Trapped by Television

This is NOT just an ordinary 30s' 'semi-sci-fi' about some revolutionary invention, throwing in some pseudo-scientific terms, and otherwise concentrating on the battle about the patent rights. This is - apart from being a very lively, entertaining and well-acted story of poor inventors, poor bill collectors, and poor product promoters (none less than Mary Astor!) on the one side, and ruthless crooks wanting to get rich with a stolen invention on the other side - a VERY realistic depiction of the 'battle' that was ACTUALLY going on at the time for the development and patent rights of television - a device that has literally changed the world.

And it's no phony, either: the names of the components for the device Fred Dennis (Lyle Talbot) is developing are well-researched - the cathode ray tube, which is so expensive and vital for the machine to work that Dennis initially can't afford to buy it was IN FACT the 'heart' of the first television sets that were really able to broadcast clear moving pictures! So this suspenseful as well as entertaining movie today is a TRUE time document - and you'll enjoy and cherish it even more if you try to watch it the way the astonished audience must have watched it back then; and say, agreeing with Dennis' friend, bill collector Rocky (Nat Pendleton): "Gee, ain't science great?!"