Lee Falk created both Mandrake the Magician and The Phantom. Comic historian Don Markstein said, “Some people say Mandrake the Magician, who started in 1934, was comics’ first superhero.” Falk may have based the hero on Leon Mandrake, a real-life magician who also wore a top hat, had a thin mustache and also rocked a scarlet-lined cape. Leon Mandrake had changed his stage name to Mandrake to match the popular strip and then legally changed his real last name to Mandrake. Leon Mandrake also had a stage assistant named Narda who dressed like Mandrake’s assistant Velvet.

Mandrake had his own radio show from 1940 to 1942 and first appeared on film in 12 part serial. The King Features characters — specifically Mandrake and The Phantom — were popular in India, which led to a bootleg film in 1967, Mandrake Killing’in Peşinde.

Fellini and Michael Almereyda were both rumored to be interested in making Mandrake films and in the past few years, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Hayden Christensen and Sacha Baron Cohen were all supposed to play the magician.

In 1954, NBC had a pilot for a series that would have had Coe Norton as Mandrake and Woody Strode as Lothar. Beyond making appearances on Defenders of the Earth — he even had an action figure — and Phantom 2040, Mandrake also showed up in Popeye Meets the Man Who Hated Laughter, an animated TV movie that has Barney Google, Snuffy Smith, Blondie, Dagwood, Beetle Bailey, Flash Gordon, Hi and Lois, Little Iodine, The Phantom, Prince Valiant, Quincy, Steve Canyon, Tiger, Henry, Jiggs and Maggie and Tim Tyler, many animated for the first time ever.

That brings us to the Mandrake TV movie.

Mandrake (Anthony Herrera) and his assistants Stacy (Simone Griffeth, Annie from Death Race 2000) and Lothar (Ji-Tu Cumbuka) get into a mystery when a scientist dies during Mandrake’s Vegas act, revealing the name of Arkadian (Robert Reed). He plans on unleashing sleeper agents — or maybe someone else does, hmm? — to take over the country, but Mandrake can cast illusions using his necklace, which was taught to him by Theron (James Hong), and he’s going to put an end to this for the government agency he sometimes works for.

One of Arkadian’s scientists is played by this movie’s magic consultant, Harry Blackstone Jr., who looks more like Mandrake than Anthony Herrera. And that plane crash that kills Mandrake’s dad? It’s from the 1973 remake of Lost Horizon.

Director Harry Falk was not related to Lee. His career was mainly in TV and he was the first husband of Patty Duke. Writer Rick Husky created T.J. Hooker, Cade’s Country and S.W.A.T.

In one of my favorite Italian Western series, Gianni Garko based his portrayal of Sartana in If You Meet Sartana Pray for Your Death on Mandrake. And wow — there was even a musical play, Mandrake the Magician and the Enchantress.

You can watch this on YouTube.