For the first time in my life I was recently married, 23 and unemployed. My wife was working and I was home watching TV. A British movie came on, The Magic Box which caught my interest immediately . The frustrating life of film innovator William Freese Greene (Robert Donat). The real inventor of color motion pictures. Yes there will be debates that will go on for a time about who invented the motion picture projector and who put in the patents first. But the 100 percent perspiration and dedication of one man shines throughout this movie. Despite bouts with money and marriage problems our inventor chap continued to persevere in his quest for a beautiful finished product. Earlier I watched the original Good Bye Mister Chips starring Robert Donat in the lead. What paralleled these two pictures was the similarity of Robert Donat playing different ages throughout the picture. As in the film Mister Chips you see Donat as a young Freshman Professor at a boarding school and as the film wears on he ages well into his early eighties. In this movie Donat starts as an elderly man at a London conference and the film flashes back showing a younger spry apprentice photographer. Our movie starts with the fore mentioned conference with the older Greene speaking to fellow businessmen in the film industry. Greene's stands up frustrated as he wants to make his message about the innovations of filming but the crowd was saturated with money hungry businessmen interested in complacency. Silent black and white movies being the norm rather than technical advances stressed by Greene. The response from his peers was complacent at the very least. Greene sits himself down and ponders his past. Greene's story flashed back in time as a young studio portrait photographer for a man called Maurice Guttenberg (Frederick Valk). Guttenberg and Greene have a falling out. Greene insists on shooting a picture his way. Greene and his new bride venture out on their own. Green opens his own photography business and slowly makes a solid customer base. With the money and the help of businessman, he invests it all on developing a color film with quite a few failures along the way but persistence pays off as he finally develops a celluloid that could handle a movie projector. One night Greene sets up his makeshift projector. Greene is excited about a scene he filmed in Hyde Park earlier in the day. Greene is about to run the film but there's no audience. He calls down to the street where a Bobby is walking his beat.The Bobby is played by the exemplary Actor Sir Laurence Olivier. Greene tells the befuddled Officer to sit and watch the bed sheet on the wall. Greene runs the film to the amazement of the confused constable as he runs to the sheet and tries to grab the images. This movie has so many cameos of Iconic British cinema actors. Here are some familiars, Leo Genn, David Tomlinson, Peter Ustinov and Michael Redgrave. I always like the acting of Robert Donat and his soft spoken approach. When this movie was released it was a box office flop but to me it was informative and poignant.
Review of The Magic Box
