Summary
A cocky young drifter, George Rockwell, spies June Elliott sun-drenched on a dusty highway and stakes a carnal claim: she will be his bride. Her misanthropic father, Professor Elliott—whose eyebrows bristle with the static of unloved genius—has the upstart flung into the gravel. George, bruised but unbeaten, thwarts a midnight garrote by the Professor’s reptilian cousin Murdock, thus earning a grudging invitation to the domed laboratory where a cobalt cylinder promises to ignite the ionosphere itself. Betrothal champagne has barely fizzed when a stolen biplane, piloted by Murdock’s co-conspirator Dr. Santro, spirits the lovers across jade Himalayan sky to a wind-scoured Tibetan plateau. There, in a cedar box vented by a single cruel aperture, they starve within sight of unreachable tsampa while a giggling sentinel trains a rifle on the splintered wood. A flinty stone, palmed earlier like a talisman, becomes key and shrapnel; George ruptures their pine coffin and drags June into a bruised dawn of hoof-beats and sandstorms. Back home the Professor’s fire-ray—part Tesla daydream, part Luciferian tantrum—attracts carrion: Murdock and Santro loot the schematics, torch the prairie, and reduce months of sleepless calculus to blackened stubble. A rooftop dogfight, a torpedo accidentally armed by June’s trembling glove, a mid-air theft of blueprints fluttering like albino butterflies, and a final duel inside a corrugated hangar culminate in Murdock’s half-sincere repentance and Santro’s vanishing act through a trapdoor of smoke. The lovers tumble from a crippled wing into a canopy of poplars, lungs singing with sap and cordite, while somewhere above them Santro’s plane dissolves into a silver thorn on the horizon.
Synopsis
George Rockwell is young and adventurous. He meets June, a beautiful young girl on the road and decides she will be his wife. But Professor Elliott, June's father, has him thrown out the door. George does not give up and saves the Professor from his cousin Murdock, who was trying to kill him. On the day of their engagement, George and June are abducted on a plane which takes them to Tibet. Dr. Santro, Murdoch's accomplice is the culprit. He and his wife Tharen leave the two in the hands of angry Tibetans. The two lovers are locked into a box with only a tiny hole in it through which they can see some food that is out of their reach. As if that wasn't enough suffering, one of the abductor decides to shoot them through the box. George miraculously opens the box with a rock he had picked up before. As he tries to capture two horses, June is taken away in the desert by a Tibetan. George follows the traces left by his horse and rescues June in time. They fly back to Professor Elliott's. He is perfecting an invention: a fire ray which Murdock and Santro try to steal, thus setting a fire in the country. After several attacks, the Professor wants to send his daughter safely to New York with George. But Murdock follows them. George protects the building where they are staying but oversees the rooftop, where Santro attacks with a plane. Santro, Murdock et Tharen steal the Professor's plans, fly back to his lab, and destroy his invention. George and a police inspector Tinguett launch a search for the plane. As they find it, they surprise Santro and Murdock having a fight during which Santro pushes Murdock into a tank. When he realizes George and the police are on his tracks, he takes the plans and escapes on his plane. June catches the plane in time, grabs the plans and throws them out the window. Santro takes her to her father's lab but she is once again rescued by George. Santro is arrested but as his wife Tharen appears, he requests to have a talk with her and uses the opportunity to disappear. George and June, aroused by curiosity, board his plane but Santro who was hiding in it, starts the engine. June accidentally triggers a torpedo stuck under the wings. George manages to untie it before it explodes. George and June fall from the plane onto a plantation of trees. Santro disappears in his plane. George and June soon recover from the fall. Upon his return at the lab, George is surprised to find Murdock there who says he is a reformed man. One month after that, Murdock and Elliott have rebuilt the device and the professor invites other scientist for a few experiments. That night June and George announce their marriage. But Santro tries to launch rockets on the lab. Murdock activates the fire ray on the plane which bursts into flames.
Review Excerpt
"
Imagine, if you can, a nickelodeon cathedral lit only by the projector’s carbon arc: dust spirals like galaxies, the pianist hammers out a galloping tarantella, and on the flickering sheet a boy with Clark Gable ears swears he’ll lasso the moon for a girl whose lipstick predates Technicolor. That boy is George Rockwell—half carnival barker, half Icarus— and the moon he covets is June Elliott, an heiress whose gaze already contains the storms of exile. Their courtship is a pocket-war: slammed do..."
