7.2 /10 1 Votes7.2
Genre Adventure Original language(s) English Final episode date 26 November 1956 Number of episodes 13 | 7.3/10 IMDb Country of origin United States First episode date 3 September 1956 Number of seasons 1 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Directed by Franklin AdreonWilliam Witney Starring Glen GordonLester MatthewsClark Howat Similar The Spike Jones Show, Fractured Flickers, Frontier Doctor, The Adventures of Jim Bo, Family Classics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Adventures of Dr. Fu Manchu is a syndicated American television series that aired in 1956. The show was produced by Hollywood Television Service, a subsidiary of Republic Pictures.
Contents
Background
Early in the 1950s, an NBC pilot starring Cedric Hardwicke was made, but the sponsors were disappointed in the scripts, and the TV series never materialized.
In 1955, Republic Pictures paid US$4 million to Sax Rohmer and announced they would film 78 episodes, but only 13 were made following a protracted court battle over the rights between Rohmer and the producers.
Production
Each episode would start off with Fu Manchu and Nayland Smith playing a game of chess with the narrator telling us, "Black and white. Life and death. Good and evil. Two sides of a chess game. Two forces of the universe, one magnificent, the other sinister. It is said the Devil plays for men's souls. So does Dr. Fu Manchu, Satan himself, evil incarnate." At the end of each episode, after Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie had foiled Fu Manchu's latest fiendish scheme, Fu Manchu would be seen breaking a black chess piece as the closing credits rolled.
The series was directed by noted serial director Franklin Adreon as well as William Witney. Unlike the Holmes/Watson type relationship of the films, the series featured Smith as a law enforcement official and Petrie as a staff member of the Surgeon General.
The series was similar in some ways to a serial but each episode ended in a resolution rather than a cliffhanger. Republic sent out a film crew to Hong Kong to shoot background footage and supplied stock footage from its library of films.
Feature films
Several of the episodes were put together into feature films that were released in Germany.