User Reviews

The sixth episode of this Fu-Manchu serial opens with Joan Clarkson bargaining with the police and Nayland Smith. If they rescue her brother -- presumably the hold the evil Doctor has on her -- she will help them destroy him.

Matters go awry because, as one of the titles note, Fu Manchu is "the master of modern science". The fact that after this, the audience is shown a card table with a goldfish bowl and three or four white mice, with perhaps half a dozen small bottles such as you or I might get from a drugstore, is not intended as ironic. The fact that the film makers believed that their audience would accept this image, if only on a metaphorical level, is something for sociologists to discuss with historians. For the question of why a master of modern science apparently cannot tie a knot, as we later learn, we should turn to fiction writers.

This episode does end with an exciting race to rescue the good guys from a motor boat that Fu Manchu informs his captives is about to explode, speeding along the water. The audience is expected to accept this. They almost certainly did. I will assume that arranging the bomb involved tying no knots.

Karamenah, the slave girl, promises that Fu Manchu shall be given into Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie's hands if only they will save her brother, Aziz. She leads the two men in company with Weymouth to the Chinaman's haunt, forces them to carry out her brother and then shows them Fu Manchu, asleep, at the same time begging them not to enter his room. The three adventurers promptly disobey, with the result that they fall through a trap in the floor. Together with Karamenah, the men are bound hand and foot by dacoits, while Fu Manchu gloats. As the police enter one end of the lair, Fu Manchu lowers a glass wall that traps them in a room where large fungi are growing on the walls. The fungi throw off large spores, which poison the trapped police right in front of their three bound comrades. Reinforcements arrive, and Fu Manchu bundles his bound prisoners on a launch, preparing to make his way down the Thames to freedom. The boat is outfitted with a bomb on a time fuse. The evil doctor is about to kill Karamenah when Weymouth breaks loose and begins to struggle with Fu Manchu; both men fall over into the water. The captives are rescued by a police boat before Fu Manchu's bomb can explode. Weymouth, leaving the mandarin to drown, is picked up, but the Chinaman is safely washed ashore. (Screening 3/6/2004 at Cinefest Film Festival, Syracuse NY)

One of the earliest surviving films to introduce Dr. Fu Manchu (played here by Harry Agar Lyons) to moviegoers, this two-reeler was the sixth in a series of 15 and was based a short story. Unlike U.S. serials, these were not cliffhangers, but each short was self-contained. Packed with plot, action and danger - highlights included a trap door that led to a cave lined with `killer fungi.' We even get to see the cave, divided by a glass wall, where our heroes (Fred Paul & Frank Wilson) are forced to watch their fellow police officers, writhe and suffer as the fungi release their poisonous spores! Thank god for film festivals like this one that make rare films like this available and the folks who provide comments to IMDB for others to share. Please support the IMDB and early film festivals!

In this, the sixth episode of the silent serial The Mystery of Dr. Fu Manchu, Karamaneh begs Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie to rescue her younger brother, Aziz, who is trapped in her captive's home. So along they go with Inspector Weymouth...This was the most exciting ep of of this serial so far, even without a music score playing as I just witnessed on YouTube. I don't want to reveal anything else so I'll just say I highly recommend The Fungi Cellars.