The fourth and final Fu Manchu broadcast was a one-time presentation. THE MOLLE MYSTERY THEATER was an anthology series, aired over a decade under different titles. The program featured the best in mystery and detective stories, all adaptations of short stories, stage plays and novels by such stalwarts as Raymond Chandler, Jack London, W.W. Jacobs, Rufus King, and Craig Rice. On Tuesday, October 3, 1944, from 9 to 9:30 p.m., EST, the 1913 novel, The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu was dramatized, originating from NBC studios in New York. The program was narrated by Roc Rogers and selected by Geoffrey Barnes (the on-the-air pseudonym of Bernard Lenrow, who had recently played Doc Savage, Man of Bronze, in a series that ended in June of 1943). Jack Miller supplied the music. A few publications and web-sites incorrectly list this episode with an August 1944 broadcast date. However, the October date is official; it originates from the original script held at NBC Studios in New York, where the MOLLE scripts are housed.
Will Dr. Fu Manchu ever return to the radio airwaves? Well, Sherlock Holmes does to this day, so we can only hope . . .
Closing notes: This article originally appeared in the thirty-ninth issue of Scarlet Street, © 2000. Reprinted with permission and courtesy of the editors of Scarlet Street, and the author. You can visit the magazine's web-site and subscribe to their quarterly mystery nostalgia magazine at: www.scarletstreet.com.
According to Gordon Payton (a.k.a. "The Sci-Fi Guy”), In 1945, Sax Rohmer wrote a series of eight radio plays for the BBC. Fu Manchu was a bit too politically incorrect for the BBC, in light of England's large Asian population, and they liked to avoid criticism from any quarter, so Sax created for them a character named Sumuru, who, in effect, was a female Fu Manchu. Described as "a glamorous witch of totally untraceable nationality, heading an international crime organization which employed strange and bizarre devices.” This aired from December 30, 1945 to February 17, 1946. No copies survive, but Rohmer later wrote a series of five books based on his BBC plays.
email me: