Drums Of Fu Manchu (Republic Serial)
Picture: C-
Sound: C- Extras: C+ Main Chapters: B
The second longest serial Republic Pictures ever
released is Drums Of Fu Manchu (1940), which also turns out to be one of
their biggest commercial successes.
With its pre-Film Noir cinematography, 15 massive chapters, and one of
the biggest budgets in Republic serial history, this is one of the key chapter
plays. It is easily also one of the
most expensive serials ever made, period, even including Universal’s Flash
Gordon. Despite the racism attached to the politically incorrect title
character, the legacy of Fu Manchu lies in being one of the strongest
archetypes for the villains and super villains in the action/adventure films
and comic books today. Ernst Stravos
Blofeld from James Bond, The Joker from Batman, and Khan from Star
Trek all have their roots in characters like this. In the case of The Joker, having the villain
as the lead was very rare, and Fu Manchu is several decades ahead of the anti-heroes
of the mid-1960s onward in this respect.
VCI has issued the serial on two DVDs from the best
prints they could find. They are
theatrical prints, but do show their age.
On the good side, the black and white is good, with rich blacks and
decent gray scale. However, the prints
are a few generations down. Undeniably
however, they still have a good enough look to them that current black and
white printing might miss. The full
screen image works just well enough, and is likely one of the better copies of
the entire serial in tact existent.
Quality varies, as it usually does for serials and their prints,
especially in later chapters when they recycle shots from earlier chapters. Printing was not as good then.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono also shows its age,
likely sourced from old analog tracks from the print. The music offers pseudo-Asian sounds, but it is not comical in
any way. The same music is used over
and over again, however, so expect that.
Dialogue is passable, with Henry Brandon’s Fu Manchu coming across more
clearly because of his stage-like diction.
The Chinese government was never happy with the character, but with
World War II in swing, it is not trivial that a German actor is actually
embodying an Asian villain. It subtly
reflects events of the time.
Though the serial has many subplots, the main one
is a race for a religious relic that will give Fu Manchu the powers of Genghis
Khan, which surfaced again more explicitly in 1994’s feature film version of The
Shadow, but is also reminiscent of the chase in 1981’s Raiders Of The
Lost Ark. However, it remains a
mere McGuffin here, as Alfred Hitchcock would say. To set the record straight, since so many have bungled this, it
is the item everyone on screen is after, but nobody in the audience really
cares about. It is simply an item that
keeps the story moving, the chase going.
This will make for interesting comparisons to the 1932 Boris
Karloff/M-G-M B-movie whenever Warner Bros. or its current owner issue that on
DVD, as they are supposed to have the strongest common denominators story-wise.
The DVD offers a photo gallery,
biography/filmographies, a video commentary, and an exceptional booklet
entitled The History Of Fu Manchu by Eric Hoffman. The booklet is of the quality usually reserved
for Criterion DVDs, and then happens to be about key Pop Culture, so it is a
treat indeed. The print quality is also
exceptional throughout its ten pages, offering valuable info on all of Fu
Manchu’s incarnations. It could have
even gone on longer, but its purpose is to set up this serial, yet that does
not mean it stops short to push only the serial itself. This will make for quite a comparison to the
restored Christopher Lee/Fu Manchu films coming soon to DVD.
- Nicholas Sheffo
