In between making two Fu Manchu movies together, Sharp and Christopher Lee took on the self-made man that was Grigori Rasputin, with the actor relishing the character’s intensity and contradictions. Playing fast and loose with the historical record, the movie amps up the so-called holy man’s hypnotic powers, womanizing, heavy drinking, scheming and murder as he rises to become the power behind the throne in early 20th-century Russia. With Barbara Shelley and Joss Ackland.