''The Mysterious Airman'' (a.k.a. ''Mysterious Airman'' and ''The Mystery Airman'' ) is a 1928 American

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...

10-chapter silent

film serial A serial film, film serial (or just serial), movie serial, or chapter play, is a motion picture form popular during the first half of the 20th century, consisting of a series of short subjects exhibited in consecutive order at one theater, ge ...

from Weiss Brothers Artclass Pictures. The serial involves a mysterious airman who is after the aviation inventions from a new aircraft company.''The Mysterious Airman'' was one of the last

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...

silent film serials and, until recently, thought to be a

lost film A lost film is a feature film, feature or short film in which the original negative or copies are not known to exist in any studio archive, private collection, or public archive. Films can be wholly or partially lost for a number of reasons. ...

Plot

Jack Baker ( Walter Miller) is an

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engineer, pilot, and president of the Baker Aircraft Company. He has invented new aviation innovations to be mounted on his company's aircraft. The owners of Globe Air Corporation, a rival aviation company, are after these new inventions. Their president, William Craft (Robert Walker), hires a masked and mysterious airman, known only as "Pilot X", who also makes plans to steal those inventions for his own use. He uses a trained monkey to steal one of them, a radio-controlled "flying torpedo", that was in engineer Baker's workshop. In the air, his gang of "Air Hawks" pose serious peril to the Baker Aircraft Company. The attacks are largely aimed at stealing Baker's exclusive rights to the "Aerometer", invented by James B. Joyce (C. H. Allen), a new navigational instrument that makes flying safer in all sorts of weather, even at night. The inventor's daughter, Shirley (

Eugenia Gilbert Eugenia Gilbert (November 18, 1902 – December 9, 1978) was an American film actress of the silent era. She appeared as a leading lady in a number of westerns. In at least three films, she was billed as Eugenie Gilbert. Biography Gilbert was ...

), is an

aviatrix An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators because they ar ...

who is Baker's fiancée. "World-famous aviatrix" Fawn Nesbitt (Dorothy Talcott), who hopes to become the first female pilot to fly around the world, becomes concerned when Baker's aircraft begin crashing. She is to be married to Albert Orren (Eugene Burr), the owner of a rival aircraft company. As the air attacks mount, Baker and Shirley are in constant danger, both on the ground and above the clouds. Their efforts always seem to be known to the mysterious Pilot X, and suspicion falls on Perkins (Arthur Morrison), Joyce's butler, who is always nearby when plans are being discussed.

Chapter titles

# The Winged Avenger (16 minutes) # The Sky Writer (20 minutes) # The Girl Who Flew Alone (20 minutes) # The Smoke Screen (20 minutes) # Test Flight (20 minutes) # The Hawk's Nest (20 minutes) # The Faker Pilot (20 minutes) # The Air Raft (20 minutes) # The Hidden Hangar (20 minutes) # Mystery Pilot X (20 minutes)

Cast

* Walter Miller as Jack Baker *

as Shirley Joyce * Robert Walker as William Craft * Eugene Burr as Albert Orren * Dorothy Tallcot as Fawn Nesbitt * James A. Fitzgerald as Barney Madden * C.H. Allen as James Joyce * Ray Childs as Henry Knight * Hugh Blair as Detective Mullens * Arthur Morrison as Perkins * Hamilton Morse as Mardos Kartoff

Production

''The Mysterious Airman'' was written by famed mystery novelist

Arthur B. Reeve Arthur Benjamin Reeve (October 15, 1880 – August 9, 1936) was an American mystery writer. He is known best for creating the series character Professor Craig Kennedy, sometimes called "The American Sherlock Holmes", and Kennedy's Dr. Watson-like ...

of ''Craig Kennedy, Scientific Detective'' fame. The serial was the last silent serial produced by poverty row producers, the Weiss Brothers, and came at the end of the silent film era. Although production values were modest, a number of aircraft were featured, both on the ground and in the air. These aircraft included a Waco ATO, fitted with a machine gun and was flown by Pilot X.

Reception

A modern appraisal of ''The Mysterious Airman'' was published in the ''Schenectady (NY) Gazette'' and notes that it is "Superior to the usual run of serials ... full of thrills ...”

Preservation status

''The Mysterious Airman'' was thought to be a “lost” silent film. In 2004, after producer Kit Parker (of Kit Parker Films) purchased the holdings of Weiss Global International, Parker was approached by film archivist Jeff Joseph of SabuCat Productions. Joseph offered to loan Parker his near-complete original 35mm tinted

nitrate film Nitrocellulose (also known as cellulose nitrate, flash paper, flash cotton, guncotton, pyroxylin and flash string, depending on form) is a highly flammable compound formed by nitration, nitrating cellulose through exposure to a mixture of nitri ...

print of the serial. His print was missing only the first reel of Chapter Nine, due to reel's decomposition. Once restored (including recreating the missing reel from film stills and plot synopses) and digitally restored,Parker, Kit
"Press release: 'The Mysterious Airman' (1928)."
''kitparkerfilms'', April 19, 2017. Retrieved: July 15, 2019. ''The Mysterious Airman'' was released October 17, 2017 on DVD by VCI Video (Sprocket Vault). Additional features include a commentary track by historian Richard M. Roberts, ''Flying Cadets'' (1928), a 2-reel

United States Army Air Corps The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical ri ...

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

short, and a gallery of original ''The Mysterious Airman'' posters and lobby cards.Sinnott, John
"Review: 'The Mysterious Airman'."
''dvdtalk.com'', May 3, 2017. Retrieved: July 15, 2019.

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

* Farmer, James H. ''Celluloid Wings: The Impact of Movies on Aviation''. Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania: Tab Books Inc., 1984. . * Rainey, Buck. ''Serials and Series: A World Filmography, 1912–1956''. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2010. .

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mysterious Airman, The 1928 films 1928 crime films American black-and-white films American aviation films American crime films 1920s English-language films 1920s American films English-language crime films