.gif)
The Magic Box (film)
Encyclopedia
The Magic Box is a 1951
British
, Technicolor
, biographical
drama film
, directed
by John Boulting and starring Ronald Shiner
as the Fairground Barker, Sid James
, Laurence Olivier
, Peter Ustinov
and Charles Victor
. It was produced
by Ronald Neame
and distributed by British Lion Film Corporation. The film was a project of the Festival of Britain
and adapted by Eric Ambler
from the controversial biography by Ray Allister.
, who first designed and patented a working cinematic camera. This claim is subject to some controversy, but evidence now tends to support it. The film was notable for its cast: many well-known British film actors appeared in cameos (as listed below). It was completed and shown just before the end of the Festival, but the general release was not until 1952. William Friese-Greene
is played by Robert Donat
. Told in flashback, the film details Friese-Greene's tireless experiments with the "moving image," leading inexorably to a series of failures and disappointments, as others hog the credit for the protagonist's discoveries.
It was nominated for two BAFTA Awards in 1952—Best Film and Best British Film
.
1951 in film
The year 1951 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Sweden - May Britt is scouted by Italian film-makers Carlo Ponti and Mario Soldati-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:...
British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
, biographical
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
, directed
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
by John Boulting and starring Ronald Shiner
Ronald Shiner
Ronald Alfred Shiner was a British stand-up comedian and comedic actor whose career encompassed film, West End theatre and music hall.-Career:...
as the Fairground Barker, Sid James
Sid James
Sid James was an English-based South African actor and comedian. He made his name as Tony Hancock's co-star in Hancock's Half Hour and also starred in the popular Carry On films. He was known for his trademark "dirty laugh" and lascivious persona...
, Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
, Peter Ustinov
Peter Ustinov
Peter Alexander Ustinov CBE was an English actor, writer and dramatist. He was also renowned as a filmmaker, theatre and opera director, stage designer, author, screenwriter, comedian, humourist, newspaper and magazine columnist, radio broadcaster and television presenter...
and Charles Victor
Charles Victor
Charles Victor was a British actor who appeared in a number of films and television between 1938 and 1965.-Selected filmography:* Return of the Frog * Hell's Cargo * Contraband...
. It was produced
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
by Ronald Neame
Ronald Neame
Ronald Elwin Neame CBE, BSC was an English film cinematographer, producer, screenwriter and director.-Early career:...
and distributed by British Lion Film Corporation. The film was a project of the Festival of Britain
Festival of Britain
The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition in Britain in the summer of 1951. It was organised by the government to give Britons a feeling of recovery in the aftermath of war and to promote good quality design in the rebuilding of British towns and cities. The Festival's centrepiece was in...
and adapted by Eric Ambler
Eric Ambler
Eric Clifford Ambler OBE was an influential British author of spy novels who introduced a new realism to the genre. Ambler also used the pseudonym Eliot Reed for books co-written with Charles Rodda.-Life:...
from the controversial biography by Ray Allister.
Plot summary
This biographical drama gives an account of William Friese-GreeneWilliam Friese-Greene
William Friese-Greene was a British portrait photographer and prolific inventor. He is principally known as a pioneer in the field of motion pictures and is credited by some as the inventor of cinematography.-Career:William Edward Green was born on 7 September 1855, in Bristol...
, who first designed and patented a working cinematic camera. This claim is subject to some controversy, but evidence now tends to support it. The film was notable for its cast: many well-known British film actors appeared in cameos (as listed below). It was completed and shown just before the end of the Festival, but the general release was not until 1952. William Friese-Greene
William Friese-Greene
William Friese-Greene was a British portrait photographer and prolific inventor. He is principally known as a pioneer in the field of motion pictures and is credited by some as the inventor of cinematography.-Career:William Edward Green was born on 7 September 1855, in Bristol...
is played by Robert Donat
Robert Donat
Robert Donat was an English film and stage actor. He is best-known for his roles in Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps and Goodbye, Mr...
. Told in flashback, the film details Friese-Greene's tireless experiments with the "moving image," leading inexorably to a series of failures and disappointments, as others hog the credit for the protagonist's discoveries.
