The first half of the film concentrates on the hero's romantic, financial, and scientific struggle.
Henry Fonda is notable in a co-starring role as Mr. Watson, who hears the first words ever spoken over the telephone. In a pivotal scene, Bell (Don Ameche), while working on the telephone, accidentally spills acid onto his lap and shouts in pain, “Mr. Watson, come here! I want you!” Watson, barely able to contain his own excitement, rushes into the room and stammers out the news that he heard Bell calling out to him over the telephone receiver. Bell has Watson repeat his own words to him to confirm it, and the two men begin hopping around the room, with Watson yelling out a war whoop.
The last part depicts the legal struggle against Western Union over patent priority in the invention of the telephone, ending with a courtroom victory. The final scene has the hero contemplating crewed flight, under his wife's adoring gaze.
The film led to the use of the word "ameche" as juvenile slang for a telephone, as noted by Mike Kilen in the Iowa City Gazette: "The film prompted a generation to call people to the telephone with the phrase: 'You're wanted on the Ameche.'"[1] Such an identity between Ameche and the telephone was forged, that in the 1940 film Go West, Groucho Marx proclaims, "Telephone? This is 1870, Don Ameche hasn't invented the telephone yet."
The film opens on a get-together, when a conversation arises about the main character, Alexander Graham Bell. The conversation is quite critical of Bell, with the general consensus being that he was a fool. When Bell enters, the partygoers treat his intelligence and his demonstration of how sound works as an amusing party trick.
Bell is given the prospect of helping Gardiner Hubbard's deaf daughter with speech after showing Hubbard his capabilities of teaching a deaf child to communicate using a glove with letters on it. It's an offer Bell accepts. On his way to the Hubbard house, Bell loses his balance when a young lady on a sled speeds by him. He scolds her for being so reckless, telling her that she could have ruined his telegraph instrument. When explaining his invention to Mr. Hubbard, Bell fails to capture his interest.
Mr. Hubbard introduces Bell to his daughters, including his deaf daughter, Mabel Hubbard. The next day, Bell and Mabel, while on a wagon ride, talk about Bell's plans with the telegraph. Bell admits to Mabel that he is no longer interested in the telegraph, and this is when he introduces the idea of the telephone.
After Bell is kicked out of his home, he moves into his assistant Thomas Watson's apartment. While trying to fine-tune his invention, Bell discovers he is missing a spring that Watson misplaced, or rather didn't purchase because he bought something to eat instead. This leads to a heated argument, albeit short-lived, for Watson plucks the magnetized steel, which sends a tune to the hand-held device that Bell is holding, and turns their anger and frustration into ecstatic joy.
Bell makes his way to the Hubbard home to let everyone know of his monumental discovery. After telling Mabel of his discovery, he asks her to marry him, and she accepts. Problems arise when he tells Mr. Hubbard, who tells Bell that he is not financially responsible enough to marry Mabel; as well as bouncing from idea to idea, never finishing his projects. Mabel pulls him aside and tells him to finish the telephone despite what her father said. Bell later laments about how is he going to build a receiver that interprets the vibrations sent through his contraption. He develops an idea based on how human ears interpret sound, finally developing a receiver in the process.
Bell places water in the receiver cup to try transmitting the sound. When the water is unsuccessful, he adds a small amount of sulfuric acid to turn the water into a better conductor. In the process, Bell spills acid on his leg and shouts, "Mr. Watson, come here, I want you!" The receiver picks up the sound, and Watson finally hears Bell through the telephone for the first time.[2]
Bell sets up a public demonstration of the telephone. The invention is received with laughter and ridicule, but that does not stop Bell. Soon, there are hundreds of phones, but there is still a problem: Bell and the Hubbards are losing money. One offer arises that might help with the financial problem: England requests that Bell present the telephone to Queen Victoria. Bell's idea is to convince the Queen to install a telephone in her palace, inspiring the whole world to follow suit.[3]
After a very successful demonstration, the Queen has a telephone installed in Buckingham Palace. Bell returns to the hotel to tell Mabel of the great news but is only met with bad news. Mabel tells Bell that a new company organized by Western Union is trying to claim ownership of the invention of the telephone. Bell files a lawsuit against American Speaking Telephone Company. During the proceedings, American Speaking Telephone Company alleges that Bell has a fraudulent patent and that one of their engineers is the actual inventor. The judge gives Bell some time to find any kind of paperwork that proves he is the inventor.
Bell, thinking he lost, decides to go home, but Mabel arrives at the last minute to deliver the paper that proves Bell's claim to the telephone. As the court goes into consideration, Bell still thinks he lost the case. Out of nowhere, Western Union representatives show up to tell him they are dropping the suit. They had conducted an internal investigation and found that their engineer had fabricated the claim in an attempt to make both Western Union and Bell look bad. Western Union releases all ownership of the telephones it owns to Bell. The company proposes a deal with Bell that will let it continue to use the telephones, which in turn will create a very lucrative business partnership. Bell accepts the offer, making him a very rich man.
