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A princesss (Mine Mutlu) is in town, and with her she carries a
priceless crown - which she handles rather negligent though, like keeping
it on her bedstand over night instead of locking it away. Mandrake the
Magician (Güven Erte) is in town as well, and even though they seem to
meet each other on the wrong foot at first, they almost immediately feel
drawn to each other, too. So to break the ice, Mandrake steals the
princess's crown, but leaves a signed note on her bedstand where to find
it. On the next day though, when the princess comes fetching the crown, it
is gone. Killing the supercriminal in skeletondisguise has stolen it
from Mandrake's bedstand that night, after not having found it on the
princess's bedstand. However, he has also left a signed note on the
bedstand, just so Mandrake will not have too much difficulties coming
after him. Mandrakle of course accepts the challenge. Killing, it should
be noted here, is not only a crown thief, he also runs a white slavery
ring, loves to torture women, and loves to be whipped (?). However, one of
the girls he has captured to become part of his white slavery ring
escapes. Sure, he manages to catch up with her and run her over in his
car, but before she dies, she is found by Mandrake and his black sidekick
Abdullah, and with her dying breath, she gives away Killing's address.
Mandrake and Abdullah arrive at Killing's place, clobber all of his
henchmen, but are ultimately captured, tied up and whipped. But when
nobody's looking, Mandrake replaces himself and Abdullah with their
torturers, then fetches the crown from Killing's safe (which is of course
no challenge for a magician) and turns Killing into a dog for a day. Killing
of course isn't one to give up the princess's crown easily, so he next
kidnaps the princess - much to the dismay of his female companions, one of
whom even threatens to shoot him. He is however stupid enough to drag her
to his place, so Mandrake already knows where to look for him. So Mandrake
and Abdullah magically steal two motorbikes, race to Killing's place
(while doing a few totally pointless stunts on their motorbikes), beat the
living shit out of everybody on site (except the princess of course), then
get hold of Killing - just when the police arrives to arrest everyone ... With
copyright laws as lax as in Turkey during the late 1960's, it was probably
inevitable that Lee Falk's comicbook magician Mandrake would
meet Italian photonovel supercriminal Killing (well, maybe
not inevitable, but you catch my drift). The concept sounds like lots of
fun in a pulpy way, the result however is only mildly amusing and sure as
hell falls short of expectations. Basically, there is too little
excitement in this film, it's way too formulaic, and the formula is too
easily recognizable to create much interest, and it's simplistic even for
a formula movie. On top of that, all of the characters are given too
little space to develop, even when assuming that both Mandrake
and Killing were popular in Turkey in the late 1960's. Plus
Mandrake's magic is used in a very unimaginative way, mainly for comic
effect or when the story is hitting a dead end. That black Abdullah is
played by a man in blackface doing a bad impression of "the funny
black guy" might look like a racial insult today, but that's probably
a sign of the changing times and mores. In all, not a good film even by
Turkish pulp standards ... but probably one that every fan of Turkish pulp
cinema will want to see anyways, and I can't blame them. And in fact,
there are worse pieces of Turkish pulp out there ...
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