Summaries

Synopsis

[Note: While this feature film has been unavailable for viewing since initial release, and exists perhaps only as a single archive copy at UCLA, the serial from which it was edited has been an ongoing staple of television, and then home video. Additionally, a complete cutting continuity for this feature is on file at the New York State Archives Film Script Collection. Using a copy of the cutting continuity, a VHS print of the serial, and a DVD recorder-editor, the original writer of this synopsis reconstructed a shot-for-shot working rough-cut of the feature on DVD, upon which this synopsis is based. --Rich Wannen, Jan. 2008]

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The world is at war. In Shanghai, China, a city under siege, U.S. Marine Lieutenants Tom Grayson (Lee Powell) and Frank Corby (Bruce Bennett) are trucked with other Marines from their transport ship to an international settlement compound and their new headquarters within. From the roof of the headquarters building, they observe air raiders bomb unarmed and trapped civilians, and return to ground level just as a woman carrying a baby runs from behind a building into a nearby square which is directly under bombardment. Tom, followed by Frank, jump the sandbag barricade around the compound, race to the square, and return with mother and baby, safe. As two Marine extras take the rescuees inside headquarters for medical assistance, the Commanding Officer orders Tom and Frank to lead a rescue detail to Lingchuria, where some American citizens are trapped.

About 2/3 of the way to Lingchuria, having crossed muddy flats and penetrated thick jungle, the party pauses to rest near a partly hidden building which is identified as a fort of guerrilla General Lu Kisan. The detail Sergeant Bennett (Harry Strang) remarks on a screaming noise, which Tom dismisses as a wild animal. Then a Corporal (Bruce Lane), about to light a cigarette, spots the hand of a dead man protruding from behind a log. Tom, examining the body, deduces it is a sentry from the Chinese fort, recently dead. Tom orders one of the Marines, Cpl. Lake (William Stahl), to take two additional men and report this find to the fort. As they leave, Sgt. Bennett remarks of the body that "there isn't a mark on him - but look at that face! Something must have scared him to death."

That is not the worst, however, for inside the fort, there are nothing but an array of unblemished corpses of men who seeming fell where they stood or slumped askew where they were seated. The only living thing is a strange, nameless, gnarled and hunchbacked man in a black suit and wide-brimmed hat (John Picorri), talking by shortwave radio to his "master", reporting on the bizarre scene in the fort and assuring him that there is "no sign of how you killed them". The "master's" voice orders this strange gnome to return to their base. But at that moment, Lake and his two men come into view and the hunchback reports this to the "master", whom, we now see, is an even eerier figure, dressed all in black with leather gloves and cloak, and a full-face masking helmet with a jagged yellow crest rising from its peak. He orders his trollish minion to deal with the approaching men. As the Marines enter the fort's courtyard, the malevolent hunchback produces a strange pistol-like device and advances from his hiding place as if to meet them.

Back with the main detail, it has been thirty minutes since Lake was dispatched, and there being no answer to a signal shot fired by Sgt. Bennett, Tom orders the rest of the detail to the fort, sensing trouble. With no answer from Lake to a verbal hail, they enter the fort and find the three men dead in the foyer. Exploring further, they find the other corpses. From the apparent suddenness and peacefulness of their deaths, Tom deduces the killing agent could not have been gas, which would have produced a "violent reaction". But Frank notices that "something does smell funny - like the odor in a power house". Another Marine, searching the body-laden dining room, remarks "everything's dead...even the flies are dead". Throughout all of this, the weirdly helmeted and dressed figure has been listening to the Marines talk, through an open microphone left by his evil accomplice, who has quitted the fort. Tom orders the other Marines to search the fort's upstairs while he, Frank and Bennett go to inspect outside the building.

