Expected more

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The caption quote is what visitors to the Edison National Historic Site in New Jersey are told. For there is no question that Thomas Alva Edison, "The Wizard of Menlo Park," was America's greatest inventor. His accomplishment of 1150 patents is truly astonishing when one takes into account the times when he lived. Most of his life was spent in the 19th century.Movie makers have always had an attraction for biographies. To name just a few of the many featured in motion pictures: Alexander the Great, Marco Polo, Columbus, Marie Antoinette, Kit Carson, Abraham Lincoln, Brigham Young, Louis Pasteur, Geronimo, Knute Rockne, Hank Williams, John F. Kennedy. Of course it is difficult to cram a person's life into a two or even three-hour movie. Then again, the movies, for various reasons, are not too accurate with the facts. With "Edison the Man" we at least have an enjoyable representation that focuses much on Edison's earlier inventions. We still miss much, like the early death of Mrs. Edison (Mary Stilwell) at age 29, and Edison's second marriage two years later to Mina Miller. The real Edison had three children with the first marriage, and three with the second. But as the movie ends in 1882, the first Mrs. Edison was still alive. Then again, the real purpose of the movie is to make drama with the earlier inventions.The biography begins in 1929 when Thomas A. Edison was honored at a banquet for the Jubilee of light (1879-1929). He reflects on his long life – already exceeding 80 years – by thinking back to 1869, when relatively unknown at age 22 he had improved the stock market ticker. From his success he received $40,000 from General Powell (the actual amount was $10,000). With the payment Edison constructed his famous laboratories at Menlo Park, NJ. After much sweat he and his loyal associates invented the Quadruplex telegraph, the phonograph (1877), the electric light bulb (1879), and many others. It was the phonograph, the talking machine, which really brought the inventor into the public eye. The singular great accomplishment was the electric light bulb, along with the dynamo and electrification of Pearl St. in Manhattan on 4 September 1882. These achievements came after he found that one of his pseudo-supporters (Taggart) had a vested interest in the gaslight business. But Edison was determined to get the job done in the allotted six months. From time immemorial man had needed to use burning flames to produce light. Electric power remains safer (and more comfortable in the summer).To keep the movie within a reasonable time length (Edison's life from 1869 to 1882), some of the major inventions of the later 19th and early 20th centuries are quickly listed at movie's end. They include the fluoroscope (X-ray machine), ediphone (dictating machine), cement kiln, mimeograph, and motion pictures (kinetoscope, 1891). The last listing, "talking pictures," is dubious at best as Edison was long deaf and preferred silent movies to talkies. Also, Spencer Tracy makes the great man to be more pleasant than he really was. For the real Edison was motivated by commercial success as much as his desire to improve man's lot.Spencer Tracy was such a marvelous actor that he would study about those he portrayed, especially Thomas A. Edison. He even visited his famous New Jersey Laboratories. The actor had already won the Academy Award in 1938 for his portrayal of Father Flanagan of Boys Town. Perhaps his best representation of Edison is demonstrating the man's personal drive to succeed in all of his endeavors, to push harder and harder, to combine inspiration (1%) with perspiration (99%). Look at his despair when he cannot keep up with the bills, then later his weary joy when Pearl Street lights up. Worth seeing.

