Episode Summaries from John Soister's soon to be published
UP FROM THE VAULTS: RARE THRILLERS FROM THE 20s & 30s. 

 The Mystery of Dr. Fu Manchu – Stoll, 10 September 1923  (Stoll reissue, 1926)

 RECURRENT CAST: Harry Agar Lyons Dr. Fu Manchu; Fred Paul Nayland Smith; Joan Clarkson Karamenah; H. Humberston Wright Dr. Petrie; Frank Wilson Inspector James Weymouth

CREDITS: Director A.E. Colby; Screenplays A.E. Colby & Frank Wilson; Based on the stories by Sax Rohmer; Photographed by D.P. Cooper & Phil Ross; Photographed at Cricklewood Studios, London; Editor H. Leslie Brittain; Art Director Walter H. Murton; All episodes 2 reels

A note on footage lengths: In cases where there are two (2) footage lengths given, the first was taken from Denis Gifford’s The British Film Catalogue 1895-1985 and the second from the prints at the British Film Institute; running times reflect the BFI footage at silent speed, although their information doesn’t indicate any hard and fast correlation between footage length and running speed.  With some exceptions, the lengths derived from the BFI are shorter and correspond to footage measurements taken from BFI archival prints.  This may reflect in some instances the absence of that “standard prologue.”  Opening expository chapter titles are printed in boldface type.

Episode 1 - The Scented Envelopes – 2400 feet

CAST: Charles Vane Sir Crichton Davey; Booth Conway Mordain; Robert English Sir John Astley

(As The Scented Envelopes is the only episode missing from the BFI’s holdings, we must turn to the 17 May 1923 number of Kinematograph Weekly for the kernel of its plotline.)

Nayland Smith, entrusted by the British and Chinese authorities in Peking with the task of bringing Dr. Fu Manchu, a master criminal, to justice, comes to London and enlists the help of his friend, Dr. Petrie.  Knowing Sir Crichton Davey to be in danger, they go to warn him, only to find that he has been mysteriously murdered.  The same night an attempt is made on Smith by means of a poisonous insect [which is attracted by the scent in those envelopes].  He kills it and realizes how Davey met his death.

Episode 2 - The West Case – 1800/1709 feet; 22 min.

CAST: Wyngold Lawrence Frank Norris West

"Frank Norris West, American inventor of the West Aero-Torpedo in which the War Office are keenly interested is staying in a flat in King’s Mansion when early one morning…” 

West phones Scotland Yard to report that his flat has been invaded by a Chinaman.  Inspector Weymouth arrives to find West has collapsed, and Smith and Petrie – whom Weymouth alerts immediately – determine that the American has been heavily drugged.  Smith knows of the Aero-Torpedo and examines the inventor’s bedroom safe, which is still locked.  Petrie sends for an antidote to the chloral hydrate pills West has taken and, upon recovering, the American – after wildly shouting “Chinamen!  Chinamen!” – opens the safe to find it empty.  West admits having gone to the Oriental Club off Piccadilly Circus, so Smith and Petrie head there.

From a private booth in the club, they notice the woman, Karamenah, pass a message to a black man nearby.  Smith and Petrie give chase, but lose the man, and they are equally unsuccessful in following Karamenah, although they overhear her instructions to the cabbie: “Lady Wimbourne… Second.”  Back at the flat, Petrie discovers that West’s pills had been laced with hashish, doubtless put there by the mysterious woman who accompanied the American home from the club the previous evening.  (It is never explicitly stated that this woman was Karamenah, however.)  West explains that Lady Wimbourne is an ocean liner, due to leave Tilbury that very day.

As they race to the docks, Smith explains his theory regarding the theft: Fu Manchu’s marmoset climbed the outside of the building holding a fishing line, attacked to a rope.  Using the secured rope, Fu Manchu and a dacoit entered West’s rooms, where the American – his mind clouded by hashish – became susceptible to Fu Manchu’s command that he open the safe.  Boarding the ship, Smith questions a Burmese man who tries to escape, having thrown his walking stick over the side.  He is quickly captured, but one of Fu Manchu’s dacoits has recovered the stick, and it is not long after that the Chinese master criminal pulls the stick’s handle to reveal the plans.