Unbeknownst to the Marines, in the jungles nearby, a futuristic aircraft, resembling the 1950s Northrup "Flying Wing" with tailfins, lifts from the ground and moves menacingly through the sky toward the fort. Inside it are the helmeted figure and his hunchbacked aide, with a missile which they load into a firing tube. The order to "fire" is given and, in the jungle below, Frank and Tom hear an approaching whistling sound from the air, look up, and see a fireball rushing through the air toward the fort and exploding just above it. With the explosion, deadly bolts of lightning flash and crackle to the ground, surrounding the building in a deadly, fiery dance. Bennett runs back for the men but is struck dead in his tracks, electrocuted; and Frank is barely able to contain Tom from following in Bennett's fateful footsteps. The two Marine Lieutenants stand and watch helplessly as a reign of lightning bolts dance about the fort, exterminating everything therein.

Shortly thereafter, at the Marine headquarters in San Diego, Tom is appearing before a Court of Special Inquiry into the loss of his entire detail and the ensuing failure to carry out his original rescue mission. Tom's testimony already given, the Prosecutor-General (Frank Baker) argues that his story is "preposterous" and that the men were killed by "some natural cause" which could have been avoided but for Tom's "unwarranted curiosity" about the situation at the fort and subsequent dereliction of duty. The Prosecutor-General also pointedly remarks that Tom's father, Col. Grayson (Sam Flint), is a seated member of this Court, and sarcastically offers "hope" that he will judge his son's actions solely with military detachment.

Colonel Grayson nobly assents that he will and, the Prosecutor-General finished, Tom offers the Chairman of the Court, General White (Montagu Love), some "additional evidence", a letter just received from Lin Wing, the Lingchurian consul in San Diego, to whom, Tom had earlier noticed, Lu Kisan was writing at the time of his death. The letter is asking Tom to contact Lin Wing "immediately" as he has "information about the disaster in Lingchuria". Sensing seriousness in the letter, the Chairman places an immediate telephone call to Lin Wing (John Davidson), who responds furtively, then starts at a sound behind him before continuing, obliquely, that he wrote the letter to Tom before he "knew that knowledge of the Lightning meant death".

Lin Wing continues that he has "certain papers" which hold key information to a "monstrous plot to control whole nations", that he was "part of the plot", and that "what happened in Lingchuria is only a small demonstration of His powers". He spontaneously offers to surrender to the American authorities and tell all he knows, but there is a second sound, the lights go out, and there in the shadows stands the helmeted, caped, leatherine figure from Lingchuria, holding the pistol-device with which the hunchback went to greet Lake. Lin Wing is able to gasp "The Lightning!" - for that is how this strange spectre is known to his henchmen - but no more, as a leather-gloved hand triggers the pistol and a taserish electric arc bridges the gap from the device to Lin Wing, dropping him instantly to the floor in death.

Later, at Lin Wing's house, Tom, Frank, Col. Grayson and Gen. White watch a homicide detective (Jack Daley) examine Lin Wing's body. In his hand is found a small object shaped like a jagged lightning-bolt. Tom notices a wall safe has been opened, and, seeing ashes in Lin Wing's fireplace, suggests the important papers were burned there by Lin Wing's killer. He notes that the ashes may still contain writing which could be read with an infrared scanner, while Frank produces a small, unburned shard of paper on which the word "Rockingham" is typewritten.

Bearing as much of the ashes as were salvageable, Tom, Frank and Col. Grayson proceed to the Warfield Estate, where the butler, Benson (Forrest Taylor), ushers them inside. Having explained the recent events to scientist Ben Warfield (Hugh Sothern) and his daughter, Janet (Eleanor Stewart), Tom secures Warfield's agreement to help in the investigation and provide scientific evidence that "diabolical" machinations against the interests of the free world, involving an electrically-charged torpedo, are under way, and proof thereof will exonorate Tom with the Court of Inquiry. The group thus proceeds to Warfield's basement laboratory to subject the ashes from Lin Wing's fireplace to infrared analysis, as Benson the butler suspiciously looks on.

