June 7 movie: The Mask of Fu Manchu. Good God this movie was offensive. Boris Karloff stars as Fu Manchu, who wants to steal Genghis Khan's sword, thus becoming Khan's reincarnation and conquering the world. Or something. He's got a compound full of Poe-esque torture chambers, and Myrna Loy for a sex-crazed dominatrix daughter. Also costars Lewis Stone as the leader of the explorers.
The movie is so racist that when the British explorers open the tomb of Genghis Khan and all the native workers kneel in fear in front of the remains, the whites start kicking them to make them get up. It's so racist that the whole plot is based on Fu Manchu making Genghis Khan rise again and lead his people to victory, and no one even notices that Genghis Khan and Fu Manchu are not of the same people. It's so racist that Karloff literally tells his followers to "kill the whites! Take their women!" Which now that I think about it, is just as sexist as it is racist -- according to the movie white women aren't "whites" themselves, rather possessions to be taken away from whites.
In short, watching this movie made me feel dirty.
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