Young Tom Edison

Mickey Rooney is this month's Star of the Month on TCM, and surprisingly enough there are several of his starring roles that I haven't seen, not even considering the Andy Hardy movies airing later in the month. One of those movies aired on TCM a few weeks back, so I recorded it in order to be able to do a review on it for this month's airing: Young Tom Edison, which will be on early tomorrow morning (Dec. 13) at 4:00 AM.

It doesn't take much to figure out that Mickey Rooney is the star here, and that he is playing an adolescent version of inventor Thomas Edison (1847-1931). As the movie opens, Tom is about 13 years old and living in Port Huron, Michigan with the his parents Nancy (Fay Bainter) and Sam (George Bancroft) and kid sister Tannie (Virginia Weidler); she's a bit of a partner-in-crime in young Tom's schemes as he's already got an inquisitive (and costly) mind. Tom had come up with a scheme to wake his sister up remotely and close her bedroom window, and also likes to putter away on his chemistry set.

However, Tom also likes to think about those inventions as well as things like telegraphy while he's at school, and all that experimenting gets him in trouble, with his teacher and the school board suggesting he be expelled. At the same time, the experiments and other practical jokes lead everybody in town to think young Tom is addled. It's enough to make him want to run away, but first he starts making money for himself. He has some sweets that he and Tannie are eating on the railway platform, and people on the train wouldn't mind having some too. So he buys from the local confectioner and sells at a profit on the train. Eventually, he's able to buy a printing press and get news off the telegraph to distribute to the passengers on the train, at a profit for him, of course. (You'd think the passengers would only buy one or two copies of the paper and share.)

Meanwhile, Tom still can't catch a break at home, and when he brings nitroglycerine on the train, this is one of the final straws that leads to him getting fired. Nobody in town will give him a job, and he's just about to leave for Detroit. But two other things happen that give young Tom the chance to save the day, become a hero, and get a proper start as an adult. One is that his mother gets an infection and needs surgery, and the other involves the railroad bridge being out and Tom figuring out how to stop the train from going into the river. (Nowadays, you'd just use cell phones.)

I don't know how accurate Young Tom Edison is, but as a movie, it's certainly entertaining enough. Rooney was 19 at the time of filming playing Tom from about ages 13 to 17. There's a lot of the stereotypically Rooney "Oh gee willikers" stuff, but I think this time it actually works for a kid who's quite the dreamer and has gotten the reputation of being "addled". Rooney plays Tom with spunk, and I think that works here. Young Tom Edison is another good example of the pre-WWII Hollywood look at biopics, and definitely is worth watching at least once.