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Plot Summary
Narrated by Academy-Award Nominated Frank Langella, Genius On Hold is the story of Walter L. Shaw - a brilliant telecommunications inventor who created call forwarding, touchtone dialing, speakerphone, voice recognition, the presidential "red phone" and many other creations we use every day. He held over 39 patents and his creations should have earned him great fortune and lasting fame. Instead, this brilliant man was held down by corporate greed and government monopolies and ended up so desperate to provide for his family he ended up working for the mafia; creating the infamous "black box." His unimaginable decline led his son, Walter T. Shaw to turn to a life of crime rising to become the world's most notorious jewel-thief.
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Rotten Tomatoes Movie Reviews
TOMATOMETER
83%- Reviews Counted: 6
- Fresh: 5
- Rotten: 1
- Average Rating: 6.4/10
Top Critics' Reviews
Rotten: This promisingly tragic tale is sunk by cartloads of context and an overbearing, slanted narration.
Fresh: Marquette, aided by Frank Langella's precise narration, has crafted an engrossing and disturbing tribute.
Fresh: A far-reaching narrative of government venality and big-business greed that's all mapped succinctly but substantively.
Fresh: Though overstuffed, his film eschews pop-doc conventions by opting for in-depth analysis over superficiality.
Customer Reviews
Good Movie!
Excellent documentary. However, David doesn't always slay Goliath.
Genius on Hold
Words alone cannot do justice to this work. When you see "the rest of the story" (as the late Paul Harvey would put it), you will be astonished and infuriated at what a disservice and injustice was done to Walter L. Shaw. Technologies that shaped every facet of global business and personal efficiency thruogh communications, and are enjoyed (not only enjoyed, but strongly depended upon) by billions today were designed, developed and proven decades before they were made available to the masses, all the while, the brilliant genius behind all of them was not only deprived of his duly deserved monetary rewards, but deprived of the mere acknowledgement of his tireless work AND punished for violating the wishes of corporate greed and government injustice. Finally, he has a voice. Walter T. Shaw, the brilliant son of a genius, has redeemed a lifetime of rough paths and pulled together the story that should have been old decades ago.
This movie is a MUST SEE. Artistically and tastefully developed, this movie tells a story, and the story needs to be carefully considered for good cause.
"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it" (~George Satayana)
Robert Smith
Chief of Police
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs - Reno, NV
Astonishing
This is an amazing story of a genius inventor who was well ahead of his time.
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