Professor Aldrich (Henry Bandin) is one of the leading scientists of
his time, and is now working on a formula to harness radominium - but his
success as scientist has made him arrogant. He wouldn't listen to anyone
else, not even his assistant Roger (Robert Lee) regarding his experiments,
and he thinks his genius gives him the right to marry his daughter Helen
(Pearl White) off to whoever he pleases ... and his choice is a prince
fallen from grace. Helen though has fallen in love with Roger, but when
her dad hears that he even fires Roger ... who soon enough finds a job
with another scientist, with whom he is getting along much better, again
working on experiments trying to harness radominium.
The Prince though has fallen into financial difficulties, so he is
persuaded by crooks Erdman (Paul Vermoyal) and Madame Gauthier (Arlette
Marchall) - who's secretly in love with the Prince - to get them in
touch with the professor, because they want to steal her formula ... no
such luck though, someone else steals the formula ahead of them, and
somehow the Prince ends up dead ... and a culprit is soon to be found,
Roger.
Only Helen believes in his innocence, and she and her personal trainer
Paoli (Martin Mitchell) head for Paris to investigate, and soon enough,
they get Madame Gauthier, once confronted with the death of the prince,
her secret love, to talk. But before the whole thing can be brought to a
happy end, there are a lot of fistfights and chases over the heads and
through the sewers of Paris and through the countryside with a sepcial
caterpillar car. In the end, all the clues lead to Professor Aldrich's
house, who now admits to having stolent he formula himself because it was
rubbish and he feared failure. And all the while, Roger, who is only now
released from prison, did succeed where Aldrich, his arrogant former
eployer, had failed, and now seems to be worthy of marrying Aldrich's
daughter.
And Erdman, the Prince's killer ?
He made another attempt to steal the formula from the professor, only this time
he was captured by Paoli ...
It's hard to pass definite judgement on this film, the last ever film
starring Pearl White, that first superstar of silent serials, since 2
fifth of the film are presumed to be lost forever. The remaining film
however contains plenty of action and entertainment, chases and stunts,
and is done in a fast enough pace to presume that Terreur as a
whole must have been a fun film to watch. Just a pity we can't watch it
anymore.
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