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Lieutenant Lilly and the Sploge of Opium

The intrepid Lt Lilly is called upon to quell a Chinese Boxer rebellion in a spoof adventure serial.

Comedy 1913 11 mins Silent

Overview

This agreeably daft comedy pokes fun at popular adventure serials of the early 1910s. Our (inevitably) dashing and intrepid hero learns of a Chinese rebellion and flies to rescue his distressed love, Dolores, from some very unconvincing Chinese. The association of the Chinese with drugs and vice was a feature of the same 'Yellow Peril' moral panics that gave rise to Sax Rohmer's Fu-Manchu.

Filmed for the Hepworth Company by Hay Plumb, the film was made very quickly on a very modest budget - and wasn't ashamed to show it. But its knowing swipe at more serious adventurers such as Lieutenant Rose (who took on some Chinese pirates in one episode - inevitably played, as here, by white actors in make-up) and Lieutenant Daring would strike a chord with audiences. The era's most prolific parodist, Fred Evans (aka Pimple), released a number of similar spoofs under the guise of Lt Pimple.