Episode 3 - The Clue of the Pigtail – 1700/1688 feet; 22 min.

CAST: Ernest Spalding Shen Yan

At a river police station, Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie view the dead body of Detective Cadby.  On the body is a pigtail attached to a bald wig.  Petrie is sent to Cadby’s lodgings and there finds Karamenah.  She asks him to save her from Fu Manchu.  Disguised, Smith and Petrie go to Shen Yan’s opium den.  Being suspected, they have to fight their way out, and in opening a door, come face to face with Fu Manchu.  They fire their revolvers, but Petrie disappears down a trap into the river.  Fu Manchu escapes, and Smith and Petrie are saved by Karamenah.

Episode 4 - The Call of Siva – 1700/1630 feet; 21 min.

CAST: Harry J. Worth Graham Guthrie

“With all the forces arrayed against him, Dr. Fu-Manchu still pursues his devilish inscrutable way.”

Karamenah overhears Fu Manchu ordering one of his dacoits to capture Nayland Smith.  Smith and Petrie, meanwhile, decide to visit Graham Guthrie, a British resident of North Bhutan currently staying at the Hotel Cecil in London, as they fear Fu Manchu will seek to prevent Guhrie’s safe return to Bhutan.  En route to the hotel, the men are captured by dacoits, bundled into a lorry, and subsequently chained up in Fu Manchu’s dungeon.  The mad mandarin threatens them with pythons, wire jackets, spiders and scorpions before revealing that Guthrie will die from the “Call of Siva” at 12:30 that very night; Smith shudders, remembering his own time in Rangoon.  Fu Manchu leaves and Karamenah arrives to free the men, who don blindfolds and are led to a riverbank.  They swear to remain blindfolded until the clock strikes.

Big Ben strikes 10:30 and the men discover they are on the River Thames by Windsor Castle.  They race for the last train to Waterloo whereon Smith explains that the victims of the “Call of Siva” would commit suicide by throwing themselves off buildings.  Rushing to the Hotel Cecil, the men warn Guthrie that if he wants to leave England alive, he must follow their every instruction.  Meanwhile, as Fu Manchu watches from Cleopatra’s Needle, one of his dacoits scampers along the hotel roof.  The dacoit hangs over the edge of the roof and makes a noise at Guthrie’s window.  Smith, armed with a revolver, leans far out the window, anchored by Guthrie and Petrie.  The dacoit lassoes him with a rope and begins to strangle him, but Smith shoots the would-be killer, who falls far to the street below.

Angered at the failed attempt, Fu Manchu returns to his lair, where he berates Karamenah and injects her with a drug. Later, in Petrie’s study, an image of Fu Manchu walks between the doctor and the adventurer, and they both shudder.

Episode 5 - The Miracle – 1712/2032 feet; 27 min.

CAST: Stacey Gaunt Lord Southery; Napier Barry Henderson; Austin Leigh Valet; Pat Royale Aziz.

Smith has compiled a list of prominent men whom he feels are in danger due to Fu Manchu and, when Lord Southery is found dead, goes to investigate.  Both Henderson (Southery’s legal advisor) and the dead man’s valet inform Smith that the nobleman died following a seizure after drinking port.  As Fu Manchu advises members of the Si-Fan that Southery will be sent on to China, where he will undertake to work for their organization, Karamenah visits Smith and Petrie to ask their help in attending to her younger brother, Aziz, who is deathly ill.

