Edison, the Man *** (1940, Spencer Tracy, Rita Johnson, Lynne Overman) – Classic Movie Review 7913

Director Clarence Brown’s 1940 MGM drama Edison, the Man stars Spencer Tracy, who takes over from Mickey Rooney (who had played the inventor as a boy in the same year’s Young Tom Edison) to play the all-American inventor of the light bulb.

In a flashback story, starting in 1929 at the 50th anniversary of the bulb’s invention, we follow our hero as he strives painfully in New York until hitting the big-time.

Obviously the Oscar nominated story (by Hugo Butler and Dore Schary) is considerably romanticised and not at all consistently true to life, but MGM’s handsomely produced film is as bright as a 150-watt bulb and nicely played by the attractive cast.

Tracy is persuasive and powerful as Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1031), who finds time to marry Mary Stilwell (Rita Johnson) and have two babies, while patenting 1,000 inventions, notably the phonograph, the microphone, and the kinetoscope, as well as the incandescent lamp by which he lights up all Manhattan by electric dynamos, in the film’s most telling scene.

Also in the cast are Lynne Overman, Charles Coburn, Gene Lockhart, Henry Travers, Felix Bressart, Grant Mitchell, Addison Richards, Peter Godfrey, Frank Faylen, Byron Foulger, Milton Parsons, Arthur Aylsworth, Gene Reynolds, Harlan Briggs, Charles Trowbridge, Charles Waldron, Charles Lane, Irving Bacon, Milton Kibbee and Emmett Vogan.

Edison, the Man is directed by Clarence Brown, runs 106 minutes, is made and released by MGM, is written by Talbot Jennings and Bradbury Foote, based on the story by Hugo Butler and Dore Schary, is shot in black and white by Harold Rosson, is produced by Orville O Dull and John W Considine Jr, is scored by Herbert Stothart and is designed by Cedric Gibbons.

Young Tom Edison was released on 15 March 1940 in the US and Edison, the Man was released on 10 May 1940 in the US.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7913

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