Dead at the box office

by John Dandola

In 1940, Hollywood decided to pay homage to a small New Jersey town. It was where Thomas Alva Edison had lived and worked for nearly fifty years, ultimately making it the birthplace of motion pictures. What better place to hold the World Premiere of Spencer Tracy's Edison, the Man? The idea seemed not only flawless but guaranteed to generate terrific press—until a series of sexual murders breaks out a week before the festivities are scheduled to begin. Already straddled with the ever-reticent Spencer Tracy and overly exuberant starlet Ann Rutherford, M.G.M. publicity girl Edie Koslow is forced to reluctantly hush the crimes and then just as reluctantly solve them in the midst of studio manipulations and small town politics with only the help and protection of a local mystery man.