THE MYSTERY OF DR. FU MANCHU (1923) SILENT FILM SERIAL

THE MYSTERY OF DR. FU MANCHU (1923) – One of the earliest, if not THE earliest, big screen adaptations of Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu novels, which launched in 1913. The tales depicted the brilliant Chinese figure Dr. Fu Manchu at most plotting global domination but most often uniting many Far Eastern races against White Colonial nations to drive them out of Asia.  

Yes, these stories have quite a bit wrong with them given their bigoted, unfair caricatures of Chinese people and other Asians. Personally, I would never expose children to them as they require adult minds to sort through ugly wording and concepts. 

However, I feel that people who try to completely wipe out Rohmer’s popular series of novels are being short-sighted. In a lot of ways, Rohmer was – through the voice of Fu Manchu – inadvertently spelling out many valid reasons for Asian resentment of outside nations. In the zeitgeist of the author’s era, however, Fu Manchu was a clear-cut villain. 

Here in the 21st Century, though, the undeniably entertaining (in a Pulpish way) stories of Great Britain’s Sir Denis Nayland-Smith and his team’s efforts to thwart Fu Manchu could be presented with much more finesse. If anything, the people who argue for never again adapting Rohmer’s works for the big or small screen are passing up an opportunity to have a compelling fictional villain grandly make many of their own arguments against colonial abuses.

Properly handled, Fu Manchu could have the popular appeal of ostensible villains like Killmonger or Magneto in Marvel movies to use the most obvious recent examples from pop culture. Both of those figures have large followings as “sympathetic villains” because their arguments and justifications for their actions are very engaging. 

Though the Fu Manchu novels are placed in the Yellow Peril category, many people ignore – or never knew – that there are also numerous stories in a category called White Peril. Such tales were written by Asian authors and depicted white-skinned villains as one-dimensionally evil as any from Yellow Peril works.

In fact, the Fu Manchu stories stand out from similar pulp fiction through the mutual respect between the title villain and the aforementioned Sir Denis Nayland-Smith. This is true especially when it comes to Dr. Fu Manchu’s intellect. Nayland-Smith frankly admits “I am a child striving to cope with a mental giant.”

Throughout the novels it is made clear that Fu Manchu has his own inviolable sense of honor and decorum. At the end of one of the stories Fu sends a gift and good wishes to the newly married Shan Greville, one of Sir Denis’ allies, and his bride. And this after his latest master plan has just been thwarted by Nayland-Smith, Greville and their colleague Dr. Petrie.

THE MYSTERY OF DR. FU MANCHU (1923)

EPISODE I: THE SCENTED ENVELOPES – This particular silent film serial did not feature the usual format of each episode ending in a cliffhanger. Instead, each episode was self-contained with the only continuation coming in the overall premise of Sir Denis, Dr. Petrie and others opposing the insidious Dr. Fu Manchu.

        Episode I here has not survived, but from outside materials we know that it depicted Fu Manchu using specially cultivated giant centipedes to assassinate British, French and Russian politicians who had caught on to the existence of Fu’s elaborate network. And its plans against the West.

EPISODE II: THE WEST CASE – Harry Agar Lyons continued in the role of Fu Manchu. This 34-minute episode presented the template for many of the criminal mastermind’s future plans in all media. He uses a beautiful woman, in this case Karamaneh, as a honeypot to entice a brilliant inventor so he can obtain the man’s latest device. Then opium dependency strengthens Fu’s hold on the inventor.

EPISODE III: THE CLUE OF THE PIGTAIL – Only the first 12 minutes of this installment have survived. Nayland-Smith (Fred Paul), Dr. Petrie (Humberston Wright) and Inspector Weymouth (Frank Wilson) take action when a detective who was investigating Fu Manchu’s activities turns up dead in the Thames.

        The dead man is wearing a bald wig with pigtail attached and has had three of his fingers cut off. Our heroes try to find the dead man’s journal about his investigation but Fu’s female agent Karamaneh (Joan Clarkson) beats them to it and destroys the pertinent pages. 

EPISODE IV: THE CALL OF SIVA – While trying to rescue the prominent Graham Guthrie from one of Fu Manchu’s Si-Fan assassins, Nayland-Smith and Dr. Petrie get captured by the villain. They are subjected to menaces like spiders and pythons and the infamous Chinese Wire Jacket torture. Karamaneh is already falling for Petrie and wants to save them. 27 minutes.

