Fans of the perpetually eighth-billed Ned Sparks will enjoy this earlier star turn for the horse-faced, cigar-chomping character actor, who brought a dyspeptic joie de vivre to such pre-Code classics as Blessed Event (1932), 42nd Street (1933), and Golddiggers of 1933 (1933). The character of Winthrop Clavering, a reclusive New York writer of pulp fiction who strays from his comfort zone to aid victims of a murderous narcotics ring, had taken his first steps on Broadway, as the unlikely hero of a hit play penned by John Emerson (husband of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes author Anita Loos) and Robert Baker. Famous Players Lasky and director Allan Dwan adapted the material for pictures as The Conspiracy (1914), which starred Emerson as Clavering. The film's success prompted a follow-up, The Flying Torpedo (1916), a more action-oriented case for Winthrop Clavering (played once more by Emerson), who is tasked with saving America from an invasive foreign power. RKO Radio Pictures production of The Conspiracy (1930) marked the studio's transition from silent to talking films and represented something like a family affair. Bessie Love, a bit player in The Flying Torpedo), was cast as the film's leading lady while Christy Cabanne, a former assistant to D. W. Griffith and overseer of The Flying Torpedo's battle scenes, was put into the director's chair. Sadly, this remake was a money-loser for RKO, who recorded a net loss of $50,000, and any notions of rebooting The Flying Torpedo with Sparks reprising the role of Winthrop Clavering never got off the ground.

By Richard Harland Smith