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.

MartinHafer In hindsight, I wonder why they chose to do a biography of William Friese-Greene. After all, on one hand, it isn't firmly established that he did create motion pictures (this can also be claimed by several others as well). In addition, his work with color cinematography (for which he is most famous) was mostly a failure. But most importantly, he was not a particularly nice person. He apparently was a bit of a Schizoid Personality or perhaps had Asperger's Syndrome--emotional disorders where an individual has extreme difficulty relating to or caring about others. He was so obsessed with his work, that according to the film he was a terrible father and husband. The bottom line is that THINGS were much more important to him than people. In other words, he was a jerk--at least as portrayed in the film.So what's left? Why watch the film if the man's inventions had limited impact and he was a pretty detached and self-absorbed individual?! No matter how well the film was made (and it was decent--but not outstanding even with this amazing cast), it was severely hampered at the onset. Overall, passable but that's all. At least it was filmed in color...just not using Friese-Greene's process.

Neil Doyle For all of his dogged determination to succeed, William Friese-Greene never quite established himself firmly in the public's mind as the inventor of the first motion picture camera, THE MAGIC BOX. That honor seems to rest with Thomas Edison. But as the film goes on to suggest, it was "Willie" who developed the first camera similar to what motion picture cameras use today. The film gives credit to Edison and other inventors with Greene as "one of the first pioneers." The story is told slowly, with flashbacks, and captures the time and customs of a bygone era with careful attention to detail. And for added interest, almost every small role is played by one of Britain's most famous actors. Keep an eye out for Margaret Rutherford, Kay Walsh, Joan Hickson, Laurence Olivier, Leo Genn, Eric Portman, Richard Attenborough, Glynis Johns, and others.Maria Schell, as one of the inventor's wives, wears a perpetual smile or grin on her face which always irritates me--let's face it, she's never been one of my favorite actresses and unfortunately she's in a good many of the scenes. I wish another actress had been cast in the role of his understanding first wife.It's an interesting story, well told and extremely well acted by most of the cast with Margaret Rutherford standing out as one of the photographer's best customers and Laurence Olivier doing a fine job as the policeman called hurriedly to Donat's laboratory to witness motion pictures taken in Hyde Park and staring at the screen in amazement.Donat's illness shows in many of the early scenes where he's supposed to be a young man, so that he looks more natural in the age make-up sequences as an older chap. The age make-up makes him resemble Mr. Chips again. I thought the ending was overly sentimental and not the way I would have preferred the story to conclude.Well worth viewing.

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!