27 The Mask of Fu Manchu ( 1932 )

Based  on  the  Sax  Rohmer  novel  this  is  a wildly  un-p.c. piece  of  hokum  with  a  rather unsavoury   air to  it. Though  made  in  the  US  it  keeps  the  British  setting  with  an  expedition setting  out  from  London  for  Asia  to  find  the  mask  and  sword  of  Genghis  Khan  before  evil megalomaniac  Fu  Manchu  ( Boris  Karloff )  gets  his  hands  on  it  and  sparks  off  racial genocide. Unfortunately  he's  one  step  ahead  of  them  all  the  way  and  all  the  expedition  face  torture, death  or  both  before  the  film  is  done.

Without  looking  very  Asian,  Karloff  invests  his  Fu  Manchu  with  the  right  amount  of  chilling  menace  and  his  obvious  delight  in  devising  torture  scenarios   makes  this  a  forebear  of  the  Hostel  films.

Karen  Morley  ( as  Sheila  Barton )  

Sex : No , she's  dressed  in  a  sheer  white  dress  for  a  ceremony  but  she's  to  be  slaughtered  not raped.

Death : Survives

Karen  was  originally  Mildred  Linton  from  Iowa  and  started  her  career  standing  in  for  Greta Garbo  in  screen  tests. Her  career  ended  abruptly  in  the  forties  when  she  was  blacklisted  for not  co-operating  with  McCarthy. She  made  an  acting  comeback  in  TV  in  the  seventies. She died  in  2003  aged  93.

Myrna  Loy (  as  Fah  Lo  See  )

Sex :  Fah  is  Fu's  daughter  and  as  depraved  as  he  is. She  gets  off  on  the  whipping  of  hunky  Terry  ( Charles  Starrett )  and  then  has  him  stripped  to  just  a  loincloth  on  a  table  ( quite  a  long  scene   for  you , ladies ) . Fu's  plans  for  Terry  interrupt  her  going  any  further.

Death : ?  Unless  I  missed  something,  her  fate  is  not  shown  or  mentioned.

Myrna  ( who  looked  even  less  Oriental  than  her  screen  dad )  was  from  Montana   and  had  been  in  films  since  1925  usually  playing  exotic  beauties. Her  career  really  took  off  with  The  Thin  Man  in  1934   and  she  never  returned  to  horror  films. She  received  an  Honorary  Oscar  in  1981  and  died  in  1993  aged  88.