Chandu the Magician

 
Director: Marcel Varnel.; William Cameron Menzies
Year: 1932
Rating: 7.5
The film opens up inside a Hindi temple of worshippers with an American man (Edmund Lowe) being ordained by the head Yogi. He has been trained to have mental powers in which he can hypnotize groups of men simply with his eyes. He puts on a show of his powers as he levitates a rope and has a boy climb it and then disappear and he walks through fire  - but it is all illusory. He has hypnotized all the followers. This is Chandu and I was initially disappointed because I was expecting Bela Lugosi to be Chandu the Magician. If I had been in a theater I would have asked for my money back. I want Lugosi. Wait, I would have been told. The head Yogi takes Chandu to a crystal ball and says to him you now have to go out into the world and conquer evil. There is death and destruction rising from the brain of a madman. Ah, that is more like it. Lugosi as a madman in Alexandria with plans to conquer the world. Looking so chic in his black shirt and pants like a Russian Commissar. A fever springing from his eyes. Of destroying cities. The thought excites him. He revels in it. He is Roxor.





Lugosi was coming off his huge success as Dracula and Murders in the Rue Morgue for Universal - already being nearly typecast into horror - but he makes this for Fox and it is one of his finest roles. He just dominates every scene he is in and Lowe is like a dead fish when compared to him. This film looks so good - amazing set designs - great use of models and imagination. All the temples, lairs, curving corridors  and the death ray with bolts of lightening flickering and buzzing are fabulous - but lots of small touches too such as what looks to be an ancient Egyptian statue coming to life. Or the prison cell in which people are being held having the floor slowly dip down in the middle pulling everything into a hole falling hundreds of feet down into the Nile. This is thanks to William Cameron Menzies, one of the great set designers of the time but given co-director credit on this one. This is based on a popular radio show for primarily children and I guess this film is too with its packed plot and constant adventures - a serial all squashed into 70 minutes - but the look of the film will wow any adult.




So Chandu goes out into the world - Have Crystal Ball will Travel as he brings along his own smaller model that allows him to see distances and into minds - the smart phone of its time. He has seen through it that his brother-in-law and his sister and their two children are in Alexandria - and the brother-in-law is building a death ray. He even calls it a death ray. And no one seems to ask him, Robert why are you building a death ray? It is like he is building a better mouse trap. But he is a good guy. Who just happens to be building a death ray that can destroy a city half a world away. We all need to have a hobby.



Needless to say Roxor hears about this and thinks - hmmm I could use one of those and sets his devious plans in motion. Kidnap Robert and torture him in how to use it and when that doesn't work kidnap his Lolita like daughter and sell her in a slave auction in her teddy. Kids, look away. How did June Long not become a star. Or at least the teddy.  Oh, she married a mobster named Johnny Roselli who helped run Vegas for the Chicago mob, helped the CIA in trying to kill Fidel and was later found stuffed into  50-gallon drum. That probably didn't help.




This film doesn't have a minute in which something is not going on. It even brings in one of my favorite comic relief character actors in Englishman Herbert Mundin who makes me laugh just by running in fear. Irene Ware plays the love interest Princess Nadji of Chandu - think what you could do being able to hypnotize anyone with a glance. This is another one of my DVDs that has sat on my shelf for years - and it is great. There was a sequel of sorts two years later called The Return of Chandu - but it is a 12 episode serial and in one version has been reduced to an hour film - but the serial is up on YouTube - but is a strange flip - Lugosi is Chandu!