La Vie de Thomas Edison

Spencer Tracy stars as the famous inventor Thomas Edison. This movie deals primarily with his struggles to invent the electric light. Beautiful Rita Johnson plays Edison's wife. Excellent supporting cast includes Henry Travers, Charles Coburn, Grant Mitchell, Felix Bressart, and Gene Lockhart -- solid character actors all. Grand MGM polish and production values make for a great-looking picture.

This is the second MGM biopic of Edison released in 1940. The first, Young Tom Edison, starred Mickey Rooney and covered the inventor's early years. Edison, the Man is sort of a sequel to that film. Both are excellent. These old biopics were usually solid, uplifting character-driven stories. Yes they take liberties with the details but the more cynical defamatory biopics we get these days do the same. I'll take an inspirational biography that builds people up and leaves you with the warm fuzzies over some deconstructionist tabloid trash any day.