Lieutenant Pimple and the Stolen Submarine
- Twickenham
- 1914
Follow two kidnapped children on a surreal pirate adventure in this 'trick' sci-fi fantasy.
Aided by futuristic technology, piracy knows no bounds! A fiendish female pirate takes two kidnapped children on a joy-ride through sea and air with her nifty aerial submarine. W.R. Booth's painted backgrounds and Méliès-style camera tricks create a wonderfully surreal Jules Verne-like world where nothing is quite what you expect.
The film owes its painted backgrounds, underwater scenery and short animated sequence to Walter R. Booth, whose training as a magician visibly influenced his later work as a filmmaker. Booth devised many short 'trick' films with silent film pioneer R.W. Paul before joining Charles Urban's company Kineto Ltd in 1906.
The outbreak of war in July 1914 came as a shock to most. But from our privileged position today, we can find among the films produced in the early 1910s scattered hints of the looming conflict that would split Europe in two.
One ominous sign was the proliferation of stories of international espionage and intrigue (played as drama or comedy), while newsreels offer evidence of the prominence of the armed forces in British society. Even so, the overwhelming majority of films of the period point to a nation blissfully unaware of the horrors to come.