Our first feature is the 1965 British German film The Face Of Fu Manchu with Christopher Lee as the evil Chinese crime lord. It's written by producer Harry Alan Towers who produced a lot of interesting tv and film over the years. He also wrote 4 more Fu Manchu films. Director Don Sharp created a nice lot of TV and film during his career, some of it pretty entertaining. Nigel Green pays Sir Denis Nayland Smith (left below), Howard Marion-Crawford as Dr.Petrie (middle) and Joachim Fuchsberger plays Carl Jannsen.
Nayland Smith attended the execution of Fu Manchu himself but months later he thinks the man might be at the head of a criminal organization that is operating in Europe. We learn before Nyland Smith that Fu Manchu is indeed back and he's got a secret headquarters in London. He hypnotized an actor to take his place on the chopping block. Fu has learned about a chemical, taken from the black poppy, that makes a great and deadly poison. He wants to use it to gain control and he dumps some on a small town, killing 3000 people. There's pleny of running about as Nayland Smith and his pals chase after the elusive Asian.
Christopher Lee does a good job as the evil Doctor F and he's got a good bunch of henchmen, most of whom didn't seem to be Chinese. I guess he's an equal opportunity employer. Either that or there weren't many Chinese actors to be had in Dublin where the film was shot. There's some ok scenery and some good sets to look at. The writing is fair to good, it all gets the job done. It's well enough directed and there's a good bit of action. Not all the fights were great but they were enthusiastic. It was fun to watch and enjoyable.
Snow Devils is our second feature, it's a 1967 Italian film directed by Antonio Margheriti under the name of Anthony Dawson. He co-wrote the script with three other writers who together could not come up with much a a script. The dialog is pretty dumb at times and there are plenty of goofy plot points. At least you can have a laff when you watch it. The sets and production values are fair to good. Much of the material we see on screen was used in Margheriti's previous SF films.
The ice caps are doing some melting and a weather station in the Himalayas is attacked by something. Rod Jackson and Frank Pulasky are sent to look into it. They hire a guide and head up the mountain. They are on foot after their flyer was destroyed. After their sherpas run off hey are captured by some hairy aliens from Aytia. The aliens are an advance group in a coming invasion. The aliens also have a base on a moon of Jupiter. Rod and Frank have to go there to destroy it.
It's a nice colorful film and everyone seems to have an Erica phone. They were my favorite phone when I was a kid. There's some pretty girls too. After that there's not much to recommend it, unless you like some rock climbing scenes. These rocks have the added bonus of having snow on them. There's some space ships and the like but the footage runs from fair to laughable. The fights are fairly poorly acted out at times but the aliens are pretty ineffectual so they get their asses handed to them. Still in it's own way it was enjoyable enough. I'd watch it again someday.
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