidently shares they launch into a

piano performance

of joseph tabrar's daddy wouldn't buy me

a bow wow in b-flat

that's an actual song yes i just thought

they made that up nope

that's a real thing

daddy wouldn't buy me a bow wow

daddy wouldn't buy me a bow wow

i've got a little cat and i'm very fond

of that

but i'd rather have a bow wow

uh they seem genuinely taken with each

other by the song's end

a messenger arrives to announce that the

man who guards the crown jewels

not the elderly one but the the fat one

that's the boss of the elderly one

is eating here in fred's attached

chinese restaurant

constable rage is gifted a platinum

saxophone

and plays a small piece beautifully fred

is immediately proposing

marriage to her he asks her to play more

and she says i can't keep playing in

this disguise

do you have somewhere i could take it

off the guard of the crown jewels is

seen at home looking very uncomfortable

a doctor blames his addiction to chinese

food and prescribes him a regimen of

stilt walking

is that a thing that anyone would ever

say like oh you got a bad heart and you

eat too much

no monosodium glutamate maybe walk on

stilts all day it's how you try to make

a joke

by making something absurd even though

it doesn't make any sense

yeah but he walks on stilts through the

park and by chance stumbles across an

enormous buffet of chinese food being

prepared by fred's men

constable rage introduces herself as the

lady warrington minge

and starts waving all the food in his

face she offers to introduce him to the

finest chinese caterer in the world mr

fu and foo offers the guard his way with

the buffet

in exchange for a look at the king

george v diamond

not he doesn't even want to take it he

just wants to see it the guard takes

them down to the tower to see the

diamond

and of course the crown jewels are

stolen and the delight

lawn mower is returned the next day so i

don't know if it's like

they took the lawnmower because they

were like hey turn a blind eye

to what we're doing in the tower of

london for a day and we'll give you this

lawnmower back

because otherwise he could have

prevented the theft or i guess maybe to

make him so distraught

yeah that he couldn't perform oh maybe

yeah he was just crippled from being

his normal genius detective self

otherwise

you know he's very happy to get delight

back and uh

he's delighted he's delighted to see the

light again and it seems like

it's all in one piece you know unscathed

while the detectives shouted each other

about who's to blame we see that nayland

actually has the diamond hidden away foo

must have taken a duplicate

and suddenly foo calls to take credit

for all the robberies

and announced to nayland that not only

does he have all the ingredients to his

vitae

but he suddenly expresses an intention

to take over the world

which has not been a part of this so far

but seeing as there's no stakes to any

of it

it's probably about time they kicked it

up a notch the detectives head back to

nalen's cottage where he announces they

will be transported to the himalayas

in mere hours suddenly a balloon

inflates from out of the chimney

and a periscope and engine controls drop

from the ceiling like we're dealing with

carl fredrickson all of a sudden a

captain's wheel rises from the floor

and the balloon is emblazoned with the

phrase the spirit of wiltshire which

i have to assume is a reference to

something else from the books or movies

because the word wiltshire has never

said in this film

is that where he lives maybe i don't

know

the cottage lifts off the ground and as

they're approaching

fu manchu's place pete williams from the

fbi finds a small compartment in the

kitchen