As Warfield prepares his infrared equipment, two sinister-looking men (Monte Montague, Ken Cooper) approach the house. Janet notices one of them peering in the lab window, and Tom and Frank, investigating outside, find themselves in pursuit of the two trespassers across Warfield's wooded land. The chase ends with Tom and one of the men struggling on a cliff above a lake, into which both tumble, Frank diving in after them to help Tom. As the three men struggle in the water, the thug in the white hat appears at the cliff's edge and begins firing his handgun, though he only succeeds in fatally shooting his own pal. As he flees, Tom and Frank gain the lake's shore with the dead man in tow, search his clothing, and find a paper referencing the sailing of freighters including the S.S. Rockingham - the same name Tom earlier had found on the paper shard at Lin Wing's house. Even as the two Marine Lieutenants deduce "something is going to happen to the Rockingham", out at sea the ship, sailing calm waters, its crew alert but relaxed, is suddenly overflown by the flying wing, then is stricken like the jungle fort with a ball of electricity which explodes into bolts of lightning which completely envelope the ship.

Newspapers quickly report the ensuing disaster at sea, and a radio commentator expands that the ship had carried a gold shipment which has disappeared. The Prosecutor-General asks Tom to again explain his theory of the electric torpedo, then authorizes him to join his father at the Warfield's laboratory compound, where exploration into this problem is set to begin that evening.At the main Warfield Laboratory that night, Warfield, Tom, Grayson and lab assistants Crenshaw (Perry Ivins) and Renault (Francis Sayles) subject a metal alloy to electric charge and, as it disintegrates, wonder how an explosive electrical charge could be contained in a torpedo casing made of any known metal compound.

At that moment, a foreign object crashes thru the lab window. Fetching it, Tom finds a paper wad wrapped around another lightning-bolt insignia and a handwritten note, signed by The Lightning, warning them to stop their research or be killed at midnight. Refusing to give in, Warfield offers to get an electrograph from his home, a lightning-sensitive device which should detect the approach of any dangerous electrical charge in time to allow escape, should The Lightning carry out his threat in the usual manner.

He and Tom drive to the Warfield Estate in Warfield's sedan, while the others continue their work. There, Warfield and Tom are greeted by Janet, Warfield gets the electrograph and elects to stay behind, and Tom takes the electrograph back to the lab, driven by Warfield's chauffeur. As quickly as they depart, Janet hears a call for help and, with Benson and her father, finds the chauffeur Jamieson (George Magrill) tied up and tossed in the bushes. Driving the car is actually the thug who shot at Tom and Frank from the cliff earlier. Benson finds the telephone lines have been cut, so the lab can't be warned that danger is already imminent. Meanwhile Jamieson has found all the tires on Janet's car slashed, leaving Warfield to set out to find the nearest phone.

On the highway to the Warfield Labs, the phony chauffeur turns off the main road, giving Tom the excuse that the car is running out of gas. But when the sedan pulls in at the garage, three thugs (Jerry Frank, Jack O'Shea, Millard McGowan) appear from within and, after a valiant struggle, Tom is knocked out and tied up. The phony chauffeur destroys the electrograph as Tom regains consciousness and, discovering a nearby fragment of windshield glass, begins cutting his bonds, unnoticed by the thugs. As Tom frees himself, the phony chauffeur brings a convertible from hiding in the garage, in preparation to drive out and "report" the thugs' success, leaving the other three to "take care of" Tom; but Tom seizes the convertible and speeds off. The four thugs, taken unawares, scramble to give chase in Warfield's sedan.

Midnight approaches. As work continues at the lab, Crenshaw leaves to go for coffee and sandwiches. The four thugs close in on Tom but lose control of the sedan on a sharp curve and plunge over a cliff to their doom. The Flying Wing, however, takes off and quickly reaches the laboratory, toward which the Lightning and the hunchback discharge a torpedo from the Wing. Tom arrives at the lab gate in time to see the torpedo explode and lightning bolts consume the lab. Racing hopelessly to save his father, who is still inside working with Renault, Tom is knocked back, unconscious, by the electric curtain now surrounding the lab. From the shadows, three figures, wearing head-to-foot white insulation suits, appear and start to drag Tom into the electricity's range. At that moment, however, Frank arrives and battles the men in white until, hearing police and fire sirens, they scatter. Frank stops to look after Tom and together they watch as the lightning bolts finish their dance of death for those inside the lab.

