Edison the Man (1940)

Edison the Man
Directed by Clarence Brown
Written by Talbot Jenning, Bradbury Foote, Dore Schary and Hugo Butler
1940/USA
Metro-Goldwyn Mayer
First viewing/Warner Archive DVD

[box] Thomas A. Edison: [after the latest attempt to find a filament that will work in the electric light] Well, we failed again. That’s the net result of nine thousand experiments.

Michael Simon: Too bad, Tom. We know the work you have done. We are as sorry as you are that you didn’t get results.

Thomas A. Edison: Results? Man, I got a lot of results. I know nine thousand things now that won’t work.[/box]

Biopics are hit and miss with me.  Spencer Tracy’s fine performance puts this film into the “hit” column.

The story is played in flashback as the 80-year-old Edison reflects on his life prior to an award ceremony.   We see his courtship, marriage and life as a family man but mostly the progression of his career as an inventor, with special emphasis on the invention of the incandescent electric light.  With Gene Lockhart and Charles Coburn as Edison’s patrons, Henry Travers as an older friend and Felix Bressart as one of Edison’s team of workers.

This is a nice, solid movie.  Any tendency toward the pedantic is negated by the humanity of Tracy’s portrayal.  Edison makes an impassioned speech advocating world harmony and science in the service of mankind at the end as befitted the time.

Hugo Butler and Dore Schary were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Story for their work on this film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cQsI-pZnOE

Trailer