THE SPARK BOX

Two days ago I watched Blake of Scotland Yard (1937), a pretty flat adventure movie cut down from a serial (from Victory Pictures Corporation of which I had never heard) in which criminals want to steal the new invention which allows you to blow up a ship in the water a hundred miles away.  The most notable part of the apparatus besides its viewing screen in which you see the ship blowing up is this crazy spark box.  Even I know enough about electricity to know that all it really does is make a series of electrical connections that cause arcs to spark and flash.

Yesterday I watched episode one of The Vanishing Shadow (1934), a pretty good Universal serial about an invisibility device which makes you disappear except for your shadow, and part of the sparking flashing lab apparatus was this crazy spark box.  It looks like the decorative top bit was altered but it still just makes noisy exciting sparks.

It should be noted that The Vanishing Shadow also includes this wonderfully nutty robot.  You can see the spark box against the wall by the scientist.

But that is neither here nor there.  We are talking about the spark box.  Here is a clip of it in action from Blake of Scotland Yard: