# Silent film involving a flying bomb? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [December 1, 2018, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-film-involving-a-flying-bomb/825385 "2018-12-01T08:20:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CPU\_Sharkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@CPU\_Sharkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CPU_Sharkey)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2018, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-film-involving-a-flying-bomb/825385/1 "2018-12-01T08:20:09Z")
A long time ago, on Saturday Night Live, I saw a clip from an old silent (comedy) film where people were being chased by a bomb floating in the air. I _think_ it had been the Keystone Kops but don’t remember for sure. Google-searches aren’t much use for finding this kind of information. Are there any film scholars/buffs that could give me any tips here? ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2018, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-film-involving-a-flying-bomb/825385/2 "2018-12-01T12:59:27Z")
**Moderator Action** Since this is about a film, let’s move it to Cafe Society (from GQ). ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2018, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-film-involving-a-flying-bomb/825385/3 "2018-12-01T15:13:08Z")
I can’t help you, but I remember that clip. In fact, I’ve thought about posting this same question. IIRC, it was in the late 1970s, and may have been part of a fake news story on “Weekend Update” about a secret, “high tech” weapon being developed by Jimmy Carter’s military. I’m surprised that it’s been so hard to find. I’d thought it would pop right up on youtube. To the OP: great username! ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2018, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-film-involving-a-flying-bomb/825385/4 "2018-12-01T23:52:29Z")
Isn’t a bomb floating through the air basically a missile? ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2018, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-film-involving-a-flying-bomb/825385/5 "2018-12-02T00:01:21Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > Isn’t a bomb floating through the air basically a missile? Well there are smart bombs. Or cartoon bombs and Keystone Kops were basically a live action cartoon. ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2018, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-film-involving-a-flying-bomb/825385/6 "2018-12-02T05:37:04Z")
Could it have been **The Airship Destroyer**? [The Airship Destroyer (1909) Walter R. Booth - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kduzyasEWTQ) ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2018, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-film-involving-a-flying-bomb/825385/7 "2018-12-02T06:06:58Z")
More likely, it was contemporary and filmed in such a way that it looked genuinely antique. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2018, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-film-involving-a-flying-bomb/825385/8 "2018-12-02T13:02:48Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > More likely, it was contemporary and filmed in such a way that it looked genuinely antique. It’s hard for me to believe that Weekend Update went to that much trouble (with the technology available in that era). Their stock in trade for such gags was thinking up captions and punchlines to existing photos and clips. One example: to a picture of Art Carney (in costume as Ed Norton, with a surprised, anxious look on his face) Jane Curtin announced, “Coming up: Ali to fight Norton”. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2018, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-film-involving-a-flying-bomb/825385/9 "2018-12-02T13:52:24Z")
This is a list of every silent film of any length that the IMDb marks as having to do with a bomb: > **[Feature Film/Short Film, bomb, Silent (Sorted by Popularity Ascending) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?title_type=feature,short&keywords=bomb&sound_mixes=silent)** > > IMDb's advanced search allows you to run extremely powerful queries over all people and titles in the database. Find exactly what you're looking for! ---
**Author:** ![CPU\_Sharkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@CPU\_Sharkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CPU_Sharkey)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2018, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-film-involving-a-flying-bomb/825385/10 "2018-12-02T17:08:28Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > Isn’t a bomb floating through the air basically a missile? That’s what was so comical about the piece – the “flying bomb” was just the usual bowling-ball shape with a fuse at the top, and it was bobbing up & down through the air as it chased the group of men. Nothing aerodynamic about it. And the bobbing was most likely unintentional, just the effect of the wires holding it in the air. ---
**Author:** ![CPU\_Sharkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@CPU\_Sharkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CPU_Sharkey)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2018, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-film-involving-a-flying-bomb/825385/11 "2018-12-02T17:10:25Z")
> [@Rocketeer](#): > > Could it have been **The Airship Destroyer**? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kduzyasEWTQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kduzyasEWTQ) No it wasn’t – it didn’t include any such comic scene. But thanks for the suggestion… ---
