SPOILER DISCUSSION: Episode 1309, The Million Eyes of Sumuru

Outside of being a bit campy in spots, it didn’t really read as much of a comedy to me.

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My major problem with George Nader, besides the fact that every script they ever handed him was dreck: the dude forever has the vibe of a sidekick miscast as a leading man. He doesn’t have the presence or substance to lead anything or anyone. It’s as if you took one of those tiny end tables with three spindly legs, and parked a Rodin bronze on top of it. Of course the stand is gonna’ creak and fall over! What did you expect?! :roll_eyes:

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George Nader: The spindly comedy vase table of acting!

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For me the acronym skit gave me Good Morning Vietnam flashbacks:

Very good riffing overall. My one gripe was them just making noises when Nader and Hyde-White were walking back and forth. Should have gone with:

They don’t know which way they are going.
It’s a metaphor for the entire movie.

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One of my observations watching it and riffing along was this:
George Nader, the poor man’s Robert Culp.

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On the second watch-through, I picked up that we open with Dr. Kabahl (TMFFTF) dropping show notes - of course, Kabahl’s in the neighborhood and packing leverage. Max had just about burned down Moon 1 at the end of the last episode, and somebody evidently picked up the check for some quick repairs. :bulb:

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Harry Alan Towers made 7 movies based on Sax Rohmer’s books. Five Fu Manchu movies (of which Castle was the last and two Sumuru movies (The Girl From Rio is the sequel to this one). As stated above, the racism in Fu Manchu got to be too much of a problem, so Rohmer switched over to sexism (while still including a bit of racism).

As far as I can tell, the plot of this one is that Sumuru is trying to take over the world by having her sexy agents seduce powerful men and then become the power behind the throne. But, being mere women, they are vulnerable to manly charms. Despite the training sessions impassively watching one of their own kill a man. Sumuru has all her agents in place except one. President Boun has proved to be too much of a womanizer for any agent to tie him down. (She shows a picture of him with a woman on one arm, while turning around to check out another woman walking in the other direction. Tom: He’s memeing!) So she’s decided to have him killed. Then she can presumably subvert the successor and everything will be ready for the next phase of the operation.

George Nader is sent to stop her. He’s a CIA agent on vacation, but apparently the only man for the job. For better or for worse, his only skill is that he’s somehow irresistible to women.

Backing him up is Frankie Avalon, who doesn’t do much. He seems to be George’s gadabout friend, but it turns out he’s secretly a British spy who’s been posing as an American this whole time. This in no way affects the plot. Such as it is.

The whole thing is a ridiculous romp, and excellent riffing fodder, and the MST crew rips right into it.

The acronym host segment is a definite highlight.

Excellent revisit of a very old MST movie.

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Oh, I also want to say that I really like seeing the writers in the post-event livestream and getting to know the hidden faces of MST3K a bit more.

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I missed that Frankie was actually a British spy all along. But I did doze off for a bit near the end…

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Yes, that was cool. And I love the little side-by-side Season 0 vs Season 13 clip. We’ve come a long way.

But, also: You know, aside from the movie revolving around a white actor playing a vaguely Asian villain with a needlessly complicated and incomprehensible plot for world domination, who can only be thwarted by a bland Western spy with no particular set of skills, you’d never really know that it’s from the same guys who brought you Fu Manchu.

Ha, yeah. At the end, Frankie shows up and has an aside with the British spymaster who’s been acting as George’s liaison and the plot twist is revealed that Frankie is a British agent. They then lampshade the fact that Frankie doesn’t have anything like a British accent by having him complain about having had to maintain “this awful American accent this whole time.” And that’s about it.

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A bit…?

Shirley Eaton is practically in yellowface. Also, how many Asian characters meet their maker in this “romp” while Our Heroes don’t even get winged. (Do they? I’ve already forgotten.)

A dilemma for the ages would be if Rohmer and Towers both came to speak at my college graduation ceremony but I only had one piece of rotten fruit to throw. :thinking:

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Strung up and whipped, which of course is another whole thing. :unamused: Otherwise, no.

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I assumed Sumuru had been Chinese in the books, and we got lucky that they didn’t bother putting Shirley in yellowface. But I’ve never read any of his books so I don’t know.

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I wonder if the original cut even bothers to clarify who Sacrificial Bikini Secretary was in love with before they got rid of her. Was it her very slow-on-the-uptake boss who knows her death wasn’t accidental but still blithely waltzes alone in the dark to his own demise? Was it one of those seventeen dead sons? A random cabdriver she met on a shopping trip? Bah!

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I didn’t miss it. I thought he was being cheeky. I guess he was serious?

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I guess we just ride the movie all the way to the end of the line and assume it’s George Nader. :woman_shrugging:t2:

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No wonder she didn’t try all that hard to save herself. :roll_eyes:

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I thouht that too, and I think, since for me it always helps to be familiar with the pre-riffed movie, in this case any Mystie worth his salt is familiar with the movie through the KTMA episode, that may be a big part of it.

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I guess I’m not worth my salt.

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I knew it existed thanks to the KTMA episode.

Me either. I’ve owned the KTMA episode on DVD for probably 15+ years and never watched it.

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