It was nominated for two BAFTA Awards in 1952—Best Film and Best British Film
BAFTA Award for Best Film
This page lists the winners and nominees for the BAFTA Award for Best Film, BAFTA Award for Best Film not in the English Language and Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film for each year, in addition to the retired earlier versions of those awards...
.
Cast
- Robert DonatRobert DonatRobert Donat was an English film and stage actor. He is best-known for his roles in Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps and Goodbye, Mr...
as William Friese-Greene - Margaret JohnstonMargaret JohnstonMargaret Johnston was an Australian-born British actress. Johnston was most widely admired for her stage performances, but also appeared in 12 films and a handful of TV productions before retiring from acting in 1968 to devote herself to running a theatrical agency.-Early life:Johnston was the...
as Edith Harrison - Maria SchellMaria SchellMaria Margarethe Anna Schell was an Austrian/Swiss actress, who won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival in 1956 for Gervaise....
as Helena Friese-Greene - David Oake as Claude Friese-Greene
- Janette ScottJanette ScottThora Janette Scott is an English actress. She was born in Morecambe, England. She is the daughter of actors Jimmy Scott and Thora Hird. She started her acting career as a child actress, known as Janette Scott, and became a popular leading lady...
as Ethel Friese-Greene - John Howard DaviesJohn Howard DaviesJohn Howard Davies was an English television director and producer and former child actor.Davies was born in Paddington, London, the son of the scriptwriter Jack Davies...
as Maurice Friese-Greene - Robert BeattyRobert BeattyRobert Beatty was a Canadian actor who worked in film, television and radio for most of his career and was especially known in the UK.-Career:Born in Hamilton, Ontario, Beatty began his acting career in Britain in 1939....
as Lord Beaverbrook - Richard AttenboroughRichard AttenboroughRichard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough , CBE is a British actor, director, producer and entrepreneur. As director and producer he won two Academy Awards for the 1982 film Gandhi...
as Jack Carter - Basil SydneyBasil SydneyBasil Sydney was an English actor who made over fifty screen appearances, most memorably as Claudius in Laurence Olivier's 1948 film of Hamlet. He also appeared in classic films like Treasure Island , Ivanhoe and Around the World in Eighty Days , but the focus of his career was the legitimate...
as William Fox TalbotWilliam Fox TalbotWilliam Henry Fox Talbot was a British inventor and a pioneer of photography. He was the inventor of calotype process, the precursor to most photographic processes of the 19th and 20th centuries. He was also a noted photographer who made major contributions to the development of photography as an... - Bernard MilesBernard MilesBernard James Miles, Baron Miles, CBE was an English character actor, writer and director. He opened the Mermaid Theatre in London in 1959, the first new theatre opened in the City of London since the 17th century....
as Cousin Alfred - Eric PortmanEric PortmanEric Portman was a distinguished English stage and film actor...
as Arthur Collings - Mary EllisMary EllisMary Ellis was a long-lived star of the British stage best known for her roles in the genre of musical theatre. After appearing with the Metropolitan Opera beginning in 1918, later appearing opposite Enrico Caruso, she acted on Broadway, creating the title role in Rose Marie...
as Mrs Collings - Muir MathiesonMuir MathiesonJames Muir Mathieson was a Scottish conductor and composer. Mathieson was almost always described as a "Musical Director" on a large number of British films.-Career:...
as Sir Arthur SullivanArthur SullivanSir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado... - Joyce GrenfellJoyce GrenfellJoyce Irene Grenfell, OBE was an English actress, comedienne, diseuse and singer-songwriter.-Early life:...
as Mrs Claire - Dennis PriceDennis PriceDennis Price was an English actor, remembered for his suave screen roles, particularly Louis Mazzini in Kind Hearts and Coronets, and for his portrayal of the omniscient valet Jeeves in 1960s television adaptations of P. G...
as Harold - Margaret RutherfordMargaret RutherfordDame Margaret Taylor Rutherford DBE was an English character actress, who first came to prominence following World War II in the film adaptations of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, and Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest...
