Brief

The year is 1921. Tesla and Westinghouse have brought electricity to the people and ambitious tycoon Aaron O'Malley wants to harness the power of the Niagara River to create the biggest hydro-electric plant the world has ever seen. But at what cost to humanity and the environment?

What We Liked

The story has unique elements, a blending of a 1921 period story featuring real life people like Nikola Tesla and King Camp Gillette with a fantasy plot in which two men with the powers of mind control face off in a final battle of good over evil.

Film: Has the potential to be a big screen movie but the plot still needs some work. The period backdrop of the spectacular Niagara Falls and the huge hydro- electric plants give it a futuristic feel and great production design potential. Jack is a very solid lead who draws us into the story, but more work needs to be done on clarifying motives and goals.

TV: Too large for a TV movie; better as a streaming series. The mix of period elements and fantasy world-building with CGI is a unique and engaging mix likely to attract viewers.

Key points: Original plot, mixing a true-life period characters and ethereal fantasy elements. Believable leads with engaging relationships. Aaron is a convincing bad guy who becomes increasingly more violent and power-hungry. The fantasy elements contain some cool totalitarian imagery.

Synopsis

Niagara Falls, 1921. JACK SAUNDERS (33) and his wife SARAH (late 20s, blonde, beautiful, both Canadian) have traveled from Toronto to this scenic resort town with their Jack’s W.W.I army buddy LUCAS (early 30s, Nordic) and his wife CAMILLA (late 20s, Italian American) to have an all-expenses month-long vacation at the posh Queen’s Hotel managed by Jack’s charismatic boss AARON O’MALLEY (40s).

Aaron is married to prim ETHEL (40s), who is very wealthy and controls the family money. But he’s also involved in a massive hydro-electric project on which electrical engineer Jack has been working.

Jack is upset when he gets a call out of the blue – his immediate boss at Toronto Hydro Electric Company – telling him he’s lost his job! He doesn’t tell his wife or friends just yet. Little does he know but Aaron ordered his firing in order to monopolize his time on an even bigger expansion of the hydro dams.

They met a few years before, at the hotel casino, where Aaron noticed Jack seemed to have an uncanny knack of predicting the right cards and plays. It turns out that Jack has the gift of ‘prescience’, with a clear inner voice telling him what to do.

After a few days of letting Jack stew, Aaron calls him into his office and presents his plan: the current hydro dams only harness one tenth of the power of the Niagara River, 1.2 million horsepower. The total potential is eight million horsepower and he proposes to expand into several more hydro plants. He will give Jack a new job to help him raise funding.

Their first move is to pitch the expansion to SIR ADAM BECK (60s), the Canadian founder of the project. Jack has the idea of bringing noted electrical inventor NIKOLA TESLA (60s) on board.

Jack’s wife Sarah is pretty peeved that Jack now has to spend time working on their vacation. She starts responding to the flirtations of professional tennis player RICHARD SOMMERS (30s) who is in town for a national tournament.

Meanwhile, Jack drinks too much and also visits his old drug dealer RANDOLPH MOORE (40s, ponytail, wooden leg). He takes heroin in order to access his predictive state and in doing so he has a vision of a large modern city with white towers.

Jack comes clean with Sarah and the others, explaining that he’s lost his job but that Aaron has given him another. Jack attends a large conference held by Aaron, drawing in engineers, speculators, investors and government officials from both the US and Canada all of whom give their approval to move forward, almost as if they were in a trance in charismatic Aaron’s presence. Only Jack notices Aaron’s suspicious wife Ethel eavesdropping in the shadows.

The guest speaker is KING CAMP GILLETTE (large, 40s), the inventor of the disposable razor and the author of ‘The Human Drift’, a published pamphlet that posits a pristine socialist city where everyone is equal and all of their needs taken care of. When Gillette shows them a large blueprint, Jack recognizes the modernistic city from his dreams. Gillette calls it ‘Metropolis.’

However, on his next heroin adventure, Jack has a vision of the socialist Utopia becoming a totalitarian nightmare, where people only work into their late 30s before they are summarily killed, having outlived their usefulness. The massive hydro plants, using all of the Niagara River water, has destroyed the epic falls. Now, there’s only a trickle of garishly colored chemical run-off.

But, when Jack expresses his doubts about the project to Aaron, the latter refuses to let him leave it. He brings in a huge bodyguard, GORAN (Serbian, 30s, bald) to make his threat clear: if Jack quits the project he and his wife and friends’ lives will be in danger.

Aaron has a mistress, CHASTITY (28, beautiful), whom he houses in a suite in the hotel and visits regularly. When she gets too nosy about the new project, he becomes rough with her.

