Mystery Science Theater 3000: THE MILLION EYES OF SU-MURU

September 8, 2022 2:01 AM - Season 13, Episode 9

"She Rules a Palace of Pleasure ...for WOMEN! the most DIABOLICAL... BIZARRE... SADISTIC WOMAN WHO EVER LIVED!" Evil lady woman Su-Muru girlingly tries to take over the world with her nefarious army of maiden damsels. The character was created by Sax Rohmer and the movie produced by Harry Alan Towers, both of whom also responsible for Fu Manchu, so you probably should load up on coffee before attempting this one. If you're casting a Sax Rohmer movie about one of his standard megalomaniac characters, would you pick Frankie Avalon? These people did. Premiered September 2, 2022, on the Gizmoplex.

Episode 1309 THE MILLION EYES OF SU-MURU

Rotten Tomatoes (Critics N/A, Viewers 13%) - Wikipedia
IMDB (1967, 3.5 stars)
Directed by Lindsay Shonteff. Written by Kevin Kavanagh and Harry Alan Towers, based on the original character by Sax Rohmer. Starring Frankie Avalon, George Nader, and Shirley Eaton.
"Sumuru is a beautiful but evil woman who plans world domination by having her sexy all-female army eliminate male leaders and replace them with her female agents."

If it sounds familiar (Ardy's canine friend Bonesy thinks it does), it's because it's been riffed before, both by Rifftrax and by MST3K themselves in the KTMA era. It's the first movie from the KTMA era that MST has returned to since the early cable seasons.

For more on the character in the books and serial, you might appreciate this page from the Wayback Machine. In this movie, which reworks the premise into a clone of the James Bond films, her man-hating is subverted by infatuation for the secret agent lead.

posted by JHarris (5 comments total)

"Sumuru is a beautiful but evil woman who plans world domination by having her sexy all-female army eliminate male leaders and replace them with her female agents."

...and...that's...a problem, why?
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:09 AM on September 8, 2022

It also has Wilfrid Hyde-White and Klaus Kinski (playing someone named President B----*). Might have to watch this.

*which is apparently a very offensive term used to disparage natives of New Guinea, and therefore blocked by MeFi. TIL.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:29 AM on September 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

Producer Harry Alan Towers might be a familiar name for MST fans as he produced and/or wrote some MST3K favourites (Castle of Fu Manchu, Shape of Things to Come, Outlaw of Gor). There's also a sequel to this directed by Jess Franco, usually called Girl From Rio which isn't as entertaining as the first film but if you like Eurotrash it has its charms (Rifftrax did that one).
posted by Ashwagandha at 10:30 AM on September 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

MST Club is Thursday nights beginning at 7 PM ET (with the episode beginning at 9, if you just want to come by for that). It happens a https://cytu.be/r/Metafilter_MST3KClub. Our motto is "no stress": if we're showing something you want to see, come on by! If not, give it a pass, we won't be offended! We aren't here to put more responsibilities on your (or our!) shoulders. See you if you want to drop by!
posted by JHarris at 4:05 PM on September 8, 2022

This is one of the two movies from this season that I had seen before, and it took me a while to remember why I had seen it before
posted by ckape at 7:13 PM on September 8, 2022