morrison-dylan-fan With Christmas coming up,I started to look round on IMDb for movies to get my dad as X-Mas gifts.Taking a look at a fellow IMDber's page,I spotted an excellent review about a potboiler which had the then- ground breaking television medium as its main focus,which led to me getting up,and turning the TV on.The plot:Being ordered by his mobster boss to go round & collect a debt,a geeky gangster called Rocky O'Neil discovers that would-be scientist Fred Dennis is attempting to create an intriguing invention called the "television." Relating to Dennis's ambitions,O'Neil uses his streets skills to get Dennis's debt pushed aside.Catching the attention of would-be manager Barbara 'Bobby' Blake,Dennis finally gets the cash needed to complete his landmark invention.Getting ready to finally show his creation to the world,Dennis,O'Neil & Blake soon discover that there are some parts of the city's underworld,who would very much like to keep Dennis's TV off….forever.View on the film:Despite the lack of a full score giving the film a "hollow" soundtrack,the screenplay by Lee Loeb, Harold Buchman, Sherman L. Lowe & Al Martin keep the title moving at a lively pace,thanks to the writers steaming potboiler gangsters with fun Slap-Stick Comedy and wacky scientists.Made a few months before the BBC was to start TV broadcasts,director Del Lord shows a real excitement towards the new medium,with the warm glow of the TV being cast across the screen,as Dennis's device captures a screwball gangster fight,as Dennis,O'Neil and Blake find themselves trapped by the TV.

SanteeFats I got this movie as part of science fiction set. It is not science fiction but that is not the fault of the film. There are two old time stand by actors in this one. They do a decent job of acting. A studio is facing failure with the advent of the new technology, television. There is the inventor who has invented a unique set of video equipment and he gets a surprising backer in a collection agent. They get hooked up with two women who are entrepreneurs of dubious nature but they actually fund his development of his gear. There is the bad guy who is so typical for this time. Sharp faced, cheesy mustache, hard attitude that includes murder. This bad guy is out to get a lucrative television equipment contract from the studio so he has a studio exec who is his accomplice divert the display of the equipment, then by trickery they bust the CRT and the demonstration fails. All is not lost as the women come to the rescue and pay for the part, he fixes his gear, fools the company board to meet, and televises to the board from his apartment. This broadcast includes a fight scene between the inventor and two crooks. There is a running pursuit that ends up with the bad guys arrested, the good guys are vindicated, and the studio is saved.

catherine yronwode This film tries to blend comedy with drama, and the result is an uneasy tossed salad rather than a smooth pudding. Lyle Talbot is so stalwart and large it is difficult to feature him as a TV inventor -- but he more than makes up for this in the fight scene, where, with his usual technique, he just beats the dickens out of the other actors for five or ten minutes. Nat Pendelton is wonderful as the dim-witted bill collector turned science hobbyist. Mary Astor, playing closer to her "Thin Man" arch smile than to her "Maltese Falcon" dramatic style, is a scheming but lovable promoter of potato peelers who decides to back this newfangled thing called television. All in all, this makes a better comedy than a drama, but the direction pulls it both ways, and thus it fails to satisfy either audience altogether. Kudos to the prop department for building the most amazingly art deco television camera and receiver in the history of film -- complete with a flat screen monitor! Great stuff, that! Anyway, it's a fun film, won't put you to sleep, and might give you a few laughs until Lyle Talbot swings into action and starts the fight scene that you knew was headed your way the minute you saw his name in the credits and his broad shoulders in that unconvincing scientist's get-up.

sbibb1 This public-domain film is often said to be a Science Fiction film because of the title. In reality it is a B drama/comedy, and there is nothing Sci-Fi about it.Inventor Lyle Talbot has invented a TV camera and TV monitor. He is trying to finish it despite being broke and having bill collectors like Nat Pendleton breathing down his neck. When a scientist working on his own television format vanishes and is held by gangsters, a crooked radio executive thinks he has a way to gain more money from his company.This is a interesting film for the time. TV was still in developmental stages at this point, and it is interesting to see what set designers thought a TV of the time would look like (big screens!).The acting is good, Lyle Talbot was a staple in B-Films, as was supporting players Marc Lawrence, Joyce Compton and Nat Pendleton. Mary Astor, again wonderful and natural, would eventually graduate from B-Films to become an under appreciated A-list star.