Next day at the Warfield Estate, Crenshaw appears, to find a Marine guard stationed around the house. The sentry sergeant grants him admission when he identifies himself. In the basement lab, Warfield is explaining to Tom, Frank, Janet and General White that it was nearly midnight before he, on foot, could locate a telephone. The conversation then turns to the vanished Crenshaw just as Benson announces his arrival. Crenshaw explains he's "just found out what happened", and that after he left for coffee and sandwiches, he was just "afraid to come back", so he went home. But now he avows to "want to help follow the line of investigation started by Col. Grayson and Mr. Renault", and Warfield agrees to accept him back without further question, asking him to have a look at a piece of what is apparently the electric torpedo's casing, which Tom found outside the laboratory. Crenshaw notes the fragment's composition suggests a hybrid alloy, like metal but with "elements of copper".

At the Atlas Steel Works, Mr. Brown (Sherry Hall), a manager, takes a call from Tom who provides him with a breakdown of the fragment's components as determined by Crenshaw and Warfield. Brown recognizes the formula as that of a "peculiar alloy" manufactured at his plant, and agrees to meet with Tom and Frank about it. As Benson watches with another odd look on his face, General White authorizes Tom and Frank to proceed at once to the steel works. Shortly thereafter, aboard the flying wing, some waiting henchmen receive radio instructions from the Lightning to thwart Tom and Frank by destroying the supply of torpedo casings still in storage at the Atlas Steel Works' warehouse

Tom & Frank meet Brown at the plants' business office, where he tells the Marines that the alloy has been used to make "experimental" casings for an unidentified client. After Brown fails to raise the warehouse watchman, Tom and Frank head over there by foot, unaware the watchman has been bound and gagged while a horsefaced thug (Tom London) wields a sledgehammer, and a companion in a welder's mask (Alan Gregg) uses a welder's torch, to demolish the stored casings. Finding the door to the warehouse locked, and hearing hammering sounds from within, Tom climbs a rope to the warehouse's open loft door, while Frank picks the lock. Frank enters first and quickly engages the two thugs in a fistfight, during which he is knocked out and the horsefaced thug starts to put the welder's torch to his face, but Tom intervenes. The fight continues and in due course Tom is knocked out, falling beneath some iron beams suspended by a rope. During the scuffle, the welder's torch has fallen against this same rope where it is tied off, and is burning the rope through. Frank notices this in time to pull Tom from under the beams just before they fall. While he is thus diverted, the two thugs flee.

At a dock, Tom, inexplicably out of uniform and dressed in a motorcyclist's outfit, and riding a cycle, gets the dock clerk (Thomas Carr) to verify a shipment of the torpedo casings from Atlas left some days earlier via the "Aurora" to Gehorda Island, where they are due to arrive the next day. Back at Warfield's house, Tom reports this find to General White in the basement lab with Warfield and Janet present, as Benson clearly eavesdrops outside the door. Tom and Frank secure White's authority to fly immediately to Gehorda Island, which will allow them to arrive ahead of the ship. As the Marines leave the lab, they find Benson still lurking outside the door, and take with a grain of salt his explanation that he has just come to the door to get Warfield's permission for a leave of absence on a "personal matter".

Subsequently, from a shack hideout, the Lightning calls base Z-Y, located in a cave on Gehorda Island, and alerts the horsefaced henchman from the warehouse to have someone named Mikichan destroy the Marine warehouse on Gehorda Island, especially radio equipment. Simultaneously, at the Marine Headquarters in San Diego, General White reads a letter from The Lightning warning him to withdraw all Marines from Gehorda Island by10:00 that night or Gehorda Village "will be wiped out".

General White immediately contacts the Commander of the Marine base on Gehorda Island (link=nm0153770]), where Tom & Frank have already reported in, and orders a full-scale defense of Gehorda Village. As the "Aurora" is not due to arrive for some time, Tom and Frank are pressed into service. Tom is assigned a detail to guard the Marine warehouse while Frank and the Commander will defend the village with the rest of the Marine company.