which perkins informs him is called a

priest's hole

purely to set up a joke later that isn't

funny when it happens

yeah because naylan gives perkins the

diamond to hide

and then he hides in the priests hole

they have this conversation

and then naylan immediately retrieves

the diamond after it

yeah so there's no reason for it to have

ever been in here fred takes a sip of

his new vitae in the lab

and it's no good he shatters the

unsatisfactory glass

what's wrong my love what's wrong

one of the ingredients is defective

which undoubtedly held some of the other

irreplaceable ingredients

that he needed all of naylan's cottage

lands near the palace

and food's men are there to fire on it

with cannons

nalin surrenders himself to foo's men

and they escort him in

foo concludes that the london diamond

was a phony and

neyland admits it was hidden in a

priest's hole to which

the constable rage replies you dirty

beast

naland surrounded surrenders the diamond

to fumanchu

obviously he brought it here

specifically to give to him because all

he had to do to defeat foo

was to not give it to him yeah or even

not admit which ingredient was swapped

out

when the commissioner of scotland yard

finds out that naylan gave the diamond

back to fu manchu

he really doesn't seem to care in the

slightest and offers to cover for him in

the paperwork

which shouldn't be necessary because the

diamond was already reported stolen and

until now

he wouldn't have even known that naland

had it none of this makes any sense yeah

what was his motivation to giving him

the diamond just to be like here you go

buddy

don't kill me but you came here with the

diamond

well i i think i think the reason that

he brought the diamond

was to exchange for the crown jewels

like because they

because because he foo manchu didn't

just take the diamond

right he took all of them and so nayland

i guess saw that as

as unacceptable okay well that would

have been nice to have that made clear

by some kind of it would have been nice

or maybe yes maybe before you give him

the diamond make some sort of

negotiation to get the crutch

yeah and not just have it be it's a good

thing no that just means you're gonna

give everything back because he didn't

say he would

food drinks from the corrected formula

and is suddenly decades younger

i feel fantastic he invites nayland back

to his office

and rage offers gifts on foo's behalf

exact replicas of everything stolen

and presumably the actual artifacts of

the wrestling crown jewels

so he's not even a bad guy really he

just needed to steal these things so

that he could stay alive

right and we're pretending like he's a

super villain right but we never bring

up the fact that he

is trying to take over the world again

do we no no or

or what he does why

why does he wait until he's really old

to drink this elixir like on his

deathbed yeah why does he wait

for someone to pour all the elixir out

to start gathering ingredients

i feel like you would just gather them

all up now

always have a backup you know set of

diamonds and mummies on hand

just in case you shouldn't let it get

past a half tank

foo offers neyland a sip of his vitae

but not before returning home

so that they continue their cat and

mouse game as worthy adversaries

he tells naylan to rejoin the others

where they can prepare to be wiped out

nalin says wiped out and he goes and

tells everybody

he just said he's going to wipe us out

and the detectives are worried for a

brief

moment until foo rises from the floor in

an elvis costume

and sings rock-a-fu

the cops they tell you i

knows ain't to fry that rice i've lived

so long that i can't be

wrong i'll rock you when i sing this

song

[Music]

[Music]

