Summary
In a vertiginous prologue of crackling nitrate and sulfurous smoke, Carl Ranke—Tarentine tinkerer, mercury-in-the-veins visionary—distills from alembics and insomnia a detonation so nimble it makes TNT resemble gunpowder. The Italian brass, nostrils flared at the whiff of imperial possibility, whisk the formula to a marble hall where chandeliers tremble like dowagers. There, amid champagne cadenzas, Ranke’s gaze snags on Sylvia Colonna, her father’s epaulettes glinting like guillotines. Midnight trysts bloom; shadows congeal into Captain Otto Senza, double-agent in wolf-gray uniform, who spirits the inventor to Fort B2—a stone carbuncle on the Adriatic—where tides count down the seconds. Between thumbscrew torchlight and the dog-kennel heartbeat of his loyal mastiff, Ranke teeters on the lip of annihilation, formula locked behind clenched molars. A single match, a lurch of paws, a ricochet: the spy plummets through the trapdoor meant for his prey. Sylvia, imprisoned opposite, witnesses what she believes is Ranke’s immolation; her scream braids with surf and fog. Escapes, chases, trains derailed over viaducts, semaphore love letters across no-man’s-land: the film hurtles until, on a dawn-drenched quay, two silhouettes merge before a tricolor flag—wedding bells swallowed by distant cannon that now speak Italian because one man refused to speak Austrian.
Synopsis
Carl Ranke, an Italian inventor, after a series of dangerous experiments, discovers a new high explosive which, after being tested by the Italian Government, gives them the assurance necessary to enter the great conflict. At the reception given by His Highness, Ranke falls in love with the daughter of Colonel Colonna, and in keeping an appointment with her is kidnapped by the Austrian spy. Captain Otto Senza, who is serving in the Italian Army. He is imprisoned in the little magazine Fort B2 and is given the choice of revealing his secret of the formula or death, but he, game to the last minute, though death is staring him in the face, prefers to sacrifice his life rather than betray his country. He is saved from the very jaws of death by his faithful dog, and the despicable Austrian meets the death intended for his captive. Sylvia tries to save him but only succeeds in getting into the toils of the spy and sees from her cell window, as she thinks, the death of her lover. After a series of adventures, Ranke succeeds in getting back to his own country just in time to marry the girl who has been faithful to him, in her heart, all through his trying experiences.
