Plot
In 1938, at Los Angeles, California, a rocket pack designed by Howard Hughes is stolen from his factory by members of mobster Eddie Valentine's gang, hotly pursued by FBI agents to an airfield, where they are caught. Stunt pilot Cliff Secord and mechanic A. "Peevy" Peabody, whose Gee Bee racer was fatally damaged by the mobsters, find the mysterious rocket inside a biplane of their employer's hangar, where the getaway driver hid it. They experiment with it, but Peevy cautions Cliff about the dangers involved. Meanwhile, Valentine argues with movie star Neville Sinclair, a Nazi secret agent, who had hired Valentine's gang to obtain the rocket from Hughes. Sinclair negotiates a new deal and dispatches the mobsters to search for the missing device.
Cliff and his aspiring actress girlfriend, Jenny Blake, begin to have relationship issues after he visits her on a film set during a shoot, inadvertently causing an accident. Jenny is fired over Cliff's accident; however, Sinclair overhears Cliff's attempt to tell Jenny about the rocket pack. After Cliff leaves, Sinclair makes up to Jenny and invites her to dinner at the famed South Seas Club. Shortly afterward, at an airshow, Cliff uses the rocket (with Peevy's newly designed, face-hiding helmet) to heroically rescue his elderly friend Malcolm piloting a malfunctioned aircraft. Having been seen by the audience, "the Rocketeer" becomes a media sensation.
Sinclair sends his monstrous henchman, Lothar, to retrieve the rocket who seizes detailed schematics drawn up by Peevy. The arrival of the FBI ends with Cliff and Peevy escaping with the rocket; Lothar also escapes. At the local diner, Cliff and Peevy, trapped by a team of mobsters learns that Jenny had a date with Sinclair and of the latter's involvement with the crime. The diner patrons overpower the mobsters, but a stray ricochet punctures the rocket pack's fuel tank, which Peevy provisionally patches with Cliff's chewing gum. At the South Seas Club, Cliff is nearly trapped by Valentine's gang, and in the ensuing melée, Jenny is kidnapped by Sinclair.
At his villa, Sinclair tries to seduce Jenny but she discovers that he is a spy and knocks him out. With Lothar's aid, Sinclair recaptures her and leaves a message for Cliff to bring the rocket pack to the Griffith Observatory that night in exchange for Jenny's life. Just before he is arrested by the FBI and taken to see Hughes, Cliff hides the rocket. Hughes reveals that the rocket was a prototype similar to one Nazi scientists were unsuccessfully developing to invade the United States . The FBI agents say they are tracking a Nazi spy in Hollywood, whom Cliff realizes is Sinclair. When Hughes demands the return of the rocket, Cliff explains that he needs it to rescue Jenny and Cliff escapes, but inadvertently leaves behind a clue to where he is going.
As the "Rocketeer", Cliff flies to the rendezvous where Sinclair, Lothar and the Valentine gang are waiting. When Sinclair demands the rocket, Cliff divulges to the gang that the actor is a Nazi spy. Eddie, drawing the line at treason, turns on Sinclair. In response, speaking in German, Sinclair unexpectedly summons 60 heavily armed SA German commandos hidden nearby. The gang are held at gunpoint as a Nazi Zeppelin, the Luxembourg appears overhead to evacuate Sinclair and his associates, who orders their prisoners shot. Suddenly, FBI agents announce their presence and both they and the gangsters find themselves joining forces to battle the Nazis. Sinclair and Lothar escape with Jenny aboard the Zeppelin.
Cliff uses the rocketpack to reach and board the Zeppelin, but during the ensuing showdown Jenny accidentally sets the craft on fire with a flare gun. Sinclair takes the rocket to save himself, but Cliff pulls off the chewing gum patch. In the explosion, Sinclair dies crashing into the last four giant letters of the "Hollywoodland" sign. Lothar is engulfed in flames as the Zeppelin explodes, but Cliff and Jenny are rescued at the last instant by Hughes and Peevy in an autogyro.
Hughes later presents Cliff with a brand-new Gee Bee racer. As Hughes leaves, Jenny presents Peevy with the rocket blueprints she found in Sinclair's villa and he decides that with some modifications, he can build an even better one.
Read more about this topic: The Rocketeer (film)
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—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)