The Magic Box

Dir: John Boulting

1951

****

John Boulting’s classic biopic of William Friese-Greene is a heartfelt tribute to a great man who still hasn’t had the recognition he deserves. It is however, a bit melodramatic. Told in flashback, the film details Friese-Greene's tireless experiments with the "moving image", leading inexorably to a series of failures and disappointments, as others hog the credit for his discoveries. William Friese-Greene was of course the man who first designed and patented one of the earliest working cinematic cameras. I looked forward to watching the film for several reasons. Firstly, as a lover of film, I was interested in one its integral pioneers. Secondly, it has a host of cameo appearances by some of the greatest actors to have ever lived. Lastly, I remember reading an interview with Jack Lemmon (one of my cinematic heroes) where he was asked what his favorite film was – his answer was: The Magic Box. The film begins at the end of the story in 1921. William Friese-Greene visits his estranged wife and tells her of his news that he has finally developed colour film and that he is going to a film conference in London to show it off and get rich. His wife takes the news with a pinch of salt and remembers the life they had together, one that was ended with his obsession leading them to near destitution. We then follow Friese-Greene as he attends the film conference in London. He is saddened that all those attending are businessmen interested only in moneymaking. He attempts to speak, but no-one is interested and he sits down. He thinks back to his early pioneering days. Young "Willie" works as an assistant to photographer Maurice Guttenberg, who will not let him take portraits his way. He leaves and, with his new wife, a client of his former employer, he opens a studio. After a slow start, he does well and opens other studios, but he is more interested in developing moving pictures and colour films. He single-mindedly works on his ideas, spending more and more money, and is eventually declared bankrupt. With the coming of World War I, their sons (under age) enlist in the army to relieve their parents of the burden of providing for them. In partnership with a businessman, he develops his ideas, but the partnership sours and he's on his own, bankrupt, again. Nevertheless, he perseveres and, late one night, he projects the short film he has taken in Hyde Park that afternoon. Excited, he rushes out and drags in a passing policeman, portrayed by Laurence Olivier (credited as Larry Oliver), to witness the success of the film. The policeman is dumbfounded, not quite comprehending what he has just seen. Back at the conference, Friese-Greene again stands up to speak, but becomes incoherent and is forced to sit down. He collapses. A doctor is called, but it is too late. Examining the contents of his pockets in an attempt to identify him, the doctor comments that all the money he could find was just enough for a ticket to the cinema. It is a little melodramatic for my tastes and it leaves a few gaps in the story. Filmed as part of the Festival of Britain, the story would have done better to have explored Friese-Greene’s cinematic achievements further, rather than his personal life. Very little is mentioned of his time working with John Rudge for instance. Friese-Greene came into contact with Rudge when living in Bath. Rudge was a scientific instrument maker who also worked with electricity and magic lanterns to create popular entertainments. Rudge built what he called the Biophantic Lantern, which could display seven photographic slides in rapid succession, producing the illusion of movement. It showed a famous sequence in which Rudge (with the invisible help of Friese-Greene) apparently took off his head. Friese-Greene was fascinated by the machine and worked with Rudge on a variety of devices over the 1880s, various of which Rudge called the Biophantascope. Moving his base to London in 1885, Friese-Greene realised that glass plates would never be a practical medium for continuously capturing life as it happens and began to experiment with the new Eastman paper roll film, made transparent with castor oil, before turning his attention to experimenting with celluloid as a medium for motion picture cameras. The section of the film that features Rudge is short and looks as if the two men never worked a day with each other before falling out and ending their partnership. They also skipped over the bit where Friese-Greene went to prison. While Friese-Greene’s death is one of the more melodramatic parts of the film it is at least true. On 5 May 1921 Friese-Greene – now a largely forgotten figure – attended an important and stormy meeting of the cinema trade at the Connaught Rooms in London. The meeting had been called to discuss the current poor state of British film distribution and was chaired by Lord Beaverbrook. Disturbed by the tone of the proceedings, Friese-Greene got to his feet to speak. The chairman asked him to come forward onto the platform to be heard better, which he did, appealing for the two sides to come together. Shortly after returning to his seat, he collapsed. People came to his aid and took him outside, but he died almost immediately of heart failure. Given his dramatic death, surrounded by film industry representatives who had almost entirely forgotten about his role in motion pictures, there was a spasm of collective shock and guilt. What wasn’t shown in the film was that a very grand funeral was staged for him, a two minute silence was observed in some cinemas and a fund was raised to commission the famous architect Sir Edwin Lutyens to design a memorial for his grave. He was buried in the eastern section of London's Highgate Cemetery, a pretty hard cemetery to get into by all accounts. All we see at the end of the film is the plaque placed on his old home in Middle Street, Brighton. However, what it lacks in history it makes up for in performance and cast. Robert Donat is brilliant as William Friese-Greene and Maria Schell and Margaret Johnston play his two wives perfectly. An impressive supporting cast includes such greats as Richard Attenborough, Margaret Rutherford, Barry Jones, Laurence Olivier, Stanley Holloway, Thora Hird, Robert Beatty, Marianne Stone, Basil Sydney, Sid James, Peter Ustinov, Michael Redgrave, Joyce Grenfell, Michael Hordern, Margaret Rutherford, David Tomlinson among many, including a young Reggie Kray as an extra before he became one of London’s most infamous gangsters. It has a few flaws and it wasn’t received well at the time, but John Boulting’s biopic is full of charm and warmth, it is impossible to resist and it is now considered something of a British classic.