SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

dsewizzrd-1 Richard Attenborough, Ronald Shiner, Sidney James, Margaret Rutherford, Googie Withers, Thora Hird, Marius Goring, Stanley Holloway, Eric Portman, Dennis Price, David Tomlinson, Peter Ustinov, and just about every other contemporary British actor have roles in this film about the life of the British inventor of the motion film camera, produced for the postwar "Festival Of Britain". William Friese Greene, a dedicated and spendthrift inventor starts work as a photographer's assistant and then starts his own studio. He starts a partnership with a Scottish man which he later falls out with. His first wife dies and he re-marries but after some period, she divorces him.

Robert J. Maxwell This movie stars Robert Donat as William Friese Greene who more or less invented the movie camera and thus made available those things being commented on at IMDb.com.It's received splendid reviews over the years and on this site as well, and it's easy to understand why. The story has Friese Greene and his family suffering for his obsession with the camera. He sacrifices everything for it and his wife and friends chip into the pit. In the end, he dies at a public meeting in 1921 while trying to speak to the audience about developing art, preserving history, and putting money-making on the back burner. The audience must examine his body to find out who he is because he's an old man, long forgotten.For lagniappe, we have brief appearances by just about every well-known name in the British film industry at the time, from Lawrence Olivier as a wary police constable to Muir Mathieson as a conductor.So I hate to say that I found the biography a familiar one. Man persists in his pursuit of the invention. Sells everything. Suffers multiple tragedies. Wife gets sick and dies. Friends desert him. But he carries on until his goal is achieved. A cinematic biography wouldn't be a cinematic biography without these formulaic elements. What would you prefer -- a five-minute movie in which a man is inspired by an idea, goes down to the basement, puts some device together, sells franchises at an immense profit, marries some suitable mate like Paris Hilton, and settles down to happily raise five chubby children and a dozen thoroughbred horses? It's well acted and nicely directed by John Boulting, but similar stories have been better told. The Warner Brothers' biopics of the 30s -- starring people like Edward G. Robinson as Dr. Ehrlich -- were equally well done if more crudely presented. "Lust for Life" was more gripping. If William Friese Greene was really like Robert Donat in temperament, he was comparatively dull, although mighty lucky to have a wife who looked like Maria Schell. She has a dazzling smile that, when it appears, seems to cause all the features of her face to light up at once.For what it's worth, towards late middle age, Friese Greene bemoans the fact that the contemporary encyclopedia entry doesn't even mention his name. (Wikipedia does now.) There were a number of people working on the idea around the same time and, the human mind being what it is, a single "inventor" is called for. Today that name is Edison. I wish Friese Green had won the gold medal because Edison was something of a rat. He patented everything he could get his hands on, including the inventions of people working in his own laboratory, not in pursuit of a dream but in order to make money. He fought it out with Westinghouse over who had the rights to the juice in the electric chair. The depths of Edison's avarice were plumbless.

Cineanalyst This biopic of inventor William Friese-Greene was based on Ray Allister's book "Friese-Greene: Close-up of an Inventor". Allister used the recollections of the inventor's family and friends for his biography. Such sources have oft proved unreliable, and this is such a case. Brian Coe and other historians have since debunked some of the myths invented by Friese-Greene and perpetuated by his family, friends and biographers. The mythical result here, in this film, is that Friese-Greene appears as the primary inventor of motion pictures and cinema.The climax of "The Magic Box" has Friese-Greene projecting his film taken at Hyde Park to a policeman. The film-within-the-film is not the actual photographs taken by Friese-Greene, but the invention of the makers of "The Magic Box". This first film appears in a condition that would rival the Lumière programs of some six years later; the flickers and jitters are unrealistically light. Moreover, it would be the first multi-shot film, preceding by about eight years the earliest such films that I've seen or read of. The first part, which takes place in the park, with a man and his son approaching the camera, is followed by the so-called scene of leisurely pedestrians, open-topped buses and hansom cabs with trotting horses. In this last part, however, which doesn't exist today, appears within "The Magic Box" as a scene of curious observers looking at the likewise observing camera.Allister, however, has reprinted six frames of the first part of the subjects. Others have surmised that this film was taken at about four or five frames per second. The film within "The Magic Box", however appears to have been photographed at least at 16 frames per second, which is generally acknowledged as the minimum speed for the illusion of motion. Moreover, the Hyde Park film probably wasn't seamlessly projected; the film wasn't even perforated. Two frames each were also photographed at a time, which explains why, as you can see in "The Magic Box", Friese-Greene's camera features two lenses. This was because the film was a stereoscopy attempt; that is, Friese-Greene thought he might be able to produce three-dimensional images by overlapping two simultaneously photographed frames. Allister has also reprinted four frames from another film by Friese-Greene--a street scene taken in Chelsea. This film is perforated, but still appears to have been photographed at probably no more than five frames per second.On a further historical note, Friese-Greene is said to have given some public demonstrations of films, although he doesn't seem to have been too successful with them. Later, he gave public showings of Birt Acres's films, which seems an indication of his own incomplete work on motion pictures. Additionally, Greene's former business partner Arthur Collings did go on to become one of Britain's earliest filmmakers; he was giving public performances of his films in late 1896.In short, the movie industry demonstrated itself incapable of rendering even its own history accurately. This isn't necessarily a knock on the quality of "The Magic Box", though. I've come not to expect accurate history lessons from movies (and, sometimes, not even from books). Interestingly, and probably more accurately, Friese-Greene's life is depicted throughout the rest of the film as an indebted and failed inventor, who lost his family and, it would seem, part of his sanity. The flashback storytelling structure is accessible. The fictionalized, climactic moment of success, as a dramatic, self-reflexive scene is quite moving. The film, in general, is absorbing, and the production values are topnotch. Friese-Greene's camera, other pre-cinema trinkets and the originally slow process of taking photographs are well rendered. I also liked the fairground scene where they catch a glimpse of three Lumière films projected within a tent. Its history is inaccurate, but "The Magic Box" is nevertheless an inspired look back at the beginnings of the art form.

dbdumonteil A first-class actor ,playing a character from his youth to an old man,with the same talent:he is as convincing as the mischievous boy who takes photographs unbeknown to his boss as the old man who tries to save the seventh art from the moneychangers in the Temple . The film has an unusually inventive construction:it is roughly made of two flashbacks ,but the first one takes place after the second one."The magic box" tells the story of a pioneer of the cinema who died in dire straits ("that's the price for a seat for pictures" )His destiny resembles that of Georges Méliès who ended his life selling candies in a railway station and who never complained about his fate.Geniuses often die unnoticed.The cinematography is splendid with tasteful colors ,the dialog does not forget humor (Donat:"Enjoy yourselves!Schell:"We're going to the church!!"),and there are very powerful scenes:the concert where Schell sings a moving solo "Where is he?I know not!I know not!";an ecstatic Donat showing his film to a constable .The cast is incredibly various and includes such luminaries as Laurence Olivier,Margaret Rutherford,Peter Ustinov,Stanley Holloway and more ,all in supporting parts or even often cameos.How prophetic the pioneer's last words were!