Concealed in a corner of an opulent room in Fu Manchu’s lair, the men watch as the evil genius injects the boy – who appears as if dead – with the contents of a certain bottle.  Aziz is immediately restored to consciousness.  Karamenah passes the bottle to Petrie, who escapes and – together with Smith – uses the mysterious liquid to restore “life” to Southery.  Fu Manchu and his dacoits are too late to prevent the nobleman’s recovery, and they flee, along with Karamenah.  Smith discovers that Southery’s valet - a minion of Fu Manchu - had poisoned the port, but the man takes poison and eludes the hangman.

Episode 6 - The Fungi Cellars – 1630/1607 feet; 21 min.

CAST: Pat Royale Aziz

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.

Episode 7 - The Knocking on the Door – 2228/2179 feet; 29 min.

CAST: W.G. Saunders James Weymouth, Pat Royale Aziz

“In a struggle on a motor launch, Fu-Manchu and Inspector Weymouth fell overboard.  So far no trace of them has been found.”

At Maple Cottage – Inspector Weymouth’s home – Nayland Smith, Dr. Petrie & Karamenah console James Weymouth, the inspector’s brother.  In his struggles with Fu Manchu, it appears that the inspector was poisoned by a needle intended for Karamenah and is now behaving as though mad.  What’s more, James relates how the inspector’s wife wakes up every morning at 2:00am to the sound of a knocking at the door.  Instructing James to keep them informed, the three – plus Karamenah’s brother, Aziz – make for Madame Tussaud’s waxworks.  Aziz comes across a wax figure that frightens him, and he tells the others he has just seen Fu Manchu!  The figure – that of a bearded gentleman – leaves the building and Smith et al follow him; the man is Professor Jenner Monde.  Petrie escorts Karamenah and Aziz to their hotel room – which is under police guard – and returns to Smith’s digs, where they are visited by James Weymouth.  He, too, has heard the knocking on the door, followed by fiendish laughter!  Petrie and Smith accompany the inspector’s brother back to Maple Cottage.

Meanwhile, Karamenah, Aziz, and the police guard leave for Petrie’s house, as the young woman has received a message supposedly from Petrie advising her that she is in danger.  Karamenah’s taxi is attacked by dacoits, and she is once again in Fu Manchu’s power.  At Maple Cottage, petrie is upset by a vision of Fu Manchu in both a clock and his cigarette case.  The knocking at the door reveals Inspector Weymouth, now completely insane.  As Weymouth is restrained, word comes to Smith that Jenner Monde has been apprehended.  Racing to London, Smith unmasks Monde as Fu Manchu.  The men work out a deal whereby Fu Manchu agrees to return Weymouth’s sanity, but in a spot where his methods may not be observed.  Bringing everyone together in a deserted cottage on a desolate heath, the evil genius does as he has promised.  Weymouth emerges from the cottage, sane and with a note in hand.  Before the police can storm the cottage, however, there is a tremendous explosion.  Later, Smith reads the note: “I am called by once who may not be deceived.  Out of fire I came – into fire I go.  Search not my ashes as I am lord of the fire!  Fu-Manchu!

Episode 8 - The Cry of the Nighthawk – 1773/1767 feet; 25 min.

CAST: Harold Cundell Forsyth

Nayland Smith believes that Fu Manchu is behind the mysterious death of a man from the Forest Hill area, whose face is covered with scratches.  Intending to kill Smith that very night, Fu Manchu checks on the sleeping Karamenah (who, following a good flogging, is back in his power) and readies a black cat, whose talons have been coated with a fast-acting poison.  Back at his surgery, Petrie readies himself to attend to Forsyth, a late- arriving patient.  Everyone – Forsyth, Petrie and the just-arrived Smith and Inspector Weymouth – is drawn to a tree bathed in light, outside the surgery.  Forsyth runs to investigate, but a dacoit in the tree, uttering a cry like a nighthawk, drops the cat onto Forsyth’s raised face.  As the dacoit escapes, Forsyth stumbles across the street and dies at Petrie’s feet, the unfortunate victim of an assassination attempt on Nayland Smith.