as Lady Pond - Mervyn JohnsMervyn JohnsMervyn Johns was a Welsh film and television character actor. He was a mainstay of Ealing Studios.Among his dozens of film roles were Walter Craig in Dead of Night , the Church Warden in Went the Day Well? and Bob Cratchit in Scrooge...
as Goitz - Glynis JohnsGlynis JohnsGlynis Johns is a South African-born Welsh stage and film actress, dancer, pianist and singer . With a career spanning seven decades, Johns is often cited as the "complete actress", who happens to be a trained pianist and singer...
as May Jones - Frederick ValkFrederick ValkFrederick Valk was a German-born Jewish stage and screen actor of Czech descent who fled to the United Kingdom in the late 1930s to escape Nazi persecution, and subsequently became a naturalised British citizen...
as Maurice Guttenberg - Ronald ShinerRonald ShinerRonald Alfred Shiner was a British stand-up comedian and comedic actor whose career encompassed film, West End theatre and music hall.-Career:...
as the Fairgraond Barker
Cameos
- Barry JonesBarry Jones (actor)Barry Jones was an actor seen in British and American films, on American television and on the stage.-Biography:...
as a doctor - Bessie LoveBessie LoveBessie Love was an American motion picture actress who achieved prominence mainly in the silent films and early talkies. With a small frame and delicate features, she played innocent young girls, flappers, and wholesome leading ladies. Her role in The Broadway Melody earned her a nomination for...
as wedding group member - Cecil ParkerCecil ParkerCecil Parker was an English character and comedy actor with a distinctive husky voice, who usually played supporting roles in his 91 films made between 1928 and 1969....
at the Connaught Rooms - David TomlinsonDavid TomlinsonDavid Cecil MacAlister Tomlinson was an English film actor. He is primarily remembered for his roles as authority figure George Banks in Mary Poppins, fraudulent magician Professor Emelius Browne in Bedknobs and Broomsticks and as hapless antagonist Peter Thorndyke in The Love Bug.-Early life:Born...
as a Lab Assistant - Emlyn WilliamsEmlyn WilliamsGeorge Emlyn Williams, CBE , known as Emlyn Williams, was a Welsh dramatist and actor.-Biography:He was born into a Welsh-speaking, working class family in Mostyn, Flintshire....
as a Bank Manager - Ernest ThesigerErnest ThesigerErnest Frederic Graham Thesiger CBE was an English stage and film actor. He is best known for his performance as Dr...
as "man" - Kay WalshKay WalshKay Walsh was an English actress and dancer. She grew up in Pimlico, raised by her grandmother....
as a receptioness - Laurence OlivierLaurence OlivierLaurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
and Jack HulbertJack HulbertJohn Norman "Jack" Hulbert was a British actor, specialising primarily in comedy productions.-Biography:Born in Ely, Cambridgeshire, he was the elder and more successful brother of Claude. He was educated at Cambridge and appeared in many shows and revues, mainly with the Cambridge Footlights. He...
as Police officers - Leo GennLeo Genn- Early life :He was born at 144 Kyverdale Road, Stamford Hill, Hackney, London, England to a Jewish family. His father, Woolfe Genn, was a jewellery salesman and the maiden name of his mother, Rachel, was Asserson....
as a doctor - Marius GoringMarius GoringMarius Goring CBE was an English stage and cinema actor. He is most often remembered for the four films he did with Powell & Pressburger, particularly as Conductor 71 in A Matter of Life and Death and as Julian Craster in The Red Shoes...
as an estate agent - Michael DenisonMichael DenisonJohn Michael Terence Wellesley Denison CBE was an English actor.-Background:Denison was born in Doncaster, South Yorkshire in 1915. He was raised by his aunt and uncle from the age of three weeks, following the death of his mother and his estrangement from his father. He was educated at Harrow...
as a reporter - Michael HordernMichael HordernSir Michael Murray Hordern was an English actor, knighted in 1983 for his services to the theatre, which stretched back to before the Second World War.-Personal life:...
