Edison, Marconi & Co. is just kids building a submarine car

You should watch this if you have twenty minutes to kill and you like seeing 1920s kids pretend to be engineers. It is definitely worth it for the weirdness of the car alone.

If you hate silent movies or kids being loud without making any noise, you will probably hate this. It is very much a product of its time, for better or worse.

The whole thing starts with Jay Edison being a little inventor. He has Wheezer as his assistant, and Wheezer mostly just looks like he is trying to figure out what is going on. 🤖

They build this car that looks like a submarine. It is such an odd choice for a vehicle design, even for 1928.

There is this one moment where they are working on the car and the dog, Pal, is just staring at them. You can tell the dog is the only one who knows this thing probably won't work.

The car actually moves, which is the most surprising part of the whole movie. It has this jerky, weird movement that makes it look like it might fall apart at any second.

I noticed that the background extras in the street scenes look genuinely confused. Like they didn't know a movie was being filmed and just saw a bunch of kids in a submarine car driving by. 🚗

It reminds me a bit of the chaos in The Family Album, where everything feels a bit unscripted. It is not polished at all.

Farina shows up and, as usual, he is the best part. He has this way of looking at the camera like he knows the whole situation is ridiculous.

The pacing is a bit off, honestly. Some scenes of them just hitting metal with hammers go on for way too long. 🔨

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Edison, Marconi & Co. (1928) through its definitive frames.

You can almost feel the director just letting the kids ad-lib while the camera rolls. It feels very loose, which is nice compared to how stiff some movies from this era are.

There is a lot of dust in the air in some shots. You can see it floating around in the sunlight, which gives it a very real backyard feeling.

I kept wondering how they actually builded the prop. It looks heavy, but the kids push it around like it is made of cardboard and tin.

It is sort of like How I Became Krazy in that it relies on a very specific kind of slapstick that doesn't always land. But when it does, it is pretty funny.

The ending is very abrupt. It just kind of stops once they are done driving around. 🛑

I think Jackie Condon had a funny hat on in one scene, but then it disappeared in the next shot. Continuity wasn't really a huge priority here, I guess.

The mechanical details of the car are actually kind of impressive if you look closely. They put pipes and little valves on it to make it look authentic to their submarine theme.

It is a tiny bit boring in the middle, I won't lie. I found myself looking at the houses in the background more than the kids at one point.

But overall, it is a sweet little film. It captures that specific feeling of being a kid and thinking you can build anything out of junk in the garage. 🛠️

It is much more grounded than something like Robinson's Trousseau, which feels way more staged. This just feels like a Saturday afternoon.

If you like seeing old tech and kids being goofs, give it a look. Just don't expect a deep story or anything.