When DVD first hit the home video scene, MGM soon found a niche amongst vintage horror and sci-fi geeks under an exclusive banner called “Midnite Movies.” Over the course of several years, they released a number of Vincent Price classics — many of which had been made or released by American International Pictures (AIP). Strangely enough, some titles never made it to disc; one of which was AIP’s 1961 oddity, Master of the World — a moving picture fantasy that was inspired by the works of Jules Verne, but, in all honesty, stirred by the success of Around the World in 80 Days and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea several years prior.
With a script penned by the great Richard Matheson, Master of the World not only derived its foundation from the Verne story of the same name, but also from that novel’s predecessor, Robur the Conqueror (aka The Clipper of the Clouds). In this somewhat despoiled take on Verne’s characters, strange happenings in Pennsylvania cause Federal Agent John Strock (Charles Bronson — yes, the Charles Bronson) to investigate. Strock teams up with arms manufacturer/aviator Prudent (an overacting Henry Hull), Prudent’s daughter Dorothy (Mary Webster), and her fiancé Phillip Evans (David Frankham), and go about investigating via Prudent’s big balloon.
Struck down by a rocket, the four soon find themselves in the grasp of Robus (Vincent Price), the crazed inventor of a giant flying warship known as the Albatross (all of you Monty Python fans out there just chuckled, I’m sure of it). With his faithful crew at his side, Robus is intent on disarming the entire world of the 19th Century for purposes of peace. Even if he has to kill people to prove his point. And he does so, too — by dropping bombs on seafaring naval vessels who refuse to abandon ship as he instructs them to do.
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