The horsefaced henchman, the Japanese Mikichan (Victor Wong), and mixed forces of their associates have meanwhile reached the Marine warehouse and are breaking in when Tom and his men arrive. There is a furious firefight, and the Marines gain control of the warehouse, planning to hold it from inside. At the same time, the Lightning's hunchbacked aide advises that the Marines haven't left Gehorda Island and is ordered by the Lightning to use ordinary incendiary bombs to destroy the village as warned. Frank and the Gehorda Marine Commander observe the Wing unloading its bombs and rush to assist villagers in evacuating the flame-ravaged village. The horsefaced henchman, Mikichan, and their men advance on the warehouse, unaware the hunchback has ordered the Wing to head to warehouse and blow it up also. Tom has men slip out back to counterattack from behind, taking crates of essential electrical and radio equipment with them, as the enemy attacks from the front. Just as they are out, and the horsefaced man and several of his gang break in, the warehouse is incinerated with additional incendiary bombs. Mikichan is killed by Tom as a handful of surviving enemy gunman scatter through the jungle.

Back in San Diego, a newspaper headline declares that Janet Warfield has been kidnapped while on a shopping trip.* Gen. White hurries to Warfield's side to offer support and is shown a note Warfield's received, signed by the Lightning, advising that Janet is being held on Gehorda Island and that the Marines must be removed from the Island or she will be killed. Faced with this threat, Warfield for the first time expresses that the investigation of the Lightning must cease, but White refuses. Further, White reassures Warfield that, even now, Tom and Frank are using electric-emission detectors rescued from the warehouse to track down the Lightning's base on Gehorda Island.

On the island, Tom and Frank are indeed tracking the source of electrical emissions with a platoon of Marines, when their Radioman receives and reads a message from General White that Janet is captive on Gehorda. Tom immediately has Frank take the men and follow the electrical signal along coast while he daringly cuts through the jungle alone to the estimated point of origin. As Tom proceeds on his way, the Lightning contacts cave base Z-Y, where Janet is being kept, and tells the henchman in charge to destroy the base as the Marines are closing in. Tom reaches a clearing where the Wing sits visible, and observes men moving equipment from the cave base onto the flying machine. Using their entryway, Tom enters the cave, captures two men briefly but is in turn beset by the Base Z-Y commander and is battling the three men unaided when still others come enter and one slugs Tom with wrench, laying him low. The men bind him, and leave him beside a cask of explosives, the fuse of which is lit as the men depart with Janet in tow, board wing and have the pilot to take off. Fortunately Frank and the Marines reach clearing just as Wing lifts off, spot the cave entrance and, exploring, enter the cavern in time to defuse the explosive and free Tom.

Back at the Marine Headquarters in San Diego, General White finishing speaking by phone with Crenshaw as Tom and Frank arrive and are brief Crenshaw has developed a ray machine "that will explode a torpedo before it leaves the Wing" and is giving a demonstration of this device this evening at a building on Burton Street. At the appointed time, Tom, Frank, White, and Warfield arrive at the Burton Street rendezvous with two Marines. In an inner room, they find a strange machine in the center of a table to which they pull up chairs while awaiting Crenshaw's arrival. As Warfield voices his apprehension that the Lightning "always seems to know what our plans are" and his suspicion that one of their number must be in league with the Lightning, outside a man in a dark hat and a man in a white hat hook up a hose to the exhaust pipe of a truck while one of the gang from Base Z-Y fits the other end into the Burton Street building's ventilation system. Upon completion of that task, the tough in the black hat starts the truck and steps hard on the accelerator.

