“DR. FU MANCHU”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 819, 13 November 1929, Page 14

“DR. FU MANCHU”

HYPNOTISM IN REGENT THRILLER Hypnotism has an earnest student in Rowland V. Lee, motion picture director, who became intrigued by the age-old subject during the filming of his latest picture, the Paramount mysterv melodrama from the pen of Sax Rohmer, “The Mysterious Dr. Fu : Mancliu.” In the motion picture story Warner Oland, as Dr. Fu Mancliu. lias | an hypnotic power which he uses to j sway the will of Jean Arthur. Through liis research, Lee learned j that hypnotism has been discussed and j exploited since time immemorial. The i medicine men of primitive and savage tribes, tlie magicians of Egypt and Chaldea, the Hindu ascetics and many , others made use of it to enhance their personal prestige, to cure the sick, or to induce states of religious ecstasy. In “The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu.” which will show at the New Regent Theatre, starting next Saturday. a particularly thrilling Oriental mystery drama is woven around the ability of a man to weave the hypnotic spell. In accordance with Lee’s theory that anything illogical is out of place in a picture of this kind, a careful, searching analysis of hypnotic influence was necessary. The facts uncovered bear out the plot of “The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu.”