Genre: Thriller, Spy
Director: Lindsay Shonteff
Starring: Shirley Eaton, George Nader, Frankie Avalon
MST Season: KTMA
The Movie
*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*
Many might be familiar with Sax Rohmer's infamous villain creation Fu Manchu, though fewer might be familiar with another series of novels he wrote with another antagonist named Sumuru. Sumuru is basically Fu Manchu again, only sexist instead of racist. To the surprise of nobody, the producers of the 60's Fu Manchu films starring Christopher Lee also decided to bring Sumuru to the big screen, with less yellowface and more bare skin.
Sumuru is a lady criminal mastermind with an army of women at her disposal. Her master plan is to sees her agents to marry the leaders of the world and murder them. However her plans are threatened by a pair of smarmy and horny agents from America. Their misadventures continuously come to a head (pun intended? I don't even know anymore) as these guys make love and kick ass all the way to Sumuru herself.
In the more sexually liberated world of the 1960's, spy films of the era were shameless about utilizing women who used their curves as a weapon to distract from their own deviousness and, more importantly, sell tickets to men, because bad girls were hot. The Million Eyes of Sumuru is something of a inevitable peak of that, as all women featured are dangerous, shapely, and very ready, willing, and able to show off their bodies.
Million Eyes of Sumuru isn't unentertaining, as there is a very primal 60's pop entertainment value at play (and, let's face it, the mostly female cast is hard for any male to resist). It's a bit problematic in that it pretends to be about female liberation and empowerment, yet as the plot moves forward we see Sumuru's plans thwarted by women in their army who seemingly just discovered their lust of male body parts, and turn on their master simply out of desire for the male leads in the film. In the end we get a movie that clearly thinks its feminist but feminist in a way that still has men dominating women.
Of course, if you want to deep dive into those themes you can argue the film is anti-Sapphic as well. If you think about it, the film is about a large group of alienated women who only trust each other and don't wish to be associated with men, while being subservient to their queen dominatrix Sumuru. If that doesn't scream lesbian undertones, I don't know what does. Not to mention a fear of homosexuality in general, as these women are inherently evil. Then going back to the men of the film turning the women through sex, one can definitely say the ultimate message of the film is that all that's needed to turn a gay girl straight is the male member.
The movie's humor can be a bit of a double edged sword too. The main characters have so many wisecracks and are so unphased by the violence happening around them that they almost border on parody. This isn't exactly a James Bond-ian suave one-liner type of dynamic that's in play (though it might be intended) as they see people they've interacted with moments before get killed and even crack jokes at their expense, which is weird and tacky. This movie might even have been intended to be seen as a parody because of this, as there is a certain argument that can be made for its off-center tone. I don't think it quite works in either direction, because it just winds up offputting.
But, if you're into 60's adventure flicks, Million Eyes of Sumuru has its pleasures. Action is abound, and intrigue is in play for a while. I'm charmed by the idea of the girl power premise, even if it doesn't quite deliver on that. If someone were to debug the idea of a femme fatale spy organization seeking world dominance and make it less problematic this could be a fun idea for a franchise, but as is Sumuru doesn't hit the mark. I kind of liked it, though I probably would never be interested in watching it again.
Million Eyes of Sumuru was followed by a sequel several years later called The Girl from Rio. There is a Rifftrax for this movie, as well as Sumuru, so there's an easy way for fans to double feature these flicks without having to watch them straight.
The Episode
Joel is reeled in by the Mads after spending a week in space. How did he survive? By holding his breath. I like the cavalier dismissal of science fact this series has, knowing it's a stupid puppet show so why bother? Of course Joel can survive naked in outer space. It makes sense in cartoon logic, so it makes sense here. Servo even asks him more directly how he breathed in space, to which Joel just sings the theme song to him, "Just repeat to yourself it's just a show, I should really just relax." Also, the little model shot of a toy Joel floating around the SOL is adorable.
Like my unwritten rule of the KTMA's states, the episode usually depends on how watchable the movie is. And Million Eyes of Sumuru is far from unwatchable, and I daresay kind of fun. I can easily see this episode being someone's favorite of the season based on their personal film tastes. Like say if you're a fan of Secret Agent Super Dragon or Diabolik, this movie will be up your alley. The riffing may make or break it though, as Josh's Tom Servo is the unquestionable highlight of the episode. He's overzealous with the improv comedy. Perhaps too overzealous, but he shoots a lot at this movie. For example, he makes a Subaru comment early on, then ponders it for a few seconds before just blurting out "The Million Headlights of Subaru." That's pretty funny. He also has a great exchange with Trace's Crow at one point:
"This is a B film."
"More like a T&A film."
"Terrible & Awful?"
"Exactly."
But Servo has to leave the theater at the halfway point to "bake some brownies," leaving Joel and Crow to riff the rest of it by their lonesome. The dynamic is a bit too laid back during the last two theater segments, and it's really missing the energy of Servo. The rest of the episode just has a big hole in it, and while it's hardly anybody's fault (Josh likely had a commitment preventing him from filming the second half of the movie), the episode does suffer.
Servo is around for the host segments, which see him and Crow getting reprimanded for locking Joel out of the ship during Time of the Apes. There is also a court parody that largely goes nowhere, while the concluding segment features Joel moving Servo's beak for him while they talk about the fan club, which is peculiar. I'm curious if maybe there was a puppet malfunction that they're covering for, but if so, the segment is so barebones that they could have easily written Servo out of it if need be. Interestingly, you can see Servo's head fly off as soon as they cut to end credits, probably because they want to repair it ASAP.
The Million Eyes of Sumuru is half an infectiously fun episode of the KTMA season, but it hits a lull just as Josh ducks out. It's a shame, because the movie is fun and is easy to work with, but in the end we have an episode that just drifts off. Luckily Rifftrax re-riffed this movie, so there is a more consistent scripted version out there for those who want to seek it out.
Average
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