back in the very early 80s I saw a short movie on HBO? about an inventor named (some man's name with three syllables that completely escapes me!) Lee.
a lot of it was set to music and consisted of old films of various inventors testing their various inventions. they gave Mr. () Lee credit for other people's inventions, Tesla and the Wright Bros come to mind, and some inventions were depicted that were purely and obviously fictional.
I remember it particularly because I was working in the public library at the time, and a few days after I saw it a girl came in and asked the librarian for books on the fictional Mr. Lee (she remembered his first name, I wish I could). she wanted to do a report on him for school and she described the various inventions shown in the movie to the very puzzled librarian who valiantly searched the card catalog for books on this clever fellow, to no avail. eventually he called in the other librarians and they had quite the noisy pow-wow. I was shelving books nearby and overheard the entire thing to my very great amusement. I was shocked that the girl didn't realize it was a satire and laughing at the know-it-all librarians' distress at not finding anything on such a prolific inventor. the librarians were mostly jerks who either ignored us or treated us like dirt and assumed that as mere Library Aides we were beneath contempt, unless they wanted books moved from one spot on their desk to another 6 inches away in which case they barked at us. I really thought about telling them what was going on, but it had gone too far, and I was still smarting from the public scolding I got when I had the unmitigated gall to know that Pasternak wrote Dr Zhivago and helpfully volunteered that information when the Librarian called me to fetch the book from the basement but forgot the author's name in front of the patron requesting the book. I guess I was supposed to pretend I didn't know and let her look it up, wasting more of my time.
I remembered this for years and laughed out loud every time it came to mind, but suddenly can't remember the guy's first name. NOT remembering this stupid movie is driving me nuts, and I've been googling like crazy but haven't found the right question yet. maybe that girl and I were the only people who saw the movie.
a lot of it was set to music and consisted of old films of various inventors testing their various inventions. they gave Mr. () Lee credit for other people's inventions, Tesla and the Wright Bros come to mind, and some inventions were depicted that were purely and obviously fictional.
I remember it particularly because I was working in the public library at the time, and a few days after I saw it a girl came in and asked the librarian for books on the fictional Mr. Lee (she remembered his first name, I wish I could). she wanted to do a report on him for school and she described the various inventions shown in the movie to the very puzzled librarian who valiantly searched the card catalog for books on this clever fellow, to no avail. eventually he called in the other librarians and they had quite the noisy pow-wow. I was shelving books nearby and overheard the entire thing to my very great amusement. I was shocked that the girl didn't realize it was a satire and laughing at the know-it-all librarians' distress at not finding anything on such a prolific inventor. the librarians were mostly jerks who either ignored us or treated us like dirt and assumed that as mere Library Aides we were beneath contempt, unless they wanted books moved from one spot on their desk to another 6 inches away in which case they barked at us. I really thought about telling them what was going on, but it had gone too far, and I was still smarting from the public scolding I got when I had the unmitigated gall to know that Pasternak wrote Dr Zhivago and helpfully volunteered that information when the Librarian called me to fetch the book from the basement but forgot the author's name in front of the patron requesting the book. I guess I was supposed to pretend I didn't know and let her look it up, wasting more of my time.
I remembered this for years and laughed out loud every time it came to mind, but suddenly can't remember the guy's first name. NOT remembering this stupid movie is driving me nuts, and I've been googling like crazy but haven't found the right question yet. maybe that girl and I were the only people who saw the movie.