The Call of Siva

In the dastardly clutches of evil Dr Fu-Manchu, Nayland Smith and Petrie are threatened with pythons, spiders and the ghastly ‘wire jacket’ torture

This fast-paced caper, based on Sax Rohmer’s first Fu-Manchu novel, The Mystery of Dr Fu-Manchu (1913), features precious location footage of the River Thames at Windsor, Cleopatra’s Needle and Waterloo Station. Aided by Fu-Manchu's long-suffering slave girl Karamaneh, Nayland Smith and Dr Petrie must unravel the eerie secret of the Call of Siva, a strange midnight cry that drives men to suicide.

Though the action in this episode supposedly takes place in the middle of the night, film stocks that would register low levels of light were not yet available - so the scenes were filmed in broad daylight. On original release prints, relevant sequences were often tinted with dark coloured dye to create a nocturnal effect.