The film released to widespread critical acclaim, with Nelson B. Bell of The Washington Post headlining: "Moves Notable Audience To Enthusiastic Applause." He also said that the film "is splendidly cast", and that it was Don Ameche's "best work by far that he has brought to the celluloids."[4] Mae Tinee of the Chicago Daily Tribune raved that the film is "Another finely etched biography". She also noted that "Loretta Young is lovely and loveable as Bell's great white light", and ended the article, "As for staging, direction, costumes, photography — the best, my friends, the BEST!"[5]
Alexander Graham Bell was a Scottish-born Canadian-American inventor, scientist and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1885.
The photophone is a telecommunications device that allows transmission of speech on a beam of light. It was invented jointly by Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Charles Sumner Tainter on February 19, 1880, at Bell's laboratory at 1325 L Street in Washington, D.C. Both were later to become full associates in the Volta Laboratory Association, created and financed by Bell.
Elisha Gray was an American electrical engineer who co-founded the Western Electric Manufacturing Company. Gray is best known for his development of a telephone prototype in 1876 in Highland Park, Illinois. Some recent authors have argued that Gray should be considered the true inventor of the telephone because Alexander Graham Bell allegedly stole the idea of the liquid transmitter from him. Although Gray had been using liquid transmitters in his telephone experiments for more than two years previously, Bell's telephone patent was upheld in numerous court decisions.
This timeline of the telephone covers landline, radio, and cellular telephony technologies and provides many important dates in the history of the telephone.
Don Ameche was an American actor, comedian and vaudevillian. After playing in college shows, repertory theatre, and vaudeville, he became a major radio star in the early 1930s, which led to the offer of a movie contract from 20th Century Fox in 1935.
Visible Speech is a system of phonetic symbols developed by British linguist Alexander Melville Bell in 1867 to represent the position of the speech organs in articulating sounds. Bell was known internationally as a teacher of speech and proper elocution and an author of books on the subject. The system is composed of symbols that show the position and movement of the throat, tongue, and lips as they produce the sounds of language, and it is a type of phonetic notation. The system was used to aid the deaf in learning to speak.
The invention of the telephone was the culmination of work done by more than one individual, and led to an array of lawsuits relating to the patent claims of several individuals and numerous companies.
Gardiner Greene Hubbard was an American lawyer, financier, and community leader. He was a founder and first president of the National Geographic Society; a founder and the first president of the Bell Telephone Company which later evolved into AT&T, at times the world's largest telephone company; a founder of the journal Science; and an advocate of oral speech education for the deaf.
Alexander Melville Bell was a teacher and researcher of physiological phonetics and was the author of numerous works on orthoepy and elocution.
The Bell Telephone Company was the initial corporate entity from which the Bell System originated to build a continental conglomerate and monopoly in telecommunication services in the United States and Canada.
The Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell controversy concerns the question of whether Gray and Bell invented the telephone independently. This issue is narrower than the question of who deserves credit for inventing the telephone, for which there are several claimants.
Mabel Gardiner Hubbard Bell was an American businesswoman, and the daughter of Boston lawyer Gardiner Green Hubbard. She was the wife of Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the first practical telephone.
Marcellus Bailey was an American patent attorney who, with Anthony Pollok, helped prepare Alexander Graham Bell's patents for the telephone and related inventions.
Alexander Graham Bell honors and tributes include honors bestowed upon him and awards named for him.
The Volta Laboratory and the Volta Bureau were created in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., by Alexander Graham Bell.
Anthony Pollok was an American patent attorney who, with Marcellus Bailey, helped prepare Alexander Graham Bell's patents for the telephone and related inventions.
Thomas Augustus Watson was an assistant to Alexander Graham Bell, notably in the invention of the telephone in 1876.
Mabel Harlakenden Grosvenor was a Canadian-born American pediatrician. She was a granddaughter and secretary to the scientist and telephone pioneer Alexander Graham Bell. She lived in both Beinn Bhreagh, Nova Scotia and Washington, D.C.
The Bell Homestead National Historic Site, located in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, also known by the name of its principal structure, Melville House, was the first North American home of Professor Alexander Melville Bell and his family, including his last surviving son, scientist Alexander Graham Bell. The younger Bell conducted his earliest experiments in North America there, and later invented the telephone at the Homestead in July 1874. In a 1906 speech to the Brantford Board of Trade, Bell commented on the telephone's invention: "the telephone problem was solved, and it was solved at my father's home".
Cafe Metropole is a 1937 American romantic comedy film directed by Edward H. Griffith and starring Loretta Young, Tyrone Power and Adolphe Menjou. It was produced and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The screenplay was based on an original story by Gregory Ratoff who also appears in the film. It is part of the tradition of screwball comedies which was at their height during the decade. It was commercially successful on its release.
↑ Bell, Nelson B (March 30, 1939). "Film Biography Is Acclaimed At Premiere: 'Alexander Graham Bell' Moves Notable Audience To Enthusiastic Applause". The Washington Post. p.9. ProQuest151192670.
↑ Tinee, Mae (April 23, 1939). "Picture of Life of Bell Avoids Hollywoodism: Good Morning!". Chicago Daily Tribune. p.e4. ProQuest175246487.
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