The Magic Box (1951)
Directed by John Boulting

Film Review

Based on a now largely discredited biography (Friese-Greene, Close-Up of an Inventor by Ray Allister), this romanticised biopic recounts the life story of William Friese-Greene, one of the early pioneers of the moving image.  At the time The Magic Box was made, its claim that Friese-Greene was the man who had invented the forerunner of the modern movie camera was highly contentious, but in recent years it has gained currency.  Whilst the film is littered with factual inaccuracies it provides a warm tribute to one of the all-but forgotten pioneers of cinema and helped to prevent Friese-Greene's name from languishing forever in total obscurity. 

The Magic Box is a lavish Technicolor production commissioned for the 1951 Festival of Britain, although it was not put out on general release until the festival had ended and proved to be an expensive box office flop.   Produced by Ronald Neame and directed by John Boulting (of Brighton Rock and I'm All Right Jack fame), the film features a host of distinguished British character actors, most of whom appear only fleetingly in small cameo roles.  This cast list reads like a Who's Who of British cinema circa 1950, the most prominent names being Margaret Rutherford, Laurence Olivier, Joyce Grenfell, Peter Ustinov and Cecil Parker.  The eager-eyed will have fun putting a name to the famous faces that momentarily appear on the screen, from Googie Withers and Thora Hird, to William Hartnell and Sid James.

It was most probably on the strength of his Oscar-winning performance in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) that Robert Donat was chosen to portray William Friese-Greene across many decades, from spry young thing to frail oldster.  Donat's affable screen persona enlivens what could so easily have been a dull and plodding melodrama, and few other English actors of this period could have handled the pathos of Friese-Greene's declining years with such delicacy and charm.  Out-shining both his female co-stars, Margaret Johnston and Maria Schell, Donat fills each scene he appears in with the infectious enthusiasm of the dedicated inventor, but still leaves place to reveal the human side of his character.

Eric Ambler's script is perhaps too faithful to Allister's biography, but by employing a tidy flashback structure it manages to defer Friese-Greene's moment of triumph to the end, allowing the film's final sequence to have a particularly acute sense of poignancy.  More an inspirational film than an informative one, The Magic Box both celebrates the work of one overlooked genius whilst reminding us all that the most important thing in life is not the attainment of success, but the honest pursuit of one's dream.

Film Synopsis

In 1921, an elderly William Friese-Greene visits his estranged wife Edith and tries to persuade her to come back and live with him.  She refuses and recalls their earlier life together.  Throughout the time she was married to him, Friese-Greene worked tirelessly on his experiments, neglecting his duties as a husband and father as he toiled to improve the film camera he had invented.  Edith concludes that she never really knew her husband at all.  Whilst attending a film industry conference, Friese-Greene casts his mind back over an earlier phase of his life, beginning with the period when he worked as a portrait photographer in Bristol.  It was here that he came to meet his first wife, Helena, who selflessly supported him as he worked on the invention he was certain would bring him fame and fortune: a camera that could record moving images and project them onto a screen...