Dr. Huer (Harlan Tarbell) is showing Wilma Deering (Jayne Paulman) and Buck Rogers (John F. Dille Jr.) his latest invention, the “Flash Ray” and his new “Magnetic Ray”. The flash ray is a weapon that is attached to the Earth’s interplanetary spaceships to help defend the planet against evil. The Magnetic Ray is used to connect to an enemy ship to keep it from maneuvering on its own thereby making it helpless.
While they are talking, an interplanetary code message is received from Buddy Deering in the golden city on Mars. The decoded message warns Earth that Killer Kane, the leader of the Tiger Men of Mars, has broken their treaty with Earth and has attacked. Buck and Wilma race to rendezvous with Earth’s space fleet before they head out after the Tiger Men.
On Earth Dr. Huer uses his “Cosmic Radiotelevision” to keep tabs on the battle as it progresses.
“Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” AKA “An Interplanetary Battle with the Tiger Men of Mars” was released in 1934 and was directed by Harlan Tarbell. It is an American science fiction superhero short and runs less than ten minutes. This rather obscure short was produced by John Dille Sr. So far, it is considered the first ever film about the interplanetary character.
The film was created by the Buck Rogers franchise to be shown at the 1934 Chicago World’s Fair to highlight the launch of the franchise's latest toys and the newest Buck Rogers comics. As far as I know, the short never had a theatrical release but was only used to promote Buck Rogers merch. I did hear that, after the exhibition, the short was shown at various department stores. Basically, it is a commercial that is now in the public domain.
The short disappeared until the 1980’s when John Dille’s granddaughter found a copy of it in her basement and donated it to UCLA’s film and television archives. The archives struck a new print of the short and showed it at the 1984 Cinecon convention in San Francisco.
This is the only film John Dille Jr. did and with good reason. He’s terrible, but then so is everyone else. There’s no hand-to-hand combat in the film, only visuals of spaceships zipping around and some campy narration by Dr. Huer. There’s not much to it and it’s all quite silly but is still an interesting look back at commercialism in the thirties.
Dick Calkins, the writer and original creator of Buck Rogers, has a cameo as himself.