The next morning Smith - armed with milk, fish and a trowel -  heads off to find Fu Manchu.  While boarding a tram, Petrie notes a suspicious old woman, whom he follows into a field, where she is setting a trap.  The old woman is Karamenah, whose bruised and bloody back explains her temporary allegiance to Fu Manchu.  Dropping her sack and belongings, the scarred young woman makes her escape.  Not long thereafter, Petrie comes upon Smith on an island in a lake.  Smith wades onto the shore, explaining that he has buried something with deadly claws, and then chastises Petrie for allowing Karamenah to go free.

That evening the tree is again covered with light.  Smith and Petrie carefully make their way over to it, and Smith shoots the dacoit he sees in its branches.  Smith explains that the nighthawk cry made the victim look up, and the poisoned claws of the cat did the rest.  They leave the scene.  Fu Manchu, angered that he has again been foiled, appears – and then disappears – in front of the tree.

Episode 9 - Aaron’s Rod – 1862 feet (BFI holds only Reel 1 – 689 feet; 12 min.)

CAST: Percy Standing Abel Slattin; Bob Vallis Busker

(Reel one of Aaron’s Rod is missing from the BFI holdings; at present, I have been unable to discover its contents anywhere.  The following is the plot summary of reel two.)

Smith, Petrie and Weymouth are at the house of Abel Slattin, who has been killed in a mysterious manner.  Fu Manchu, with an unwilling Karamenah at his feet, has a servant flogged when he fails to bring the mad mandarin the authentic “Aaron’s Rod,” a walking stick with a serpent’s head for a handle.  The servant is sent to retrieve the genuine article.  Weymouth phones Smith – who is at his flat, pondering Slattin’s death – to inform him that someone broke into the victim’s house and then made good his escape.  Smith returns to the house, determined to catch the burglar if and when he returns to the scene.

Fu Manchu’s servant does indeed return – through a skylight – but he is overpowered by Smith and rendered unconscious by Petrie, who is wielding Aaron’s Rod, which he has taken from a nearby rack.  Smith examines the Rod and has Petrie look at the other stick, still in the rack.  Petrie does so and exclaims that the rod is alive: the serpent’s head is moving!  As Smith explains how Slattin was killed, a flashback shows the unfortunate man being bitten by the snake.

Episode 10 - The Fiery Hand – 2174/2223 feet; 29 min.

CAST: Pat Royale Aziz

Smith and Petrie are asked by Inspector Weymouth to investigate the mysterious deaths of two previous tenants at “The Gables”; both have apparently been frightened to death! Disguised as two professors of the occult, the men plan on spending the night in the reportedly haunted house.  Left alone, Petrie is nearly scared out of his wits by the tinkling of invisible bells, the opening and shutting of doors without human agency, and the appearance of a naked arm whose fiery hand clutches a dagger.  Explaining away the phenomena, Smith reveals that he believes the house to be another den of Fu Manchu!  The men decide to investigate a studio on the grounds also.

Back in London, Aziz, a young boy, asks the pair to rescue his sister, Karamenah, from Fu Manchu, and in a flashback describes how she was captured by Fu Manchu in the desert. Leaving the boy with a police sergeant, the men disguise themselves, enter the studio, and find Karamenah.  She warns them to leave; they ignore the warning and fall into a trap in the studio cellars.  Fu Manchu prepares to torture Smith with ravenous Cantonese rats, while Petrie, who has been bound hand and foot by dacoits, has the means to spare his friend a horrible death by using “The Friend’s Sword.”  Petrie is about to kill Smith when Karamenah creeps onto the scene and shoots Fu Manchu.  The three make good their escape; it is later reported that the Mandarin’s body could not be recovered because the cellars had collapsed.

Episode 11 - The Man with the Limp – 2000/1988 feet; 26 min.

CAST: Julie Suedo Zarmi; Roy Raymond Sgt. Fletcher

“Dr. Petrie has engaged a suite of rooms in the New Louvre Hotel for Nayland Smith who has been sent for Sir John Trevor, late British ambassador at Pekin.”

