Review of The Magic Box

This became a favorite film of mine the first time I saw it (in black and white) 45 years ago, and it has remained unchallenged in that top position ever since. It's not just a biopic of a forgotten inventor, but it is a major tribute to the entire arduous process of the entire invention of film, which was hard work with many disasters on the way for 50 years until it became a fully developed industry. The film begins there, as the inventor in 1921 is on his way to a film meeting, where he thinks he still might have something to say, he is more than 65 and very fragile, and on his way there he visits his divorced wife, who left him with five sons as she realized he would never succeed in realizing his enthusiastic dreams, as he was constantly too much ahead of his time. When her colleague in the shop where she is working asks her, if she could not consider returning to such an amiable man, she answers, that such a hopeless idealist should never risk getting other people involved in his life, which would only compel them to constantly worry about him. That marriage is shown in a flashback with some terribly heartbreaking scenes, as when three of their sons decide to relieve their parents of the burden of having to support them by enlisting for the war (1915), and we never learn what happened to them. She ends her story by telling her colleague, that she never really knew her husband and that his real life was before she met him. Then we learn all about that real life, with Maria Schell in one of her most lovable roles as his fragile wife who sacrifices everything for him including her life; which years were dominated by his constant struggle to invent a real film camera, which finally succeeds, but then they are ruined and all is lost. In the final scene he finally reaches the film meeting, which is very turbulent, but he finally rises from his chair and demands to say something. His message is: "Don't destroy the idealism of film making, which is its only power and meaning." He sees clearly that the movie business is going into a formidable materialistic industry, which he feels will destroy the meaning of what he and other idealists sacrificed their lives for. It is the ultimate masterpiece of John Boulting, although he and his brother together made a long list of masterpieces, generally marked by deep humanity and compassion unique in films, and here Robert Donat makes his finest performance, although he only made precious ones. The fate of the inventor who is blind to everything except his purpose and idealism and visions, who constantly gets hit hard by reality and rejected by fate into bankruptcy and almost the gutter, is heartrending and unforgettable, which makes this film, a unique documentation of the essence and very soul of film-making, one of the most important films ever made.