Annoyed, Chastity sneaks into his hotel office and finds a curious old notebook in which an ancient Egyptian screed from the times of the Pharaohs, has been passed down for a hundred generations, talking about the power that an ancient ruler got from the Nile River and from the confluence of magnetic fields on which the Pyramids were built. Clearly, Aaron fancies himself as harnessing that same power and exerting a strong influence over everyone involved in his business.

Unfortunately, Chastity’s office visit has been reported to Aaron, and he’s also spotted handsome tennis player Sommers leaving her suite, payback for Aaron being mean to her.

He is furious and angrily confronts her about stealing and betraying their sexually exclusive deal. He brutally beats her bare back with a knuckleduster until she bleeds and then roughly rapes her, leaving her bleeding and sobbing. Lastly, he carves his initials into her back.

Lucas happens to hear the weeping woman and knocks on the door. Chastity answers, needing medical attention and Luke cleans and bandages her wounds. He is absolutely appalled at what Aaron has done to her. Chastity tells him about the notebook, and Luke reports back to Camilla.

Sarah is perturbed when a speeding car narrowly misses running her over. Later, hulking Goran and three other thugs confront Luke and Camilla walking home from dinner, tying them up in a cemetery and threatening their lives unless they and Jack fall in line with Aaron’s plans.

Luke immediately tells Jack, warning him that Aaron is dangerous and he should remove himself from the hydro project as soon as he can. Sarah is fed up with things and wants to return to Toronto alone – but Jack begs her to stay, taking his own room so she can have her space.

Jack is appalled by Aaron’s vicious beating of Chastity. He secretly meets with her to learn about Aaron’s notebook: she has a photographic memory and tells him exactly what the ancient prophecy is about – a way to harness electrical energy to influence and control people.

When Richard Sommer is found dead at the foot of the Falls, Jack knows he has to find a way to stop Aaron. Chastity packs, determined to leave but Aaron is apologetic about hurting her and begs her to stay, with ‘no strings’ as to their relationship.

At home, Ethel angrily confronts Aaron about using her money for the hydro project. Aaron’s had enough of her nagging and loses his temper, strangling her. She is genuinely frightened. She secretly meets with Jack to show him the bruises on her neck and they agree that Aaron has become too dangerous: he needs to be stopped. Jack also tells Ethel about Aaron attack Chastity.

Jack uses heroin again and has a vision of Metropolis workers being killed and their bodies recycled into medical transplants and meat for supermarkets. He also sees himself in a tank of green fluid in Aaron’s office, kept ‘alive’ by electrical implants.

Jack confronts Tesla, telling him about his visions and that he believes Aaron’s project is very destructive. Tesla is doubtful but admits that he feels Aaron influences his thoughts when he’s with him.

A local gypsy, VADOMA (90) tells Jack that she witnesses Aaron’s goons abduct Sommers – and there will be tire tracks at the base of the Falls. However, when Jack reports all of his concerns to a local cop, he later sees Aaron smooth talk the officer and get him on his side.

Jack gathers Sarah, Luke and Camilla and tells them everything he knows about the project and Aaron’s evil intentions. They must stop him. Tesla secretly creates a rudimentary particle beam firer – a laser beam. It weighs a hundred pounds and Sarah and Randolph drive it to the 200’ tower and lug it up a steep spiral staircase.

Meanwhile, Luke and Camilla are in the hydro plant, where Tesla has been locked up by security guards. However, the anti-hydro protestors enter and quickly overpower the guards. Contrary to expectations, Jack tells Tesla to start up the plant. He needs power emanating from a transmitter on the roof to the top of the tower, giving the laser beam its energy.

Once that’s done, he hurries to the tower to join the others, taking aim at Aaron’s private steamship heading upriver to for the hydro plant inauguration.
Aaron spots a thin beam of blue light darting either side of the ship – but his electrical brain power keeps it away.

Both Aaron and Jack take heroin and confront each other in their visions, on board the boat. When Jack tries to aim the blue beam at Aaron, he pushes it away with his mind.

Eventually, Jack manages to overpower Aaron and he’s engulfed in a bright blue light that sets his body on fire. He suddenly explodes, vaporizing! The laser beam refocuses, locking in on the ship’s engine, and disables it.

In the news, the deaths of Aaron and several of his cohorts is put down to a lightning strike. Sir Adam Beck agrees to halt the expansion and just proceed normally, with one or two plants, which are plenty. Jack and Sarah move to Niagara, where he’s employed by Beck. Ethel gives Jack Aaron’s gorgeous Rolls Royce!

About The Author

Robert L. Mansion grew up in a Canadian military family living in various places around the world. He graduated as a mechanical engineer and worked for several high-end aviation companies in testing and design. This expertise gives this latest period novel an intriguing authenticity.