Summary
Moonlit Atlantic breakers hiss against a granite fang when a periscope knifes the foam; from the briny iris emerges Craig Kennedy, father of a stolen super-torpedo, dripping secrecy as though the ocean itself were leaking classified ink. He vanishes again—yet not before slipping Elaine a laconic note: whatever thunder rolls, do not mourn. In the gas-lattice of Manhattan, a suave foreigner named Marcius Del Mar glides through hotel lobbies like a panther in white spats; behind him shuffles a seemingly senile stalker whose tweed camouflages a gas-bulleted revolver. Between these two predators prowls Elaine—her dog, half terrier-half providence, excavates the miniature infernal engine from a pot of palms and drags it to an attic crypt, leaving only its whirring propeller as bait. Betrayal hisses through the conservatory vents; guns rise like black tulips; a narcotic cloud swallows villain and heroine alike while the fisherman-cum-sleuth dissolves into night, his exit a sleight-of-hand worthy of Prospero.
Synopsis
Episode 1: "The Lost Torpedo" Craig Kennedy's marvelous invention, a super-force torpedo to revolutionize warfare, has been stolen. Kennedy himself has disappeared, although Elaine has a note from him begging her not to grieve whatever happens, for he is safe. And then, one night, on a barren strip of land jutting out into the Atlantic, a fisherman, concealed behind a rock, sees the periscope of a submarine rise; sees a man's head and shoulders rise seemingly out of the sea, and sees a pair of athletic arms strike out bravely for the shore. That night, at a hotel in New York, a distinguished-looking foreigner, much resembling the man who seemed to rise up out of the sea, is shadowed by a fussy old gentleman resembling the fisherman of the coast scenes. The foreigner goes out and the fussy old gentleman goes to his room, where, after a short, sharp struggle with a valet, he searches through all drawers and papers. One paper he pockets with glee, and then departs. Elaine and Jameson are visited by the distinguished-looking foreigner who tells them he is a secret service agent from Washington, and begs to get information with regard to Kennedy and the lost torpedo. Elaine's dog, digging with its forepaws in a pot of palms, unearths the lost torpedo and carries it to the attic, where he drops it behind a trunk. The torpedo's propeller, however, has been left in the palm-pot. where Marcius Del Mar, the foreigner, finds it. Elaine is suspected by him of having concealed the torpedo. The fussy old gentleman, in Del Mar's tracks since he left his rooms, is an interested spectator. He is unaware that Del Mar has spies guarding the house, and is set upon by them. Rushing madly into the conservatory, he faces Del Mar. Both draw their guns, but the fussy old gentleman fires first. His gun is loaded with bullets containing an overpowering gas. Both Del Mar and Elaine fall suffocated to the floor. How the fussy old gentleman escapes is a fitting climax to this episode.
Review Excerpt
"
A cobalt flash cuts the title card and we are already drowning.
Pathé’s 1915 serial The Romance of Elaine lands like a rivet in the skull: Episode 1, “The Lost Torpedo,” refuses the polite exposition of its contemporaries—no pastoral overture, no hand-holding iris-in. Instead, cinematographer George B. Seitz smashes the fourth wall with surf and steel, hurling us onto a New England shoal where moonlight rakes the Atlantic into mercury. A fisherman—our surrogate gargoyle—crouches behind salt-ch..."
