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Turtles in Movies
 
Curse of the Yellow Snake (1963) (Der Fluch der gelben Schlange)
 
Spoiler Alert !

Some of these pictures and descriptions may give away plot details that you might not want to know before watching the film.
 
Turtle Screen Shot Turtle Screen Shot Turtle Screen Shot
Turtle Screen Shot Turtle Screen Shot Turtle Screen Shot
This German flim (a "krimi" or crime thriller) is based on a 1926 novel by Edgar Wallace, a prolific and very popular British thriller writer of that time. If you can get past the shameless racism, the movie is interesting for its crazy camerawork, including whip pans and circling camera shots, its film noir-style with lots of darkness and shadows, and its weird electronic background music. There is an interesting snake scene, and there's also a scene with a man and a woman who duck into a large Aquarium building to hide from a man who is following them. They stand in front of large glass tanks containing sea turtles and other sea creatures. I've seen scenes like this with sea turtles in the background in The Lady From Shanghai (1947,) The Lineup (1958,) and Arabesque (1966) which is why I wanted to include it on this list.

In literature and movies of Wallace's era racist Asian people were often depicted as villains, especially in American silent movies. This 1963 film also depicts that era's racism. The plot involves a fanatical cult of Chinese people bent on dominating the world, led by Fing-Su, who claims to have four million slaves who will follow his orders. Fing-su is played by a European actor in "yellow face" makeup. The cult believes that whoever posesses a golden statuette of a snake on the Day of the Dragon will win any battle he begins that day. So they do whatever they can to get the snake, including murder. Fing-su is the mixed-race half brother of the movie's hero, Clifford.

Clifford travels to London from Hong Kong to meet a woman his stepfather arranged for him to marry, for financial reasons, but he ends up falling for her younger sister, Joan. The two are walking when Clifford notices a Chinese man following them, so he quickly brings Joan into the Aquarium. There they stand in front of large glass tanks with sea turtles in them. The Chinese man enters and Clifford goes off to deal with him while Joan waits with the turtles.