. . . to convince us that this infamous, glory-grabbing monopolist was all sweetness and light. Mistitled EDISON, THE MAN, 98% of this mendacious puff piece has Spencer Tracy, then 40 (but looking 60), playing "young" Tom from 1872 through 1882, when Thomas Alva Edison was 25- to 35-years-old. Since Edison died in 1931 at the age of 84, this distortion ignores 49 years (85%) of Old Tom's "manhood." Such "highlights" as Edison's failed attempted to move Americans into his patented concrete houses, Edison's burning alive of the beloved Coney Island Elephant Topsy in front of a huge crowd in a failed attempt to "humanely" electrocute her as a "science demonstration," Edison's Misperception that movies would be strictly a form of home entertainment rather than a mass media, Edison's ruthlessly fiendish plots to wrest every penny from American's pockets by monopolizing anything that his lawyers could construe as connected to his patents (including all movie and music CONTENT), Edison's iron legal grip delaying the progress of many technologies he DIDN"T EVEN UNDERSTAND (such as the movies, as mentioned above, or electrical distribution, where he lobbied for the far deadlier direct current over the more user-friendly alternating current), Edison's shoving top workers aside to hog the spotlight all to himself on THEIR inventions (causing nearly all of the ACTUAL inventors of "Edison" patents to up and quit, wiser but poorer in the pocket), Edison's litigious "sue-happy" nature, Edison's lab complex fire which nearly destroyed Metro New York City--all this reality is ignored at best, or flat out turned into Topsy Turvy falsehoods at worst. Shame, shame, shame!

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.

Motion Picture biographical representations of famous people usually remove the warts in their life history. It was not until February of 2003 did I learn that using carbon filaments, was the brainchild of African-American inventor Lewis Latimer and his partner, Joseph V. Nichols. The movie focuses around Edison's discovery of the carbon filament which lights the world, when actually Edison's filaments were made from bamboo and only lasted 30 hours.The story as told is very pleasant and the performances of Spencer Tracey, Gene Lockhart and Charles Coburn hold the viewers interest. With the warts, this is still an inspiring motion picture. I think seeing Mickey Rooney as YOUNG TOM EDISON should be viewed first.

I like the fact that Edison was nominated for the Oscar for best Original Story. How many biopics can claim that honour ?Spencer Tracy is excellent as the dynamic American inventor. Although he was a 40 year old playing a 25 year old he produced sufficient energy to overcome the obstacle of years. This is a fine piece of acting and is well supported by the bit-parts and by the director who clearly enjoys telling the story of Edison's finest achievements, the invention of the light bulb and of the recording device.The main problem with the film is its lack of balance. We don't hear enough about his theft of patents and his failure to give credit to his co-workers. Edison is a metaphor for America in the early twentieth century, exciting, inventive, thrusting, dynamic but also shallow and lacking in grace.