Product Details

• Directors: David Devine
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Digital Sound, Dolby, Full length, Full Screen, Surround Sound, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Repnet
• VHS Release Date: July 16, 1999
• Run Time: 53 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00000K0B6
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #324,390 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

New York City, 1931. Movie producer Jack Maloney has just completed a labor of love: his documentary on the life of the great inventor Thomas Alva Edison. Jack wants his wife, actress Kate Cruthers, to take a look. What results is an engaging, Emmy Award-winning family drama about the 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration required to build an impassioned life. As Jack's "documentary" clicks along, we learn that he met Edison (played with great sincerity by Kenneth Welsh) while fleeing from St. Patrick's Orphanage in 1893. Chased by truancy officers, the then-12-year-old boy (actor Michael Suchanek) ran smack into Edison's New Jersey lab, winning Edison's affections and landing a long-term apprentice job. Believable conversations between mentor and student about education, life, and the invention of Edison's light bulb and phonograph are dotted with many recognizable, timely quotations.

As the film follows their 35-year relationship, viewers see how Edison dedicated his life to "the betterment of mankind" and sacrificed time with his family as a result. The unspoken father-son bond between the two men--stronger than Edison's relationship with his own wife and children--comes to a head as the adult Jack (Jesse Collins) challenges Edison's tenacity. Reconciliation and a deeper empathy for each other's choices caps off this nicely paced, beautifully filmed and scored presentation. A well-spent hour for families with children over 6 years old or for elementary school students studying American inventors. --Liane Thomas

Playback, October 6, 1997

"Everything about the series from the ambience of the locations to the props, right down to the original Edison light bulb that hangs over the workbench are as authentic as they could get."

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Best of the Inventors' Specials, April 1, 2006

By 

William Haugen (Dallas, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Edison: The Wizard of Light (DVD)

The premise of this story about a runaway who runs into Thomas Edison's lab sounded, well, not that good. After watching it, it was apparent a lot of thought went into this story and it works very well. From what I have read of Edison he is portrayed in this dvd as he really was. Also recommended from the Inventors Specials are Marie Curie More Than Meets the Eye and Newton A Tale of Two Isaacs. The Edison dvd is a favorite of the Inventor Specials because it shows the influence Edison had on this young person's life later as an adult.

1.0 out of 5 stars Thomas Edison the Sadist, January 8, 2012

By 

Fox Nutrition, Inc. (SUNNY CALIFORNIA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Edison: The Wizard of Light (DVD)

Thomas Edison was a well known sadist in the area he lived. He would gather neighbors pets at night and electrocute them. Edison thought it was a huge attraction to take an innocent circus elephant and make a fair of it by electrocuting this precious animal in public.In Edison's lifetime he tortured thousands of animals. Edison is not the hero I was brought up to believe. The true hero Nikola Tesla.

5 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow!, September 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Edison: The Wizard of Light [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This was a great movie! Amazing! I love it! 5/5 stars, all the way!