Movie Still Showing Spencer Tracy in "Edison the Man," 1940
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Artifact Overview
The 1940 MGM film Edison, the Man starred Spencer Tracy, but Edison's Menlo Park laboratory played a supporting role. The 1870s laboratory -- where Edison made many of his famous discoveries -- had been moved to Henry Ford's Greenfield Village in the late 1920s. With documentation provided by Greenfield Village staff, MGM built an impressive full-sized movie set of the laboratory in California.
Artifact Details
Artifact
Photographic print
Date Made
1940
Subject Date
1940
Creator Notes
Probably photographed by Clarence Sinclair Bull, working for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Collection Title
Location
By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center
Object ID
40.443.1
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford.
Material
Paper (Fiber product)
Technique
Gelatin silver process
Color
Black-and-white (Colors)
Dimensions
Height: 8.188 in
Width: 10.163 in
Inscriptions
Printed on back:
FAILURE AFTER 9000 EXPERIMENTS....Thomas Edison (Spencer Tracy) / turns on the current while Simon (Fexix Bressert) pours mer- / cury in the vacrrm pump and Bigelow (Arthur Aylesworth), Graham (Milton Parsons) and Ashton (Peter Godfrey) stand / watching in this scene for Metro-Goldwy-Mayer's "Edison, the / Man." Although Edison has achieved a perfect vacuum from this / mercury pumpc the platinum filament burns out. Puzzled, Edison / keeps on. He later learns the filament burned because the metal / contained gas. From that, he gets the idea to use carbonate / thread, which has no gas. Success comes then. This mercury / pump was built b studio tecnicians as a replica of the one / Edison borrowed from Princeton University. Clarence Brown / directs the film, with John W. Considine, Jr., produces
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