Hollywood produced a number of biographical movies during the 1930s, mostly of scientists, entrepreneurs, and adventurers. The films stuck more or less closely to the historical facts. This particular example is a little bland. Thomas Alva Edison (1847 - 1931) was not an adventurer. He was an inventor, a kind of combination engineer and entrepreneur.Since Edison wasn't somebody like Henry Stanley, the African explorer that Spencer Tracy had played earlier, nobody gets shot and no one's head is wrenched off. The most dramatic moment occurs when Tracy, as Edison, is bent over his new electric light and the filament burns out. Tracy's face drops a little.Now, Edison's life was NOT entirely uninteresting but Hollywood must observe certain conventions. The man must be entirely honorable. There must be no ambiguity about that. And he must be guided by a vision almost divine in its generosity.We may have no mention of the fact that Edison married Mary when she was a girl of sixteen. Yum yum. And we may mention that he was a school drop out but not that he knew little of mathematics or theory, that he was a born tinkerer who scorned figuring things out ahead of time, in favor of a method of successive approximations. Edison must retain his good nature through the course of many failures and his workers must be devoted to him, so much so that they'll labor at their benches for nothing.We can't let it be known that he was a mean, stingy, dishonest son of a gun. "One of Edison's assistants was Nikola Tesla. Tesla claimed that Edison had promised him $50,000 if he succeeded in making improvements to his DC generation plants. Several months later, when Tesla had finished the work and asked to be paid, he said that Edison replied, 'When you become a full-fledged American you will appreciate an American joke.' "Tesla immediately resigned. With Tesla's salary of $18 per week, the payment would have amounted to over 53 years' pay and the amount was equal to the initial capital of the company. Another account states that Tesla resigned when he was refused a raise to $25 per week." That quote is from Wikipedia, and other sources have promoted similar stories of Edison's cheapness. What he did, he did because it was of commercial value, and he took credit for work done by his employees. He was even involved in a corporate fight over who would get to install the circuitry in the first electric chair.All that is beside the movie's point, which is that the guy, however Dickensian he might have been, produced all sorts of stuff we take for granted today. And -- here's what gets me about Edison and all these other characters who were putting together electronic equipment -- nobody knew what electricity was. It was all done long before physicists like Millikan and Rutherford began to analyze the structure of the atom. They couldn't have dreamed that electricity was a stream of electrons jumping at the speed of light from one atom to the next through a conductor. The electron hadn't been discovered yet.I don't think of this as one of Spencer Tracy's more memorable movies. As in most other movies of its genre, he starts out with ten cents in his pocket and winds up being honored by the whole world. There's not that much in between for Tracy to sink his teeth into. In all fairness, though, it must be said that he looks very sad when that filament burns out on him.

EDISON, THE MAN (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1940), directed by Clarence Brown, became Hollywood's second contribution into the life of one of America's greatest inventors, Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931). Following the earlier release of YOUNG TOM EDISON (1940) starring Mickey Rooney, which covered the title character's boyhood years in Port Huron, Michigan, this second of a two-part biography covers the rest of the story of Edison's life from unknown inventor to historic figure. Rather than waiting a few years having Rooney coming of age to reprise his Edison role, this continuing story not only came a few months after its initial release, but one of the few sequels where none of the actors nor director (Norman Taurog) from the preceding film returns. The acting honor goes to Spencer Tracy in one of his more challenging film roles of his career. While it's logical for anyone who's seen both these films to make comparisons, it's easy to point out how EDISON, THE MAN is connected with the other through its underscoring of "Sweet Genevieve" in certain scenes; a reminder of Edison's slight trouble with his hearing; Edison's communication through the use of Morse Code by tapping on the pipes; and eating his favorite meal, apple pie and milk. Rather than starting off with the usual "Forward" reading to what's to be presented, it offers a written passage by Ralph Waldo Emerson that states: "The true test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of cities, not the crops - no, but the kind of man the country turns out." And now, on with the adult life of Thomas Edison. Getting down to basics from an original story by Dore Schary and Hugo Butler, the adult life of a great man begins with a golden jubilee of light (1879-1929) where 82-year-old Thomas Alva Edison (Spencer Tracy) is being interviewed by a couple of teenagers (Jay Ward and Anne Gillis) getting the facts for their school newspaper before attending the banquet in his honor at Independence Hall. As Edison sits at the