Young Tom Edison (1940)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Beautiful, moving film.

Awesome Movie

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Hard to be objective about this prize winning movie! I have always considered myself fortunate that I lived during an era when you could watch a movie about Don Ameche playing Alexander Graham Bell. I remember him inventing the telephone while subsisting off apples and cheese. I also fondly recall this gem of an adventure. Nowadays kids look up to Rap and Hip Hop stars and pine to matriculate into the NBA. Justifiable ambitions, to be sure, but man, that young Tom Edison. He could make anything work better! This is actually the first time I don't want to say too much about the film, as I really don't want to spoil it for you. This is a great genre for young people that has never been fully exploited. The drama of the young inventor.Earlier you read my review about ZORBA THE Greek and his inspiration or epiphany if you will about building a contraption that would transport logs safely out of a forest and down a steep hill into an awaiting bin. Now it didn't work and we left our hero and his ward dancing Greek in the ruins of their failure. Well, here is an example where truth is stranger than fiction and comes out to a lot happier result for all concerned. You could easily imagine what Tom Edison would have said were he standing in the wake of such a disaster. "I haven't failed, I've simply found a thousand and one ways this won't work." Just another example of the spirit of American ingenuity and enterprise at work, folks.Mickey Rooney is great in this role. I could not imagine anyone besides Michael J. Fox bringing that kind of energy and enthusiasm to this acting assignment. This film has everything, a young boy always getting into something with his new ideas and developing a reputation around town as the 'addlepated' or 'addlebrained' son of Thomas and Nancy Edison. Who knows but today he might be diagnosed as having asperger syndrome and put on medication. But one thing is for certain, he has a genius for understanding mechanical advantage and sure can work wonders with mirrors and lights when the chips are down and you need to improvise an operating room on the spot.It is sheer fun watching Rooney as young Edison operating his own press and putting out a newspaper and hawking a cure-all with the rest of his wares that happens to have more kick than expected. It is thrilling and inspiring to see him reading and collecting a library chronicling the present state of scientific discovery in his time as he studies the work of such luminaries as Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, Isaac Newton, and others. We see this young boy preparing for his future as a great inventor and to be the man he has yet to become.The ending of this film is a cliffhanger straight out of a silent movie. We see the young Tom adroitly apply a body of knowledge that saves lives instead of imperiling them and before we know it he is on his way into the future as the lights fade to black.Already I have said too much, but take my word for it this is a film that gives you a warm feeling about troubled youth, family, and the positive force that learning and ideas can have on the world.

As much a fan I am of the MGM musicals, I must admit that I enjoy Mickey Rooney more as a dramatic actor in his younger days than I did as a musical star. Playing a variety of characters during the heyday of his youth (1937-1943), he showed a great versatility, although a little bit of him goes a long way. However, one of his best is "Young Tom Edision", the growing up adventures of one of the greatest Americans in history. From the moment you meet Mickey's Tom, waking up his younger sister Virginia Weidler with a clever communication invention, to his saving of a train in danger (all thanks to the signals he makes from another train's whistle to get his sister's attention), Rooney is outstanding. Ms. Weidler isn't bad, either, and almost steals the show. There's a very amusing sequence in school where Mickey is punished by his spinster teacher (Eily Maylon) and ends up almost setting the school on fire. This leads to an exchange between Maylon and Ma Edison (Fay Bainter) that equals the exchange between Auntie Em and Miss Gulch in "The Wizard of Oz".Bainter and George Bancroft are outstanding as the parents, and a spanking scene between Bainter and Rooney will definitely provide some laughs. 50 years later, the scene would be re-used to great "adult" comic affect in "Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion". Great character players like Eugene Palette, Victor Kilian (now the father of Rooney's rival, after being his dead beat dad in "Huckleberry Finn"), and Clem Bevans. Every aspect of this film seems just right, and rightly sets the ending up for a sequel featuring Spencer Tracy.

This movie is a biopic about the young years of famous inventor and movie-making pioneer Thomas Alva Edison but above all this movie is an entertaining one to watch.The movie could had also be easily named "The Adventures of Young Tom Edison", since the movie itself is quite adventurous, with young Tom Edison embarking on some adventurous dealings in the normal world and in his own world of inventing and experimenting.It above all is a movie that at all times entertains, with also some comical characters in it and some fun typical comedy dealings. Guess its also insightful about the early years of Thomas Edison's life, though its hard to tell how much in this movie actually also occurred in real life. Some things are certainly hard to believe and obviously fabricated for the movie, to also make it more fun and tense. This is really not a bad things, since it definitely improves the movie so much. I'm sure the movie would had been really boring and simplistic if it was done in a completely serious dramatic kind of biopic style. It's entertainment value is mostly what makes this movie such a great watch.It's a typical '40's movie, made in typical '40's movie style, with typical '40's way of story-telling, typical '40's kind of characters, typical '40's kind of humor and a typical '40's musical score. Needless to say, fans of '40's movie shall probably enjoy the most watching this movie.Mickey Rooney fits the role really well, even though he at the time was already much older than the character in the movie was supposed to be. He carries the movie mostly and handles everything in it very well. He especially seems at ease with the comical aspects in the movie. Other child-star Virginia Weidler also plays a good role. The parents of Tom Edison are also portrayed nicely by Fay Bainter and George Bancroft. The movie provides a good view of the home situation which also definitely helps to make the more dramatic and serious aspects of the movie work out.The movie is followed by "Edison, the Man", starring Spencer Tracy in the role of Thomas Edison, who also makes a cameo at the end of this movie, to prepare- and get viewers to the theater for its sequel. An in-movie teaser trailer!A really greatly made and entertaining movie to watch! Very recommendable.8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Like most people, I have always been an admirer of Thomas Alva Edison, probably the most prolific inventor of all time. But as I watched the movie, I wondered how much of it was fabricated. According to the world book encyclopedia, pretty much all of the incidents depicted in the movie happened, although some of the time frames were changed to allow Mickey Rooney to play the part throughout the film. And Rooney, always a very underrated actor, is terrific. With very good support from Fay Bainter, Virginia Weidler and George Bancroft as members of Edison's family, this is a film easily enjoyed by everyone. And look for a cameo by Spencer Tracy, who already had been cast in the sequel, "Edison, the Man (1940)," which was in production when this film was released.