The Flying Torpedo synopsis
The aerial warfare theme, started by Walter Booth, was continued in this 1916 film called The Flying Torpedo.
Here's another Moving Picture World synopsis. -
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An eccentric novelist reads of the offer of a defense board for new weapons of defense and backs his closest friend, an inventor, in the development of a torpedo that can be controlled by wireless.
War clouds hover over the country and a band of international crooks is active in its efforts to obtain possession of the model. The crooks are finally successful after murdering the inventor by the ingenious use of asphyxiating gas. But the novelist is determined to go on with the invention. He advances money to the dead man's assistant and sets about using the methods he has described in his popular detective stories to run down the band. Aided by a Swedish servant, who is a keen admirer of his stories, the author is successful in locating the model. Before he can take it away, however, he is discovered and made prisoner. When he does not return the servant girl gives the alarm and the police rescue him and bundle the crooks off to jail.
By this time a foreign invader has landed in California, become strongly entrenched and defeats the United States forces on land and sea. The coast cities are in peril and the model flying torpedo is seized upon as a last hope. Many duplicates are made and sent to the beleaguered defenders. Then the tide changes. By wireless control and range finders the torpedoes are sent on their unerring way and the works of the foreign foe are demolished. The rout is complete.
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What I find interesting in these films is that in an era the idea of the airplane was just taking off (ouch!!) already the concept of what essentially is a guided missile had been developed.
This movie is lost according to Science Fiction in the Cinema by John Baxter.
Footnote: There were a number of obvious typos in the MPW synopsis which I've (I hope) corrected. (Here's hoping too that I didn't introduce too many of my own!!)
written: 3/21/2004