table as the speaker tells about his life, he thinks back to the days of 1869 as a young man coming to New York City from Boston on an invitation from his friend and telegrapher, Bunt Cavatt (Lynne Overman) to come work for Ben Els (Henry Travers). Attempting to get James J. Taggart (Gene Lockhart) of Wall Street to finance him for his inventions, Edison gets support from General Powell (Charles Coburn), president of Western Union. After selling his invention, Edison, who earlier met Mary Stillwell (Rita Johnson), earns enough money to get married and open his own invention factory in Menlo Park, New Jersey (The reproduction of it is first rate set designing). Edison's marriage brings forth two children, but due to he working tirelessly on his many inventions, it nearly causes hardship on his marriage. After Powell dies, it appears Edison will face financial ruin, but with the confidence and loyalty of those working under him, he strives to work on the greatest invention of all time.Aside from Felix Bressart, Peter Godfrey, Milton Parsons, Byron Foulger, Grant Mitchell and Addison Richards leading fine support, Gene Reynolds, in small but worthy performance as Jimmy Price, a teenage runaway landing a job with Edison's middle-aged associates on various inventions. While one serious mistake nearly puts him on the downside, Tracy's Edison give him this great line as he gives him that's second chance, "One thing about mistakes, they don't have to be permanent." Rita Johnson's role as Mrs. Edison is a bit downplayed at times and offers little challenge to her performance.As cliché as movie biographies goes, EDISON, THE MAN ranks one of the best of its kind. Naturally historians might be discouraged with some inaccuracies or eliminations that took part in Edison's life, yet so much can only be disclosed without putting this motion picture past the two or three hour mark. The fact that Edison's second wife and more children are eliminated, the screenplay covers more on his struggles than personal life and achievements, namely that on the invention of the phonograph, dictating machine (Edison's first words, "Mary had a little lamb ...") and finally doing the impossible by lighting up New York City, the most detailed of all.One cannot help but notice similarities of Edison with Tracy's earlier portrayal of Father Flanagan taken from BOYS TOWN (1938) as one who doesn't let troubles discourage him. As Edison is said to be as one who would have been a great man even if he never invented anything, Tracy would have been a great actor even if he never won an Academy Award. Though Tracy did win two, he earned no nomination for this fine portrayal. Longer and a bit slower than YOUNG TOM EDISON, EDISON, THE MAN is unforgettable by any means, especially Tracy's exact likeness towards the real Edison, the old man.Regardless of minor flaws and/or factual errors (that's to be expected), EDISON, THE MAN is no disappointment. To learn more about Edison's life as depicted on screen, get hold of the old home video release from 1991, DVD copy, or wait for another broadcast on Turner Classic Movies. To learn more on Edison in the life as he lived it, check out a library book from the biography section. (****)

Spencer Tracy rarely played real people. He played a character based on Arnold Rothstein in an early film for Fox, and Henry Morton Stanley in STANLEY AND LIVINGSTON, and Rogers of Rogers' Rangers in NORTHWEST PASSAGE, and Clarence Darrow (Henry Drummond) in INHERIT THE WIND, and the Captain of the Mayflower in PLYMOUTH ADVENTURE. It seems like a large number of films, but it is really less than three percent of his movies. He also appeared in this film as the great inventor (over 1,000 patents) Thomas Alva Edison (1847 - 1931). In 1940 Edison was a national hero. Nobody was quite like him, although Alexander Graham Bell (soon to be subject of a film starring Don Ameche) was a figure of great interest too. So was Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph, and Eli Whitney, inventor of the Cotton Gin. However no films were made about them. There was a film with Fred MacMurray and Alice Faye about Robert Fulton and his steamboat, but none about the Wright brothers.Because of the period of history it was made in, film biography rarely was totally dispassionate. All Americans heroes were flawless, so all questions about Edison's stealing credit from assistants or other inventors was pushed aside (his involvement in the patent battles about the telephone is not mentioned). Nor were his flop inventions: pre-fabricated houses made of cement (actually a good idea, but ahead of it's time), the attempt to be the biggest gold ore refiner in the East (using huge machines to grind the ore out of rocks), the electric car motor. His bigoted feelings towards foreigners (Jews, rival inventors like Nicola Tesla) were not mentioned, nor was his rejection of the offer of a joint 1911 Nobel Prize for Physics (for the accidental discovery of the Edison Affect of carbonization in electricity) because he had to have it with Tesla for discovering alternating current. None of this is mentioned...only the string of great inventions he had a major hand in from 1868 to 1894. As a surface study of his career it is passable, and Tracy and the cast (in particular Gene Lockhart as his critic and nemesis Taggart) are splendid. You'll be entertained, but read A STREAK OF LUCK by Robert Conot for the true story.