The Airship Destroyer

Early sci-fi movie on fight between zeppelins and planes. Watching this movie - a part from the element that's in common with all origin's movies, so the sense of pioneering, the experiments with film's materials - gives to you a sense of power and meaninglessness at the same time for what is one of the most ancient human desire: fly. In 1909 we are in the period in which rudimental planes starts to go on, and that's a really point of evolution for man: he is far away from earth. So this movie has to be remembered also as a philosophical and historical document of this sense of power and weakness of man, this fundamental relation between desire, sky, technology and war.

It is frequently and falsely claimed that Porter created the story picture in THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY. Melies was creating such films already, most notably in A TRIP TO THE MOON. Likewise, D.W. Griffith did not invent cross-cutting, although he did establish its usage as standard and produced what Lillian Gish called "the grammar of film." Here is evidence that he was not working alone.

This short film, based on a Verne novel, imagines the course of a future war, in which dirigibles are used to bomb cities. Although primitive by today's standards, it is clearly an epic picture and well worth the time of anyone with curiosity about the origins of film.

The 1st ever aerial warfare movie to be released took place in December 1909 when "The Aerial Destroyer," otherwise known as "The Aerial Torpedo" or "The Battle of the Clouds," or in the U.S. "The Battle in the Clouds" was initially seen by English filmgoers. United Kingdom's director Walter R. Booth, who specialized in special effects, produced this invasion film, which derived from a popular literature genre in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Booth's film drew inspiration from H.G. Wells' recent story, "The War In The Air (1908)".

Booth's effects are sure to illicit a laugh from today's sophisticated audience. This fantasy shows balloon airships (dirigibles) invading an unnamed country, bombing armored vehicles and city buildings. The suffering country sends war planes to shoot down these airships. Made in 1909, such rudimentary planes reflect the rudimentary understanding of how aerial vehicles looked like. There is a drama within the war confines of "The Aerial Destroyer" with a couple of unmarried lovers who have been rejected to enter matrimony by the woman's father. Booth was ahead of his time inserting what has become standard in wartime movies by containing a love interest inside violent films in an effort to attract the female audience.

What makes Booth's film so prophetic is that in seven years Germany would fly dirigibles over the English channel to bomb London during World War One. Howard Hughes' 1930 film, "Hell's Angels," would be more graphically believable than Hughes' early effort here.

Airship Destroyer, The (1909)

*** (out of 4)

Early science-fiction film (some consider it the first) about a Zeppelin that takes off in the night where three men use it to drop bombs on England. I guess you could call this an early "fear" film as it's pretty clear that it was made to put fear into people watching the film that an invasion could come from the sky at anytime without any notice. I really don't agree that this is a science-fiction film but for some reason people consider it one. The special effects for the most part are pretty good with one great shot of the Zeppelin off in the distance while another one, with actors that we can see, comes floating in the shot. The ending doesn't hold up very well due to some obvious effects but it's still fairly impressive for 1909. Original German title: Der Luftkrieg Der Zukunft.

An inventor is working on a novel weapon when a fleet of enemy airships are sighted. An armoured car equipped with an anti-aircraft gun is dispatched but is destroyed, as is the biplane that attempts to shoot down one of the marauding airships. After the home of the inventor's girlfriend is bombed and the local cathedral goes up in flames, the inventor finally launches his 'aerial torpedo', a rocket-assisted, propeller-driven, surface-to-air UAV that damages the gas bag of the enemy ship, causing it to crash in pieces into a lake. For a short, the film has a strong narrative flow and a lot happens in seven minutes. The first science fiction film made in England, 'The Airship Destroyer' is also the first film in the 'military science-fiction' sub-genre and is remarkably prescient. Although military use of airships had been predicted by H.G. Wells (among others), Booth's film predates the first actual aerial attack by two years (a bomb was dropped on Turkish troops from an Italian airplane in Libya on November 1, 1911). Although surface-to-air missiles came much later and were dramatically different from Booth's contraption, the basic concept was correct and ahead of its time. The film's special effects, a mix of models, full-size props, cut-outs, and background paintings, are quite novel and effective for the era. There were few intertitles on the version I watched (on-line) but the story was not difficult to follow, and the score, although clearly not original, was fine. Typical of silent films, the acting is overly-dramatic and stagy, but the film is still entertaining and well-worth watching. The following year Booth directed another 'future weapon' story 'The Aerial Submarine', then returned to the future of strategic bombing in 'The Aerial Anarchists' (1911), which sadly has been lost.