as the Official Receiver - Miles MallesonMiles MallesonWilliam Miles Malleson was an English actor and dramatist, particularly known for his appearances in British comedy films of the 1930s to 1960s. Towards the end of his career he also appeared in cameo roles in several Hammer horror films, with a fairly large role in The Brides of Dracula as the...
as an orchestra conductor - Peter UstinovPeter UstinovPeter Alexander Ustinov CBE was an English actor, writer and dramatist. He was also renowned as a filmmaker, theatre and opera director, stage designer, author, screenwriter, comedian, humourist, newspaper and magazine columnist, radio broadcaster and television presenter...
as an "industry man" - Sheila SimSheila SimSheila Beryl Grant Attenborough, Lady Attenborough , known professionally by her maiden name Sheila Sim, is an English film and theatre actress and the wife of actor and director Richard Attenborough.- Career :...
as a nursemaid - Sid JamesSid JamesSid James was an English-based South African actor and comedian. He made his name as Tony Hancock's co-star in Hancock's Half Hour and also starred in the popular Carry On films. He was known for his trademark "dirty laugh" and lascivious persona...
as a police sergeant in storeroom - Stanley HollowayStanley HollowayStanley Augustus Holloway, OBE was an English stage and film actor, comedian, singer, poet and monologist. He was famous for his comic and character roles on stage and screen, especially that of Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady...
as a broker's man - Thora HirdThora HirdDame Thora Hird DBE was an English actress.-Early life and career:Hird was born in the Lancashire seaside town of Morecambe. She first appeared on stage at the age of two months in a play her father was managing...
as a housekeeper - William HartnellWilliam HartnellWilliam Henry Hartnell was an English actor. During 1963-66, he was the first actor to play the Doctor in the long-running BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who.-Early life:...
as a Recruiting sergeantRecruiting sergeantA recruiting sergeant is a British or American soldier of the rank of sergeant who is tasked to enlist recruits. The term originated in the British army of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.... - Ronald ShinerRonald ShinerRonald Alfred Shiner was a British stand-up comedian and comedic actor whose career encompassed film, West End theatre and music hall.-Career:...
as a fairground barker - Googie WithersGoogie WithersGeorgette Lizette "Googie" Withers CBE, AO was an English theatre, film and television actress. She was a longtime resident of Australia with her husband, the actor John McCallum, with whom she often appeared.-Biography:...
, A. E. MatthewsA. E. MatthewsA.E. Matthews OBE was an English actor who played numerous character roles on the stage and in film for eight decades, and who became known for his longevity.-Biography:...
, John McCallumJohn McCallum (actor)John Neil McCallum, AO, CBE was an Australian theatre and film actor. He was also a television producer.McCallum was born in Brisbane, Queensland, in 1918, son of theatre owner and entrepreneur John Neil McCallum Sr., who built and for many years ran the 2,000 seat Cremorne Theatre on the banks of...
, Patrick HoltPatrick HoltPatrick Holt was a British film and television actor.-Biography:Patrick Holt's real name was Patrick G. Parsons. Some of his childhood was spent in India with his Uncle. Patrick was sent to Christ's Hospital, a famous charity school in England, UK...
, Robertson HareRobertson HareJohn Robertson Hare was an English comedy actor, popularly known as Bunny, who came to fame in the Aldwych farces. He is known for routinely losing his trousers on-stage, at which point he would utter his catchphrase "Oh Calamity"...
, Richard MurdochRichard MurdochRichard Bernard Murdoch was a British comedic radio, film and television performer.Richard Bernard Murdoch attended Charterhouse School. He then appeared in Footlights whilst a student at Pembroke College, Cambridge...
and Sybil ThorndikeSybil ThorndikeDame Agnes Sybil Thorndike CH DBE was a British actress.-Early life:She was born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire to Arthur Thorndike and Agnes Macdonald. Her father was a Canon of Rochester Cathedral...
as sitters - Henry EdwardsHenry Edwards (actor)Henry Edwards was an English actor and film director. He appeared in 81 films between 1915 and 1952. He also directed 67 films between 1915 and 1937...
as the Butler at Fox Talbot's