Trapped by Television

This film tries to blend comedy with drama, and the result is an uneasy tossed salad rather than a smooth pudding. Lyle Talbot is so stalwart and large it is difficult to feature him as a TV inventor -- but he more than makes up for this in the fight scene, where, with his usual technique, he just beats the dickens out of the other actors for five or ten minutes. Nat Pendelton is wonderful as the dim-witted bill collector turned science hobbyist. Mary Astor, playing closer to her "Thin Man" arch smile than to her "Maltese Falcon" dramatic style, is a scheming but lovable promoter of potato peelers who decides to back this newfangled thing called television. All in all, this makes a better comedy than a drama, but the direction pulls it both ways, and thus it fails to satisfy either audience altogether.

Kudos to the prop department for building the most amazingly art deco television camera and receiver in the history of film -- complete with a flat screen monitor! Great stuff, that!

Anyway, it's a fun film, won't put you to sleep, and might give you a few laughs until Lyle Talbot swings into action and starts the fight scene that you knew was headed your way the minute you saw his name in the credits and his broad shoulders in that unconvincing scientist's get-up.

'Trapped by Television': an intriguing title that sounds as though the film might feature people being accidentally sucked into the fictional realm of TV.

It doesn't.

In 1936, television was very much in its infancy and the mere idea of broadcasting images was still fantastical enough to be the subject of a whole movie. This fun romantic drama/thriller sees Lyle Talbot as inventor Fred Dennis, who finally perfects his television camera and receiver set with support from opportunistic promoter Barbara 'Bobby' Blake (Mary Astor), her secretary Mae Collins (Joyce Compton) and well-meaning bill collector Rocky O'Neil (Nat Pendleton). Paragon Broadcasting CEO John Curtis (Thurston Hall) shows interest in the invention, and success for Dennis and pals looks assured, but a corrupt Paragon employee has other plans and sets out to sabotage their demonstration.

A light-hearted romp that proves all the more interesting from a historical angle, 'Trapped by Television' is a surprisingly entertaining piece of fluff, with decent performances from its likable leads, some reasonable scenes of tension, and the coolest looking television camera you're ever likely to see—an incredible hunk of art-deco metal and glass that is equal parts machine and objet d'art.

No-one has to battle their way out of a cathode-ray-tube world of make believe, but the film is worth seeing nonetheless.

...Trapped by Television, whenever they're running an Agnes Moorehead or Shirley Temple film festival, But this is a yarn about the race to corner the television market, before the WWII delay. Lyle Talbot is the idealistic young inventor, Janet Gaynor is the hapless entrepreneur who sees the potential to steal his work, but, you guessed it, she falls for the mug, his optimistic enthusiasm a contrast to her worldly cynicism.. Nat Pendleton and Joyce Compton play the leads' respective sidekicks with comic gusto. Bubbly little comedy from the Golden Age.

This film has more hackneyed characters and cliches than most thirties films, but has one redeeming value; it has an original product: television. TV was virtually unknown in 1936, the year this film was made. It was still in experimental stages, and people's imaginations ran wild with the possibilities of the new phenomenon. The acting, if you could call it that, is way over the top, but the most fascinating part of the film is the technology. It is relatively accurate, and I found it extremely interesting on how the medium was handled at the corporate level. The nefarious bad guy complication was obviously a Hollywood studio insertion to try and make the film more precarious, but the struggle of the engineer who invented a prototype is far more interesting that any phony Hollywood subplot. Watchable for the tech aspect.

This public-domain film is often said to be a Science Fiction film because of the title. In reality it is a B drama/comedy, and there is nothing Sci-Fi about it.

Inventor Lyle Talbot has invented a TV camera and TV monitor. He is trying to finish it despite being broke and having bill collectors like Nat Pendleton breathing down his neck. When a scientist working on his own television format vanishes and is held by gangsters, a crooked radio executive thinks he has a way to gain more money from his company.

This is a interesting film for the time. TV was still in developmental stages at this point, and it is interesting to see what set designers thought a TV of the time would look like (big screens!).

The acting is good, Lyle Talbot was a staple in B-Films, as was supporting players Marc Lawrence, Joyce Compton and Nat Pendleton. Mary Astor, again wonderful and natural, would eventually graduate from B-Films to become an under appreciated A-list star.