Genius on Hold

The movies' display of corporate greed is compelling even though Mr Shaw must have signed over any patent rights as a condition of his employment.The fact that Mr Shaw actually went to prison for attaching his equipment to the Bell system phone lines (are you kidding me?) for a misdemeanor demonstrates an example of obvious corporate influence.His relationship with organized crime is, I surmise, a combination of naivety and poor judgment and nothing more. Mr Shaw Sr is clearly a martyr but his son is definitely not. He is a life long criminal who appears to have reconciled with his father in order to exploit his unfortunate situation for financial gain. Think of Brian Williams, Al Sharpton; some things are so obvious.

More than once we are told that Shaw was prevented from earning a living by Bell. I doubt he was hired without agreeing that he could not profit directly from any patents. Most engineers work under that agreement now, for understandable reasons. I think it was his ego that wouldn't allow him to give his invention to Bell who in turn would invest in it, build it, market it, and take the financial loss if it failed to be marketable. Some people forget that side of things. Bell would be taking all the risk and Shaw would be taking none. When he was unemployed, if he had such a passion for his work, he could have gone to Europe or other places in the world. The U.S. wasn't the only place that had phones. Also, I believe it was his ego again that prevented him from getting an engineering job in another industry. With his skill, that would have been easy to do and would have provided a good paycheck. Instead he let his family live in uncertainty while he chased his dream. He was willing to compromise his values and work with the Mob in order to display his genius. I think that his choices were very selfish. I fault this show for not questioning those choices and his motivation for his actions. Instead it presented a sob story about how he was wronged and what he had to resort to. People may come to that conclusion but they should not be spoon fed it. They should be given all aspects to consider as they reach their conclusion.

This excellent documentary provides new information about the Mafia, the FBI as well as AT&T. It shows the phone monopoly was far more ruthless than most of us knew. It shows what really went on with Joe Valachi and the FBI at the Kefauver hearings. My lasting insight from this film is the connection between corporatism and fascism.

It is also the story of a brilliant man brought down because he was too successful and his strange turn to the dark side in attempt to survive. The audience for this film is everyone interested in AT&T, the nature of monopolies, or power shift in America since the 1960's.

This film is well produced with lots of archive footage.

Aside from a clear favoritism of one political party, I found this documentary to be quite good. Yes there are some glaring omissions when it comes to what political parties did what. And clear favoritism of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as the only time they are referenced they are shown with children or the elderly, with some kind of religious sounding music playing, even though the economic downturn of 2008 is at the heart of this films thesis. All that is really beside the point of the story of a man who should have been a very successful inventor of the twentieth century. But of course he wasn't, and that's the point heavily implied by the title Genius on Hold.

Give it a watch. Disregard your politics, and don't buy into heavily insinuated opinion in this film that all Republican Presidents have embodied the greed is good mentality. After all, the decades which this film covers the presidency was split 60/40 with more Democratic Presidents and lawmakers holding the majority of those years. But, that's not really what this film is about. It's about the man, Shaw, and his inventions.

What could have been an interesting bio was turned into a political propaganda piece probably written and produced by a few of the unwashed Occupy Wall Street crowd. Not quite historically accurate, very one-sided, confusing and worse - very dull. The story of Shaw is interesting but nothing new. Work done and patents applied for by individuals in corporations usually belong to the firm that provided all of the tools, supplies, equipment, money and benefits, and which is usually stipulated in the hiring contract. Shaw wanted it all for himself and in doing so ran up against one of the biggest companies in the world (at that time). Hubris kills. Shaw wanted to use his products with AT&T's system without any penalty. Think about that the next time you see the FBI warning on every DVD, or if you try to install your app on your iPhone without Apple's permission. Again, the story of Shaw would have been very interesting if the writer - director hadn't used this to promote his own distorted view of American business and capitalism. I enjoy a good story; I don't like propaganda.