A Thinking Person's Picture (Review of "The Secret of Nikola Tesla")

By David Armstrong
EXAMINER STAFF CRITIC

"The Secret of Nikola Tesla" is more fun to think about than to watch. The acting is frequently stilted and the dubbed English in this Yugoslavian import is at times extremely awkward. Yet, "Nikola Tesla" has undeniable appeal.

Part of its charm is a magisterial performance by Orson Welles, in one of his last screen roles. Welles is perfectly cast as the financier J.P. Morgan, whose earthy shrewdness is posed in counterpoint to the visionary altruism of Nikola Tesla, a pioneer of electrical technology, who hatches an idea for an eternal, pollution- and radiation-free source of energy.

"Nikola Tesla" is a fictionalized version of the life of the Serbo-Croatian immigrant, who died penniless and alone in a New York City hotel in 1943. The Yugoslavian actor Petar Bozovic, who plays Tesla, is another of the movie's assets with his portrayal of the eccentric inventor's cool egocentrism.

This 1980 film, receiving its San Francisco premiere in a weeklong run at the Roxie, posits Tesla's intuitive inspiration against the cautious experiments of Thomas Edison; invokes the distinction between madman and genius (without, however, exploring it); and dramatizes the crucial role of capital in the history of high-tech.

It is this last point that director Krsto Papic and screenwriter Ivo Bresan take on most successfully.

Welles' intelligent but malevolent Morgan backs Tesla so long as the dreamer provides a handsome return on his investment. But when others make significant scientific breakthroughs — including splitting the atom, which Tesla warns will come to no good — Morgan tires of him.

The results of the plutocrat's decision to cut off his funding is ruinous for Tesla — and for the world, as Papic and Bresan pointedly show with footage of a modern, smog-choked city.

MOVIE REVIEW

'The Secret of Nikola Tesla'
Cast: Orson Welles,
Strother Martin, Petar
Bozovic
Director: Krsto Papic
Writer: Ivo Bresan
Unrated
Theater: Roxie
Evaluation: ★★½

The filmmakers' nationalist and socialist tilt is evident in the characterization of Tesla's American rival, Edison, as a whiskey-swilling, narrow-minded, dishonest hack — to the greater glory of the European wizard.

This is a promising twist on the usual deification of Edison, but Papic and Bresan give Dennis Patrick, who plays Edison, so little to work with that his performance is never more than one-dimensional.

Welles must have had fun with his part, though. He plays Morgan with fleshy, cigar-smoking elan. Is suing orders from behind his polished desk — or in his enormous bed, a fawning factotum at his side — Welles glowers with baronial authority.

Strother Martin as George Westinghouse turns in a fine, restrained performance as Tesla's pre-Morgan backer. Other American and Yugoslavian actors come and go in a contrived parade of turn-of-the-century celebrities, such as Enrico Caruso and a wisecracking Mark Twain.

These touches are less than successful. Tesla's meeting with Twain has a wooden "You Are There" quality, and the picture's unbelievably literal demonstration of the "electrifying" attraction between Tesla and a friend's wife is unintentionally hilarious.