The Fiendish Plot of Dr Fu Manchu (1980, Peter Sellers, Helen Mirren, David Tomlinson) – Classic Movie Review 10,737

Director Piers Haggard’s fiendishly awful 1980 ‘comedy’ The Fiendish Plot of Dr Fu Manchu is the final movie of Peter Sellers, who plays both the bad doctor Fu Manchu, now back to perpetrate gem robberies (first crime is stealing a diamond from the Soviet Union), and his nemesis, super sleuth Sir Dennis Nayland Smith of Scotland Yard. He also has cameos as a Mexican bandito and an antique dealer. Sellers is game but the script is lame.

It was said to be a troubled shoot, which may explain the long faces. A number of directors apparently left the project and the star is said to have directed a lot of it personally after dismissing Piers Haggard, who nevertheless was given the screen credit. Richard Quine, with whom Sellers had earlier worked on the 1979 The Prisoner of Zenda, was the original choice for director, but he was replaced by John G Avildsen and then by Piers Haggard.

Sellers is as eager to please as always, but you’d have thought he would have avoided the film in the wake of his previous movie, the flop spoof of The Prisoner of Zenda.

Two stars of Dad’s Army, John le Mesurier (Perkins) and Clive Dunn, lift the support cast, which also includes Helen Mirren as policewoman Alice Rage, singing the music hall classic song ‘Daddy Wouldn’t Buy Me a Bow Wow’, David Tomlinson, Sid Caesar, Simon Williams, Steve Franken, Stratford Johns, John Sharp, and Bert Kwouk (Cato in four of The Pink Panther movies) as Fu Manchu’s Servant (Sellers tell him ‘Your face is familiar’).

Sellers had a weak heart and was advised not to make the film, which was released soon after his death. After Sellers collapsed with a mild heart attack, he spent several weeks recuperating and then returned to the set and filmed some additional scenes that he directed. He died on 24 July 1980, aged 54, and the film was released on 8 August.

The credited writers are Jim Moloney and Rudy Dochtermann, but Sellers also contributed to the script.

Simon Williams recalled that Peter Sellers had insisted that all the actors had vitamin injections, as he felt their acting lacked energy. Williams said Sellers was by then as ‘mad as a snake’.

It is the first Fu Manchu feature film since the 1969 The Castle of Fu Manchu with Christopher Lee.

Sellers and executive producer Lynne Frederick were married at the time. It is her final screen credit and her last movie as actress was The Prisoner of Zenda (1979). So it is the final movie of Sellers, Frederick, David Tomlinson and John le Mesurier.

The prologue states the movie is set ‘possibly around 1933’ and Fu Manchu is said to be 168 years old. Fu Manchu’s great wealth comes owning Chinese restaurants across the world. Indeed his headquarters in London is a Chinese restaurant. He is a feeble old man kept perpetually alive not necessarily by eating Chinese food but by ingesting the elixir of life.

Sellers is the last actor to portray Fu Manchu in a feature, after Harry Agar Lyons, Warner Oland, Boris Karloff, Lou Marcelle, Henry Brandon, John Carradine, Glen Gordon, and Christopher Lee.

Sellers is also the last actor to play Sir Denis Nayland Smith in a feature, after Fred Paul, O P Heggie, Lewis Stone, Hanley Stafford, William Royle, Cedric Hardwicke, Lester Matthews, Nigel Green, Douglas Wilmer, and Richard Greene.

Trail of the Pink Panther (1982), which stars Sellers posthumously and is comprised of outtakes and unused footage from the Pink Panther film franchise, was released a couple of years later.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,737

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