Edison, the Man (1940)

Regisseur:

Clarence Brown

Drehbuchautoren:

Hugo Butler (story)
Bradbury Foote (writer)

Premierendatum:

10. Mai 1940 (USA)

Genre:

Biographie | Drama

Plot:

In flashback, fifty years after inventing the light bulb, an 82-year-old Edison tells his story starting...

Plot Keywords:

Baby | Race Against Time | Invention | Idealist | Inventor

Filmpreise:

Nominated for Oscar.

Nutzerkommentare:

Nice Story About A Incredible Inventor

Besetzung

Spencer Tracy	...	Thomas A. Edison
Rita Johnson	...	Mary Stillwell
Lynne Overman	...	James J. Cavatt
Charles Coburn	...	General Powell
Gene Lockhart	...	Mr. Taggart
Henry Travers	...	Ben Els
Felix Bressart	...	Michael Simon
Peter Godfrey	...	Bob Ashton
Guy D'Ennery	...	Lundstrom
Byron Foulger	...	Edwin Hall
Milton Parsons	...	Acid Graham
Arthur Aylesworth	...	Jack Bigelow
Gene Reynolds	...	Jimmy Price
Addison Richards	...	Johnson
Grant Mitchell	...	Shade

Alternativ:

Große Edison, Der (Deutschland) [de]

Länge:

107 Min

Produktionsland:

USA

Sprache:

Englisch

Farbe:

Schwarzweiss

Seitenverhältnis:

1.37 : 1

Tonverfahren:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Altersfreigabe:

Australia:G | Finland:S | Sweden:Btl

Firma:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Dies und das:

In the film, Edison and his wife communicate with each other by tapping out Morse code. In the movie this is presented as a charming endearment, but in fact Edison was so deaf the only way he and his wife could talk was by tapping Morse code on each other's hands.

Dialogzitate:

Mr. Taggart: We've no guarantee that these theories of yours are workable.
Thomas A. Edison: Well, most electricity is theory yet.
Mr. Taggart: That's the trouble. Beyond a point what good is electricity anyway?
Thomas A. Edison: What good is a newborn baby?

Bezüge zu anderen Titeln:

Ausschnittsweise enthalten in Servant of Mankind (1940)

Nice Story About A Incredible Inventor

You don't see these kind of old-fashioned biographies anymore. There have been very few in the last 40 years. Yes, many of the classic biographies sugar-coated the stories, ignoring a person's negative traits, but today's films mostly do the opposite, so it's nice to re-visit a movie in which an American hero is shown as just that. One gets tired of all the trashing.

Thomas Alva Edison certainly was a hero with his incredible inventions (i.e., the light bulb) which affected almost everyone on the planet to a significant degree. This movie goes to great lengths to show Edison's persistence in reaching his goals while also highlighting the dedication of the men who worked for him.

Spencer Tracy as Edison, along with Rita Johnson, Lynne Overman, Charles Coburn, Gene Lockhart, Henry Travers and Felix Bressart make this a pretty solid movie. It's not spectacular, probably not worth more than one look, maybe two, but it's a story that should be seen about an amazing period in history.