1st watched 9/11/2009 - 7 out of 10 (Dir- Clarence Brown): Wonderful chronicle of a maverick man and his inventions played by the always likable Spencer Tracy. The movie starts with the elderly Edison(with a nice set of makeup) being honored for his invention of the lightbulb, and then the story goes back to his early days before his first major invention. He was already twiddling with telegraph machines at this point, so we don't really get to see where his motivation came from -- just that he liked to do this. He is personally very ambitious from the beginning and knows that he has to have funds to do what he wants, so he stalks one of the richest men in town for his attention. He gets it after fixing one of his machines and he is hired and is given the space and time to create. He and his ragtag group start putting together quite a few accomplishments to the point where they have their own building and steady workforce. He's shown as having a good comraderie with his close knit fellows but has to let them go when things get rough. At least until the lightbulb is created, then things explode. I'm sure this story isn't 100% true when it comes to Edison as a person, but they do make good entertainment with it. Tracy also gives a good performance and is given a couple of nice speeches(that obviously come from the real Edison). Overall, this is light family entertainment, good for everyone, with an educational message. This doesn't happen often in the movies and MGM did well with this one as the usually did in this era.
Review of Edison, the Man
