TALKIES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 221, 4 October 1940, Page 7

TALKIES

DRAMA REVEALS TRIUMPH OF A TYPICAL AMERICAN BOY GREATEST GENIUS IN COUN- . TRY'S HISTORY That Thomas Alva Edison, America's greatest inventor, was certainly no lump ol' sugar in his youth| will be revealed to the public not familiar with his boyhood when? "Young Tom Edison," starring Mickey Rooney as Tom, comes to fchcf Regent Theatre this.week. In fact, the picture will show that the kindly Wizard of Menlo Park was Andy Hardy., Tom Sawyer and one or two of the Dead End Kids all rolled into one. A, dozen or more of Edison's outstanding boyhood pranks are perpetrated by Mickey Rooney. Each of them \vas achieved by Tom at one time or another in his youth, but for story purposes they have been concentrated into the span of his life with which the picture deals His First Invention. Edison's first invention is faith-* fully reproduced. It was a "waker- | upper" designed for his sister Tannic and consisted of a wooden lever from which a string was run from Tom's cellar "laboratory" to Tannie's bedroom. The other .end of j the string was tied to Tannie's toe. i When Tom pulled the lever, it pulled Tannie's toe and woke her! up. An adjunct of this invention probably the forerunner of the Edison Dictaphone. It consisted of a hose also running from the lar to Tannie's room to each end. of which was attached a funnel. When Tannic was awake, she announced the fact to Tom through this device. Edison's first laboratory also will be seen in the picture. It contains long rows of bottles of chemicals, all marked the same with the single word "Poison." Nobody knew what they contained but Tom who wrote a small code number on each. One of Edison's most amusing pranks in the picture is when he feed:* Bobby Jordan a half-dozen sekllitz powders, telling him that the gas thus generated in his stomach will enable him to fly. Young Tom actually did try that trick on a boy, but he did it seriously as an experiment. A scene in which young Tont helps his sister, Tannie, in a geography lesson in school by tapping out the names of states in Morse code with a pencil, was an actual happening for which Edison was punished. The public whipping incident in the, picture, which he experiences following the seidlitz powder experiment, actually took place after one of Tom's chemical mixtures set fire to his father's barn and burned it down. Also true to Edison's boyhood is the incident where Mickey saves the small child of a station master from a wild freight car. It was this heroism which resulted in Edison being taught telegraphy by the grateful station master.

Whistled Morse Code. One of the outstanding episodes of the inventive young Edison's early days was the sending of a Morse code message to an approaching train when the Avires were down. Edison accomplished the feat by using an engine whistle. This incident is used in the story as a part of its dramatic highlights. But Edison, the boy, is painted exactly as he was—an experimenting young rapscallion whose exploits brought upon him the verdict of a school teacher that he was "addlpd." Prominent in support of . Rooney in tlie production are Eay Bainter and George Bancroft as his respect tive mother and father, Virginia Weidler as his young sister, Eugene Pallette, Victor Kilian, Bobbie Jordan, J. M. Kerrigan, -Lloyd Corrigan, John Kellog, Clem Bevans, Ei]y Mai yon and Harry Shannon.