The Cloud Puncher (1917)

• 83%
• 1917
• Comedy
• Charley Chase
• Hank Mann
• Carmen Phillips
• Lynn Staley

It hasn't rained for week and there are no symptoms of coming rain to be found. An itinerant artist carrying a huge canvas rambles along a country road. He reaches the hut of a hermit inventor who is dying of thirst. The artist paints a picture of a reservoir so realistically that the water overflows and fills a cup which he holds in his hand. To reward his benefactor, the hermit gives the artist a number of rifle shells which when fired at the sky will produce rain. In the meantime, Al. K. Hall, the village villain, attempts to kidnap the heroine, but is prevented by the artist. To try out the invention the artist fires a shell at the sky and brings on a sun shower. The villain steals the rest of the shells, puts them in a cannon and ties the heroine to the cannonball. When this charge is fired, a cloudburst descends upon the village and wipes it off the map. The heroine who has been carried to the clouds is rescued by the artist who converts himself into an airship by using an electric fan as a propeller. The villain is foiled and the artist and maiden are wed in the water-soaked village.