Waiting for Smith, Petrie hears a noise in the hall and investigates, but fails to see the man with the limp who has made the noise.  Although Fu Manchu is presumed dead, Smith fears for Sir John’s life, and the nobleman’s valet, Beeton, leads Smith to his master, who is delirious and unable to speak.  Sir John writes a note – “Guard box!  Beware man with limp.  Beware Si Fan!” – and the men rush into the other room in time to prevent Zarmi from making off with the box.  She escapes, but Petrie discovers flowers in Sir John’s bedclothes.  Smith has the his friend wash his hands at once, explaining that those were “Flowers of Silence” that first cause a loss of speech and then death.  The men take turns standing watch over Sir John.  Petrie hears the limping man, and then rescues the slumbering Smith from a light fixture – outfitted with a flower of silence - that has been lowered by his face.

The next day, Inspector Weymouth and Sergeant Fletcher inform Smith that the Joy-Shop Club is run by a man with a limp, and Smith decides to visit.  He first intends to bring via taxi Sir John’s box to a bank vault for safe storage; he never makes it to the bank, as Zarmi had been driving the taxi.  Petrie alerts Weymouth, and then the doctor – now in disguise – and Fletcher head to the Joy-Shop Club.  While police reinforcements wait outside the club, the men enter, where they are greeted by Zarmi.  After a man with a limp passes through the club, Zarmi has the two men move a large crate, which – they are convinced – holds the body of Nayland Smith.  Moving the crate outside, the men signal for the police, while Zarmi, the man with the limp and a dacoit make their escape on a launch.  The club is raided, Nayland Smith is rescued and the crate is found to contain both the treasure of the Si-Fan and Sir John Trevor’s box.  Smith reveals that the man with the limp was Fu Manchu.   

Episode 12 - The Queen of Hearts – 1750/1918 feet; 25 min.

CAST: D. Bland Logan; Julie Suedo Zarmi; Fred Raynham Sir Baldwin Frazer; Madge Royce the Negress

Petrie is awakened by Smith and informed that renowned surgeon, Sir Baldwin Frazer, has disappeared.  With Inspector Weymouth, the men interview Logan, Frazer’s secretary. Logan recounts how a mysterious woman has implored the surgeon to go off with her to examine her sick mother.  Suspicious, Logan had made contact with Scotland Yard. Smith and Weymouth scout the London streets, while Petrie is instructed to wait at the hotel. Tired of waiting, Petrie goes out and sees Zarmi, a female member of the Si-Fan.  Following her into the countryside via taxicab, Petrie is set upon by toughs in the employ of Fu Manchu and hidden in a barrow of laundry in charge of a Negress.

Smith and Weymouth worry about Petrie, who shortly thereafter returns in a dazed condition.  In a flashback, he tells them how he was taken to a house where Sir Baldwin was being held prisoner.  Fu Manchu, limping and with a contorted face, explains that due to a bullet wound he suffers from partial paralysis; he wants Baldwin Frazer to operate and Petrie to act as anesthetist.  Both doctors refuse initially, but then agree when Karamenah is threatened.  After the operation, both men are released: Frazer with a sizable fee, but Petrie has had to draw the high card to determine his fate, and the Queen of Hearts was the ticket for him. 

Episode 13 - The Silver Buddha – 1570/1583 feet; 21 min.

CAST: E. Lewis Waller Salaman

On the lookout for Dr. Fu Manchu, Smith and Petrie wander about near the British Museum. Smith enters the museum, and Petrie heads down into an antique shop on Museum Street where he browses among the artifacts. About to leave, Petrie spots Karamenah; he re-enters the shop and, in an effort to avoid suspicion, inquires about a silver Buddha.  The salesman prevaricates, so Petrie knocks him cold.  Pressing a panel behind the Buddha, he is confronted by Fu Manchu.