EPISODE V: THE MIRACLE – Karamaneh asks Nayland-Smith, Dr. Petrie and Inspector Weymouth to save her brother from further entanglement with Fu Manchu. Meanwhile, Fu uses one of his coma-inducing poisons which seem to cause death on Lord Sotherly. 34 minutes.   

EPISODE VI: THE FUNGI CELLARS – This 27-minute episode is one of my favorites. Karamaneh at last makes it clear to our heroes that her brother Aziz is the hold that Fu Manchu has over her and if they save him she will betray the villain into their hands.

        She accompanies Sir Denis, Petrie and Weymouth to Fu’s hideout, where they save Aziz but when the three men try to corral the seemingly sleeping villain they fall through a trapdoor. Fu’s Dacoits tie them up and when police reinforcements try saving them, those cops are killed by Fu’s giant mushrooms and their deadly spores.   

        This time, Fu Manchu and his men try to use our heroic trio as hostages to help their escape down the Thames and toward the open sea. The good guys get the upper hand, so Fu ignites the fuse on a bomb that will destroy the boat and all on it.

        Amid fighting, our heroes escape, the boat blows up and we see that Fu Manchu alone of the villains has survived and escapes.

EPISODE VII: THE KNOCKING ON THE DOOR – Inspector Weymouth goes mad from a chemical that Fu Manchu used on him during the climactic boat battle last time around. He is placed under care and his brother James takes over the family home in the meantime. Karamaneh and her brother Aziz hide at a hotel but Fu and his men track them down. 36 minutes. 

EPISODE VIII: THE CRY OF THE NIGHTHAWK – Dr. Petrie follows a mysterious old woman who may be Fu Manchu in disguise. Elsewhere, Fu’s latest victims die when scratched by his trained cats with poisoned claws. And up next to die – Nayland-Smith. 29 minutes.

EPISODE IX: AARON’S ROD – Much of this 28-minute episode is missing, but it is known that it involved another assassination pulled off by Fu Manchu and his men, plus a relic which is supposedly a powerful rod once wielded by Moses’ brother Aaron.

EPISODE X: THE FIERY HAND – When two servants at a supposedly haunted house called the Gables die of fright, the recovered Inspector Weymouth suspects Fu Manchu is involved. He enlists Sir Denis and Dr. Petrie in a probe of the Gables. Aziz escapes Fu Manchu’s clutches and tries to bring help before the villain can torture Karamaneh. 36 minutes.

EPISODE XI: THE MAN WITH THE LIMP – Fu Manchu is believed dead. The Si-Fan, who were an organization that Fu Manchu worked for in the early novels but commanded in most other media, use Fu’s Flower of Silence. Sir John Trevor is one of the victims of this plant which makes one mute, then dead. 33 minutes.

EPISODE XII: THE QUEEN OF HEARTS – Dr. Petrie winds up abducted by Si-Fan agents who threaten him to force him to perform life-saving surgery on the archvillain Fu Manchu himself. The femme fatale Zarmi (Julie Suedo) from the novels but not the movies features in the story. 32 minutes.

EPISODE XIII: THE SILVER BUDDHA – This episode features the title relic plus more sinister activity from Dr. Fu Manchu. Acting on his own, Dr. Petrie faces death far above the streets of London. 26 minutes. 

EPISODE XIV: THE SACRED ORDER – Nayland-Smith intensifies his mental chess match with Fu Manchu by engineering events so that the Si-Fan put a death sentence on the villain’s head. 27 minutes.

EPISODE XV: THE SHRINE OF THE SEVEN LAMPS – My fellow fans of the Sax Rohmer novels will be glad to hear that we get to see Fu Manchu’s pet marmoset Peko in this final episode of the 1923 serial. The good guys crashing a secret Si-Fan ceremony seems to end the menace of the insidious Dr. Fu Manchu. 24 minutes. 

CLICK HERE FOR MY REVIEW OF MARVEL’S LICENSED FU MANCHU SERIES TITLED MASTER OF KUNG FU. THE TITLE CHARACTER SHANG-CHI WAS FU MANCHU’S SON WHO TURNED AGAINST HIM AND HELPED FOIL HIS PLANS.