and by wipeout he means impress music

yeah i guess because he's living in the

park because he's living his dream

of being on stage maybe so maybe when he

says

take over the world he meant musically

musically

well he did express a desire to to move

in that direction with his career

and his calling card and symbol is that

piano piano

like yeah yeah we have to put these

pieces together because it's not in the

movie

but yeah director pierce haggard uh did

not recognize much from this guy

director richard klein this was his last

credit even though it's not a credit

it's uncredited he also directed

prisoner of zenda

starring peter sellers and their falling

out happened because

peter sellers didn't like the way that

he was handling that movie in post

and fired him from this movie before

they even had the script ready

but richard quine also directed

strangers when we met

starring kirk douglas and kim novak

director john g

avaldson is probably best known for

directing rocky

for which he earned an oscar for best

director he'll also be directing the

formula for us later this year

and he later did rocky 5 and the first

three karate kid movie

david lodge is just a personal friend of

peter sellers who he brought in to

direct when he couldn't direct

no official directing credits on his

imdb page

but he did appear with sellers as mac in

the return of the pink panther

and then we have uncredited writer

uncredited director star peter sellers

he obviously played fu manchu and naylan

smith

chance in being there was one of his

last roles before this i think people

wish that was his last movie because it

was actually a really great role

he's obviously inspector clue so in the

pink panther series he was captain

mandrake president muffly and the

titular doctor strangelove in that film

he was claire quilty and dr zemf in

lolita for kubrick also

while this is the last film sellers

worked on his last credit was actually

1982's

trail of the pink panther which was

literally cobbled together

with outtakes and unused scenes from

other pink panther movies yes yeah

sounds can not be good writer rudy dr

man

uh did this and some chips episodes ah

nice

jim maloney uh this was his only feature

credit the novel

was from saks romere he has credits

dating back to 1920s

the yellow claw most deal with fu manchu

romer's creation but the first was about

mr king

a different xenophobic villain helen

mirren was alice rage

she played another queen for us cizonia

in caligula earlier this year

and she later won an oscar for lead

actress for the queen

playing queen elizabeth ii the

granddaughter of the queen she is

doubling in this film david tomlinson

was sir roger avery

he was in mary poppins bed knobs and

broomsticks he was in the first love bug

and this was his final feature film

performance sid caesar was joe capone

he plays coach calhoun in greece's one

and two

he plays melvin crump in mad mad madman

world

he was chief caveman in history of the

world part one

it said caesar like he is he is

you know the show of shows and he was

also uh the studio chief in silent movie

he's probably best known for the tv

series your show of shows and caesar's

hour

but i will always think of him as the

old man playing keno

in vegas vacation who finally hits the

jackpot

and then alanis morris says style

suffers a fatal heart attack

and as he's dying he tells clark

criswell to take the ticket and collect

the reward

or in a very dark turn perhaps

he just takes the ticket and says that

that's what he said well

okay so the scene is a little weird

because he's going like i want

your money yeah you want your money and

then he's like

grasping his heart for a second he's

like collapsing his eyes are like

winking back and forth

and then he whispers something in

clark's ear and he says i think he said

to take the ticket

and uh beverly d'angelo is like

he said to take the ticket like i don't

believe you yeah and then he's like

he nods and he winks at clark and then

he falls backward like he's pretending

to be dead

but then immediately emts are there to

confirm that this man is dead

so he's not pretending i don't know if

the winking was just

another symptom of his heart attack or

what but yeah it's unclear whether clark

stole all this money from a dead guy

simon williams was robert townsend he

plays butto and

kinvig which was a series and he was

also the prince in jabberwocky

steve franken played pete williams he

was a technician

in the original westworld film he plays

cardinal colbert

or colbert in angels and demons and uh

he plays professor graves in munchy

strikes back

no there you go do you remember munchie

no

that's the one that we just watched on

the shout factory app

oh yes the weird puppet character

uh it's ridiculous uh john sharp was sir

newell's thud he played dr ewan in the

original wicker man

he was dueling in barry lyndon which

seems funny to have a character named

duelin in a movie about duelin he's also

the maitre d

in top secret yeah so that was a movie

the problem is that it doesn't

go as hard as it should into parody

territory yeah

and so by forgetting to

crowd it with clear jokes it it feels

like just a bad attempt at a straight

movie yeah yeah i feel the racism aside

there could have been some things that

could have made it a very salvageable

something yeah i really like the concept

the core concept of like

the detective and the villain who are so

like

like fiendishly like in love with

how much they can foil each other yeah i

almost got the impression that he

brought him the diamond because he was

like i don't want my friend to die

yeah it's it's yeah it's kind of like

that and it's and it's like yo here's

this elixir we can

fight forever if you want yeah uh and

there's just like a mutual respect

between the two yeah it is a fun

a fun relationship between the two of

them but for the most part

nothing else in the film works do do you

believe that this is also some kind of

like inspector gadget

and dr claw type type like inspiration

maybe

either way it's it's just uh it comes

across as weird

it doesn't come across as a comedy movie

and it's crazy to me that this was like

four years after murder by death yeah

like it's not that

long after and none of like peter

sellers

is non-stop hysterical at murder by day

every line he has in murder by death

kills me

and there's not one laugh out loud

moment in this whole movie yeah

i mean i did chuckle at the the doctor

