The Aerial Anarchists | |
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Directed by | Walter R. Booth |
Produced by | Charles Urban |
Distributed by | Kineto Film |
Release date |
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Running time | 15 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Languages | Silent film English intertitles |
The Aerial Anarchists is a 1911 British silent science fiction film directed by Walter R. Booth. It is the third and final film in Booth's science fiction series seeking to present a picture of futuristic aerial warfare. [1] Aerial Anarchists followed on from Aerial Torpedo and Aerial Submarine and is the first real science fiction series made in the United Kingdom. The story focuses on an attack against London by a fleet of airships from an unknown country. [N 1]
There is currently no known surviving footage of this film and all information is based upon the original catalog synopsis from Kineto Film Studios. The film contains scenes of a bombing and its aftermath throughout London. Sequences such as the bombing of St. Paul's Cathedral and a railway disaster in which a train is seen to leap into a chasm, feature prominently. [3]
Airships provide the "engine of destruction" in The Aerial Anarchists. [4] The Kineto Film Catalogue describes the film as "This thrilling and amazing film depicts with far more realism than could be conveyed by the pen of the imaginative novelist, the horrors of warfare upon society if carried on by means of the latest development of mechanics - Aviation.
The picture is a series of thrills from beginning to end, but the most extraordinary and vivid incidents are the bombardment of St. Paul's Cathedral from an Aeroplane and a Railway Accident, in which a train leaps into a chasm.
These exciting scenes are so magnificent and realistically staged that they will fill audiences with amazement and mystification." [2]
Aviation film historian Michael Paris in From the Wright Brothers to Top Gun: Aviation, Nationalism, and Popular Cinema (1995) described the connection of The Aerial Anarchists to the novels of Jules Verne. "Clearly the paradox that while the flying machine could be a powerful agent of civilization and progress, in the wrong hands, it could also be a terrifying engine of destruction which would change the whole nature of warfare." [5]
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1902:
This is a list of aviation-related events during the 19th century :
Charles Urban was a German-American film producer and distributor, and one of the most significant figures in British cinema before the First World War. He was a pioneer of the documentary, educational, propaganda and scientific film, as well as being the producer of the world's first successful motion picture colour system.
This Man's Navy is a 1945 World War II film about U.S. Navy blimps directed by William A. Wellman and starring Wallace Beery, Tom Drake, Jan Clayton and James Gleason. The supporting cast features Selena Royle and Beery's brother Noah Beery Sr., and presents a rare opportunity to see both Beery brothers work together in their later years. The picture is also one of the very few films, other than training films, to depict U.S. Navy airship operations.
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Hartmann the Anarchist or The Doom of the Great City is a science fiction novel by Edward Douglas Fawcett first published in 1893. It remained out of print for over 100 years and has only recently been re-published.
Walter Robert Booth was a British magician and early pioneer of British film. Collaborating with Robert W. Paul and then Charles Urban mostly on "trick" films, he pioneered techniques that led to what has been described as the first British animated film, The Hand of the Artist (1906). Booth is also notable for making the earliest film adaptation of A Christmas Carol with the silent film Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost (1901).
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The Airship, or 100 Years Hence is an American adventure comedy-drama silent short film written, produced and directed by J. Stuart Blackton. The film stars Blackton and Florence Lawrence. It was released on April 25, 1908 by The American Vitagraph Company; a partial print of The Airship, or 100 Years Hence is preserved in the Paper Print Collection. The Airship, or 100 Years Hence advertised that it would be "a forecast of a probable means of air navigation in the coming century."
The Twentieth Century Tramp; or, Happy Hooligan and His Airship is an American silent short film produced and directed by Edwin S. Porter and released in 1902. This film is an adaptation of the cartoon Happy Hooligan, played by J. Stuart Blackton.
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