The evil Mandarin reveals that he plans to make Petrie one of his experimental chemists.  Left alone by Fu Manchu, Petrie is released by Karamenah.  In order to safeguard the girl, Petrie ties her up and escapes by swinging on the hook of a crane that is positioned near the window.  Fu Manchu shoots at the fleeing man – but misses – and orders that the antique shop be abandoned on the spot.  Petrie heads by taxi to Scotland Yard, where Smith and Inspector Neymouth order a raid on the Museum Street premises.  They arrive too late, though; Fu Manchu has escaped again.

Episode 14 - The Sacred Order – 1700/1843 feet; 24 min.

CAST: Percy Clarbour Inspector Wills; Laurie Leslie Dacoit;  H. Manning Mandarin

A servant of Fu Manchu arrives at Smith and Petrie’s digs and offers to hand over Fu Manchu, but only one of the pair of adventurers may accompany him.  As proof of his intentions, the servant shows Smith the “Sacred Order,” a document promising that all doors will be opened for Sir Denis.  Smith agrees to go, but he slips the Order from its box and gives it to Petrie, returning the box to the servant.  They go and nothing is heard of Nayland Smith from that point on.  Inspector Weymouth raids one of Fu Manchu’s lairs, but Smith is not being held there. 

 Anxious about his friend, Petrie takes a taxi to the docks; leaving the Sacred Order in the care of the driver, Petrie explores the docks.  While walking through some tunnels, he is grabbed by dacoits and imprisoned alongside Smith.  Meanwhile, a furious Fu Manchu, having discovered the Sacred Order to be missing, attacks his servant.  Back in the cell, Petrie awakens and releases Smith, although he puts the chains back on Smith and feigns unconsciousness when he hears someone approaching.  Karamenah enters with a servant who ties up Petrie.  When they leave, Smith frees himself from the unlocked chains and unties his friend. 

In making their escape, the men overhear Fu Manchu being threatened for having lost the Sacred Order, a circumstance regarded as sacrilegious.  As they look to flee via a trap door used by a dacoit, the men are warned by Karamenah not to do so, but to follow her.  Hesitating, the adventurers are captured once again.  Taken to Fu Manchu, Smith strikes a bargain: they will return the Sacred Order to Fu Manchu in exchange for their freedom and safe passage.  Fu Manchu agrees, Petrie retrieves the document from the taxi driver, and he and Nayland Smith are set free.

Episode 15 - The Shrine of the Seven Lamps – 1672/1689 feet; 22 min.

CAST: Roy Raymond Sgt. Fletcher

En route to London, Petrie shares a compartment with a mysterious woman who causes him to dream of Fu Manchu.  On the way to meet Smith, the doctor sees the Mandarin’s pet marmoset; he follows the animal into a house and, from a veiled doorway, witnesses a Si-Fan ceremony.  Among the gang is a disguised Nayland Smith; outside, Weymouth and the police prepare to raid the Si-Fan headquarters.  The lady from the train enters, and Smith gives the signal for the raid.  Fu Manchu seeks to escape but is cornered by Petrie.  The villain offers to barter Karamenah for his own safety.  Petrie agrees, but is instead locked up with Karamenah as the Mandarin prepares to escape anew.  He is shot by Smith.

A reception is held in Peking in honor of the gallant detective and his colleagues.  After Smith is decorated, Petrie asks for the hand of Karamenah, who has so often helped the men in their struggles against Fu Manchu.  

"Based on the well-known stories by Sax Rohmer, these two-reelers afford average entertainment, judging from the four episodes screened.  Produced in serial form – although each episode is more or less complete in itself – they lack the ‘punch’ of the ordinary serial, and are rather on the slow side. The mixture of the Oriental atmosphere with ordinary Western life gives them a certain glamour, and if they are handled properly, they ought to go well." -- Kinematograph Weekly 17 May 1923

 The Further Mysteries of Dr. Fu Manchu – Stoll - 7 August 1924

RECURRENT CAST: Harry Agar Lyons Dr. Fu Manchu; Fred Paul Nayland Smith; H. Humberston Wright Dr. Petrie; Frank Wilson Inspector James Weymouth; Dorinea Shirley Karamenah

