The Magic Box

Nearly every actor who ever appeared in British movies worked in this feature. Robert Donat plays William Friese-Greene, the pioneer who patented the first motion picture camera. The film shows his beginnings as a photographer's assistant and his days as a society lenser in London, spending all his resources on his new invention (patented two years before Edison's). His first wife (Maria Schell) shares his triumphs while his second wife (Margaret Johnston) shares his failures. In between, viewers are treated to the sight of at least 50 of England's finest actors, all playing tiny bits. (Laurence Olivier, for example, is quite amusing as a police officer who is an e...