Fu Manchu

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Dr. Fu Manchu , also Fu Man Chu , is the main character of the eponymous novel series by Sax Rohmer and its numerous film adaptations.

Novels

Sax Rohmer wrote a total of 13 novels with Dr. Fu Man Chu as the main character. The villainous villain Fu Man Chu tries again and again to usurp world domination, which his eternal adversary, Inspector Nayland Smith of Scotland Yard , prevents every time. Fu Man Chu uses obscure methods in his murderous schemes. He despises guns and bombs, but prefers Thuggees and members of other secret societies as his agents, and likes to use pythons , cobras , poison mushrooms or bacilli . The action mostly takes place in exotic locations.

The novels were written between 1913 and 1959 in the following order:

  • 1913: The Mystery of Dr. Fu Manchu / The Insidious of Dr. Fu Manchu
  • 1916: The Devil Doctor / The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu
  • 1917: The Si-Fan Mysteries / The Hand of Dr. Fu Manchu
  • 1931: The Daughter of Fu Manchu
  • 1932: The Mask of Fu Manchu
  • 1933: Fu Manchu's Bride (The Bride of Fu Manchu)
  • 1934: The Trail of Fu Manchu
  • 1936: President Fu Manchu
  • 1939: The Drums of Fu Manchu
  • 1941: The Island of Fu Manchu
  • 1948: Shadow of Fu Manchu
  • 1957: Re-Enter Fu Manchu
  • 1959: Emperor Fu Manchu

Film adaptations

Fu Man Chu actor Christopher Lee

The novels were well suited for film adaptations. Between 1921 and 1932 there was a first series of films about Dr. Fu Man Chu. The villain's first cast member was Warner Oland (who later went on to become even more famous than detective Charlie Chan ), who starred him in three early talkies: The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu (1929), The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu (1930) and Daughter of the Dragon (1931). Boris Karloff then played the character in The Mask of Fu-Manchu in 1932 . A cinema series also picked up the character in Drums of Fu Manchu in the 1940s and a short-lived television series called The Adventures of Fu Manchu followed in the mid-1950s .

After the death of Sax Rohmers, Fu Manchu was revived in the 1960s in numerous films of very different quality in Ich, Dr. Fu Man Chu (1965), The 13 female slaves of Dr. Fu Man Chu (1966), The Revenge of Dr. Fu Man Chu (1967), The Kiss of Death of Dr. Fu Man Chu (1968) and The Torture Chamber of Dr. Fu Man Chu (1969), all starring Christopher Lee as the main character, Tsai Chin as his daughter Lin Tang and Howard Marion-Crawford as Dr. Petrie, the friend of his opponent Nayland Smith. These films were all produced by Harry Alan Towers , who also wrote the scripts. Peter Sellers took on this role in 1980 as one of his last engagements before he suddenly passed away. In 2008, Fu Man Chu was played by Nicolas Cage in Rob Zombie's trailer for the fictional film Werewolf Women of the SS , which was created as part of Quentin Tarantino's and Robert Rodriguez film project Grindhouse .

Movies

Other uses of the name

  • The magician David Bamberg used the stage name Fu Manchu from 1929 until his death in 1974. In the 1940s he made six Mexican films as a character of the same name.
  • The stoner rock band " Fu Manchu " was named after the character Dr. Fu Man Chu.
  • The German rapper Johannes Schroth appears under the stage name Fumanschu .
  • In the radio play series Professor van Dusen , the amateur criminologist van Dusen competes in a radio play and the corresponding comic adaptation against "Doctor Tschu Man Fu", whose name and character are deliberately very similar to Fu Manchu.
  • In Dr. Mabuse, the player uses Dr. Mabuse this name as a code word in a hypnosis session.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Note on the comic adaptation Professor van Dusen, Volume 6 , accessed on April 1, 2018