**Author:** ![CPU\_Sharkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@CPU\_Sharkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CPU_Sharkey)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2022, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-film-involving-a-flying-bomb/825385/12 "2022-03-21T11:23:37Z")
I looked at this website [https://www.silentera.com](https://www.silentera.com) and found a reference to this film ```auto Finnegan’s Bomb (1914) American B&W : One reel Directed by George Nichols The Keystone Film Company production; distributed by Mutual Film Corporation. / Produced by Mack Sennett. / No copyright registration. Released 11 May 1914. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format. / Working title: Neighbors. [?] Completed or shipped? on 25 April 1914. ``` Pretty good chance this is it. I haven’t found a clip online, though, to see for sure. The SNL people probably had access to it from one of the film archives back in college or something. ---
**Author:** ![mordecaiB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mordecaib/32/7725_2.png) [@mordecaiB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mordecaiB)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2022, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-film-involving-a-flying-bomb/825385/13 "2022-04-03T16:55:39Z")
Boy, that’s some persistence! I don’t know if it helps your search any, but the SNL skit was about the cruise missile, which was newish at the time. I suspect it was a Keystone Cop movie clip because the person being chased by the bomb was a cop. Your site says it was a Max Sennett film, who created the Keystone Cops. As an aside, Dan Aykroyd played Max Sennett in the Robert Downey Jr. film _Chaplin_. For what little help it may be to your search, the round bomb with the fuse is called an anarchist’s bomb. [IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0447128/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1) has almost no info, which is usually not a good sign. [Charles Murray](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0614879/) was the actor, but I couldn’t see anything in an image search. Good luck! ---
**Author:** ![CPU\_Sharkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@CPU\_Sharkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CPU_Sharkey)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2022, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-film-involving-a-flying-bomb/825385/14 "2022-04-04T14:08:45Z")
Just one of those questions I’d dust off occasionally to see what I could find. Kind of like how, since hearing a story in second grade, I’d poll people from around the country to find if they knew who “Beltsnick” was. Finally found him on Wikipedia under the Santa Claus page, albeit under a slightly different spelling. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2022, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-film-involving-a-flying-bomb/825385/15 "2022-04-04T15:38:15Z")
I humbly submit that it was the last 2 minutes of Mack Sennett’s [Yankee Doodle in Berlin](https://archive.org/details/silent-yankee-doodle-in-berlin) ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2022, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-film-involving-a-flying-bomb/825385/16 "2022-04-04T17:36:16Z")
From my memory of the SNL clip, the bomb was flying slower than in the Mack Sennett film. And I don’t remember the letters “U.S.” on it. ---
**Author:** ![mordecaiB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mordecaib/32/7725_2.png) [@mordecaiB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mordecaiB)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2022, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silent-film-involving-a-flying-bomb/825385/17 "2022-04-05T08:08:09Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > I humbly submit that it was the last 2 minutes of Mack Sennett’s [Yankee Doodle in Berlin](https://archive.org/details/silent-yankee-doodle-in-berlin) Nope, the bomb is the classic anarchist’s bomb and it moves from right to left across the screen > **[Бабах Bomb Dynamite Взрывчатка Динамит - Bomb Clip Art, HD Png...](https://www.pngfind.com/mpng/TRTJxww_-bomb-dynamite-bomb-clip-art/)** > > Find hd Бабах Bomb Dynamite Взрывчатка Динамит - Bomb Clip Art, HD Png Download. To search and download more free transparent png images. If you want to put some time into it, this site has all the episodes starting from season one. [https://archive.org/details/saturdaynightlive?sort=-date&&and[]=year:"1975"](https://archive.org/details/saturdaynightlive?sort=-date&&and%5B%5D=year:%221975%22)