CHRISTOPHER LEE VS NIGEL GREEN IN 'THE FACE OF FU MANCHU'

Christopher Lee and Deborah DeLacey in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU Year: 1965 Rating: ***

In BEAT GIRL, Christopher Lee played a sleazy nightclub owner where his even more slimy manager berated girls into becoming strippers, and the always-intense Nigel Green is in opposite camps of Lee's titular FACE OF FU MANCHU: the one and only time as Sax Rohmer's Scotland Yard Inspector Nayland Smith...

Later replaced by a more classy and dignified Douglas Wilmer, Green's the first and overall the best lawman/adversary since he really seems to completely detest Asian mastermind super-criminal Fu Manchu...

Karin Dor in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU with Nigel Green

Eventually the world-dominating plot juggles two story-lines: Christopher Lee having kidnapped a scientist to transform a deadly black poppy to poison England's gigantic Thames River, and soon it's a double-kidnapping as the scientist's beautiful daughter Karin Dor is also held hostage...

Making the first half the most intriguing before the investigation drags with too much expository dialogue and not enough of the initial James Bond franchise style fights... that Green and his Watson-like sidekick Howard Marion-Crawford passively experience through muscularly resilient German gent Joachim Fuchsberger...

Tsai Chin and Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Taking away from Green's central hero, and, resembling Lee's Hammer adversary Peter Cushing, he has the fervency of a cornered cat... while Fu Manchu's gorgeously ferocious Asian daughter Tsai Chin complains to daddy about not having enough to do...

Which occurs in the next, and overall best of the franchise, BRIDES OF FU MANCHU, where the hypnotizing of beautiful starlets is the centerpiece compared to this more cerebral and handsomely-produced science-fiction-crime-thriller that hasn't enough chills.

From THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

From THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Karin Dor in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Karin Dor and Joachim Fuchsberger in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Karin Dor in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Karin Dor in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Karin Dor in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU with Nigel Green

Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Walter Rilla in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Tsai Chin and Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Karin Dor in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Karin Dor in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Tsai Chin in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Tsai Chin in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Tsai Chin in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU with Karin Dor and Deborah DeLacey

Karin Dor in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU with Karin Dor and Walter Rilla

Deborah DeLacey in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Deborah DeLacey in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU with Karin Dor and Walter Willa

Nigel Green, Howard Marion-Crawford and Joachim Fuchsberger in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Tsai Chin and Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Tsai Chin and Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Tsai Chin and Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Tsai Chin and Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Tsai Chin and Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Nigel Green in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU