Review of Edison, the Man

. . . 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!