As a small indicator on the air vent in their room indicates the carbon monoxide laced emission from the truck's exhaust is entering their room, Tom, Frank, General White and Warfield, plus their two Marine guards, with the door closed, wait for Crenshaw. Tom thinks out loud that "either Benson or the gardener, as well as Crenshaw, could be" the Lightning's man in their 'party'. As the others discuss this point, their voices begin noticeably slowing and slurring, then one by one the men start passing out. Even the two Marine guards pitch over under influence of carbon monoxide. Tom, losing consciousness, tries to open the room's door but finds it locked from the outside. Warfield pitches sideways, and following the line of his fall, Tom's eyes encounter the vent indicator, realizes they are being gassed, and with his last ounce of strength pitches a chair through the room's skylight, letting in fresh air.

The others slowly revive and help one another from the room, after breaking down the door. Frank voices that he is certain this murder attempt was perpetrated by Crenshaw, and that the torpedo-destroyer on the table is just a prop. Tom and Frank take custody of this "prop", but in the process of preparing to take it back to the lab at Warfield's, Tom spots something on the floor and retrieves it.

The following day, a station wagon full of Marines proceeds up a country road and pulls to a stop near a rural mailbox, out of sight of the house. Tom alights and tells Frank and the others to follow him if he's "not back in five minutes, then proceeds to the small house and begins examining the doors and windows. Unseen by Tom, a lean man wearing a sporty flat cap (Dirk Thane) is whittling and, hearing the Marine moving about, goes to investigate and, on seeing Tom, jumps him. Tom calls for help. Marines pour from the station wagon, but also Lightning henchmen stream from the house. A short bit of hand-to-hand combat results in Marine Nobles in charge of the subdued outlaws while Frank searches house, and Tom a barn. Frank reports finding Crenshaw in the house and Tom shouts back that he's found "something else".

That night finds Tom and Frank at the Warfield Estate, along with Warfield and General White, Tom prepared to reveal the identity of the Lightning. A Marine guard escorts Crenshaw, Benson and a third, never-before-seen man (Henry Otho) into the room, and Tom announces he has with him "witness who will identify Lightning". A Marine guard, Smith (Ray Hansen), puts out the main lights and draws back a curtain to reveal - Janet Warfield, alive and safe. Asked how she was kidnapped, she explains she was lured off the Estate by a phone call claiming a friend of hers was hurt but found herself kidnapped. However, during her captivity she had an "opportunity to unmask the Lightning". As she starts to name him, one of the men reduced to shadows in the darkened room rises, the taser-like gun in his hand, and fires a shot at Janet. However, all that happens is a mirror shatters, for Janet has been standing behind a curtain and the assembled personages have been watching her reflection as she spoke. Tom and Frank grab the shadowy figure who has shot "Janet" and as lights come on, the Lightning stands revealed as - Warfield!

Tom explains he has been suspicious of Warfield since discovering a small oxygen mask disguised as nose inhaler where Warfield had fallen over in the gas-filled room on Burton Street. A subsequent found check of phone records from Estate revealed frequent, current calls to the country house where Janet was found in the barn. Crenshaw was found there also, as a captive in the house, taken while en route to the Burton Street meeting.

Crenshaw assures that his machine is no fake, and should stop the Lightning's electric torpedos. Suddenly, Warfield bolts, taking a secret panel in the wall which locks behind him. While Frank and the others try to beak through the panel, Tom runs out the front door into the Estate woods, seeking Warfield's trail. By the time he catches up, however, Warfield has boarded the Wing and takes it off. Barking orders wildly to his hunchbacked aide and other crewmen, he mutters of "war without mercy" and has the Wing turned back toward his house and a torpedo prepared to fire. Tom returns to the house just as an indicator light on Crenshaw's machine gives away Warfield's intention. Hurriedly carrying the machine to a window from which the Wing can be easily sighted, Tom, Frank, Janet, and General White look on as Crenshaw turns his device loose on the Wing. Inside that otherworldly airplane, Warfield becomes aware of dangerous meter readings and a stalling motor. Completely flustered, he and the others draw back from the panels controlling the loaded torpedo which is set to fire, and as the point of firing is reached, the Wing instead erupts into an explosive fireball, killing the evil inventor and sending his remaining secrets of the lightning-bolt torpedo with him to the grave. A final shot of the party at the Estate watching fades out quickly to...

THE END