of uh veterinary medicine from

indiana state university he didn't write

murder by death though no neil simon i

feel like that is a huge part of it he

wanted to capture

that sort of feeling with this and i

don't think he did

yeah is he a writer of other things did

he i mean blake edwards wrote the pink

panther stuff

so oh but peter sellers himself yeah

that's what i'm saying

he's not responsible for the writing of

his best remembered things

no for sure that yeah i don't know why

he would have

thought that he was the person to take

the script and fix it

i mean i know he wrote for television

because the i think he wrote for the

goon

whatever that show there are eight

writing credits but a lot of them is

additional material

thoughts by so it's like it's it's his

improv during

yeah the movies yeah so he wasn't a

writer

i don't really understand why he thought

well it was

it was the end of his career obviously

so he had as much clout as he was ever

going to have i guess that's not true he

would have had more earlier

well i can also see it as a case of look

i know what

kind of comedy you want from peter

sellers and i know he will give you that

comedy yeah

i know what to do let me do it yeah but

he did improvise a lot on

dr strangelove as all three characters

that he played

so i know that that he was at one point

sharp enough to

put a joke together on the fly but i

think the problem is when you're writing

them down

they have to be funny um and these

weren't

and even like just the character name of

fu manchu is a little bit racist

yeah it definitely is and it's also it's

funny because

it literally became synonymous with that

racist

facial hair like that's called a fu

manchu mustache

it's named after a fake character wait

that facial hair was actually named

after this character

yes it wasn't the other way around the

the words fu manchu mustache are a

reference to

the character as he appeared in early

films of this character

it's funny that it's called fu manchu

which is a okay an american made but

they didn't

invent that facial hair for this movie

so it obviously

has a name maybe it had a name before

then

i suppose i don't know but that also

reminds me of um i took this art

appreciation class at csun

and uh the teacher showed us a clip from

an early superman cartoon

that was one of the like super racist

episodes yeah and uh

it was like clark kent went to visit

some guy in an office

and then as soon as he left his office

the guy closed his door and he like

locked the door and unfurled a japanese

flag

and started like praying to the japanese

flag in his office because it was about

like espionage and this guy was a

japanese spy and when he paused it he

said

now that's racist for a bunch of reasons

but i want to

try and break it down piece by piece can

you tell me why

uh this was the even the drawing of the

character is racist

who does who is this character drawn to

look like it was

clearly a charlie chan character for a

japanese guy

and so i was like oh it's charlie chan

and he was like okay

and can you tell me why it would be

racist to draw a japanese character like

charlie chan

i was like well everything about this

character is racist

and he said right but what is charlie

chan's nationality and i was like

well sidney toller was like german irish

when he played him

and he was like no no that's a different

racist problem

what i'm talking about is this is a

chinese stereotype playing a japanese

character

in this cartoon but um that just made me

laugh a lot

that uh they were just like whatever you

know ev every single asian stereotype we

could just draw as any character it's

like

like nobody cared so you have all those

terrible like donald duck versus the

japanese cartoons too

it's ridiculous uh jess up or down

oh it's a big down it was just missing a

lot of

you know structure and jokes it just

generally really wasn't good yeah i'm

also going down there's

there's you're not missing out on

anything if you skip this one

it's a down for me uh it's

you know i love peter sellers and i

really wanted to enjoy this

um at least just as something and you

know and

again like the final film of peter

sellers and david tomlinson

it's like okay you know this could have

some good moments and maybe it could

have

but it didn't do we know where this is

going on our lists anybody

jess yeah it's it's really low and i

feel bad about that

but it is really bad yeah um

it is let's see it is ninth from the

bottom of my list

okay it is below uh helen mirren's other

uh you know imitation of royalty to

seduce

a man of power those are right next to

each other directed

or produced by a pornographer

pornographer yeah so it's right

underneath caligula

and right above stunt rock so so

caligula has moved up on your list

it has it's tens for the bottom now

there are really

terrible movies this year

anyway richard where's this going on

youtube um i have this probably

significantly higher

um i mean no it's not probably it is

definitely significantly higher than

jesse's

there's no way to know it's not like

we're keeping a tallied list of numbers

um i i have this actually just uh below

hunter and just above little dragons

hunter and little dragon it's okay yeah

i mean because i really didn't care for

punter all that much yeah um but i still

like you know

i might i might watch it again someday

and i might watch this again someday

but that puts it number 67. okay

um this is pretty low on my list

this is 14th from the bottom it's just

above can't stop the music

and just below how to beat the high cost

of living

because that movie wasn't super funny

but it made sense

i think this one doesn't do that second

part as well

but i think that's everything for this

one if you guys have any thoughts you'd

like to share with us we're vintage

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and letterbox

where as i've said before you can find

each of our full movie rankings for the

year

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vintage video podcast thank you so much

for listening and i hope you'll join us

next time

when we'll be discussing xanadu which

imdb describes like so

a struggling artist living in los

angeles meets a girl

who may hold the key to his happiness

that's pretty vague

it's like it's about as big as the

actual movie is

it's like all right well the words i

can't say are muse

roller skating neon lights

[Music]

you