CREDITS: Director Fred Paul; Screenplays Fred Paul; Based on the stories by Sax Rohmer; Photographed by Frank Canham; Art Director Walter H. Murton; All episodes 2 reels

Episode 1 - The Midnight Summons – 1791 feet

The dead body of Fu Manchu is stolen from a mortuary by his followers, and in a short time, Nayland Smith learns in Burmah [sic] that the notorious doctor is still alive.  He recognizes Karamenah, Fu Manchu’s unwilling slave, who, having married Dr. Petrie, has been re-kidnapped by the Chinaman, and is now wandering through Burmah during a lapse of memory.

Episode 2 – The Coughing Horror – 1775/1871 feet

CAST: Fred Morgan Antonio Strozza; Johnny Butt Farmer; Harry Rignold Coughing Horror; Henry Wilson Dacoit

Smith and Petrie are captured by Fu Manchu, but Smith saves one of Fu Manchu’s victims, Antonio Strozza, and before long all are rescued by the police.

Strozza hides out at his cousin’s farm, but he is awakened nightly by the “Coughing Horror,” an ape-like creature looking to throttle him.  Strozza’s cousin goes to Smith and Petrie for help, and the men return to the farm, concealed in a wagonload of baskets.  As the Horror attacks Strozza that very night, Smith and Petrie battle it with such determination that the creature’s arm is torn out at the socket.  Wounded, the Horror rejoins Fu Manchu; tragically, Strozza is found dead, with the Coughing Horror’s hand still at his throat. 

Episode 3 – Cragmire Tower – 2040/1714 feet

CAST: George Foley Hagar; Rolfe Leslie Kegan Van Roon/Ki Ming

Smith and Petrie are decoyed to Cragmire Tower by the mysterious Kegan Van Roon.  As it devolves that Van Roon is really Fu Manchu associate, Ki Ming, the two men narrowly escape with their lives.

Episode 4 – The Green Mist – 1734 feet

Hurrying back to England, Nayland Smith assists in the rescue of a clergyman who is being tortured by Fu Manchu.  He is nearly suffocated by a poison gas with which Fu Manchu endeavors to destroy Sir Lionel Barton, an Egyptologist.

Episode 5 – The Café L’Egypte – 2270 feet

Episode 6 – The Golden Pomegranates – 2100/2094 feet

CAST: Julie Suedo Zarmi; Fred Hearn Waiter

Smith and Petrie get their hands on Fu Manchu’s Tulum Nur Chest.  Together with Karamenah, they take the chest to their hotel where, during the night, a would-be thief tries to force it open; he collapses and dies, screaming: “Golden pomegranates!”  Running out for help, Karamenah is nearly captured by Zarmi, but she is rescued by Inspector Weymouth.  The men force open the chest and find that the pomegranates within conceal the poisoned lance that killed the thief.  Karamenah agrees to bring them to Fu Manchu’s haunts.  While she, Petrie and the police wait outside, Smith – disguised as a drunken seaman – enters, but he’s quickly spotted by Fu Manchu, himself in disguise.

Shortly thereafter, as a funeral procession passes by, Petrie and the police raid the place.  Outside, Karamenah is spotted by dacoits, who make off with her.  Nothing of Smith can be found, except for his pipe, but Petrie remembers the funeral procession and deduces that it was his partner who was in the casket.  Meanwhile, in the cellar, Fu Manchu gloats over Smith, who’s stretched out on the floor, and Karamenah, imprisoned in a mummy case.   The Mad Mandarin releases snakes and rats into the cellar, but Smith and the girl are rescued by Petrie and the police, who have forced one of Fu Manchu’s accomplices to reveal their whereabouts.  Fu Manchu, however, makes his getaway.

Episode 7 – Karamenah – 2366 feet

Episode 8 – Greywater Park – 2390 feet

Copyright © 2003 John Soister -- Used with permission