Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio
Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio
Release: 1991-10-01
·Runtime: 113m
·★ 7.5
Documentary
History
For 50 years radio dominated the airwaves and the American consciousness as the first “mass medium.” In Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio, Ken Burns examines the lives of three extraordinary men who shared the primary responsibility for this invention and its early success, and whose genius, friendship, rivalry and enmity interacted in tragic ways. This is the story of Lee de Forest, a clergyman’s flamboyant son, who invented the audion tube; Edwin Howard Armstrong, a brilliant, withdrawn inventor who pioneered FM technology; and David Sarnoff, a hard-driving Russian immigrant who created the most powerful communications company on earth.
Production Countries
United States of America
Production Companies
Florentine Films
Cast
Frank Sinatra
as Self - Serenades Sarnoff (archive footage)
Harry S. Truman
as Self - Announces Bombing of Hiroshima (archive sound)
Gene Autry
as Self - Sings (archive sound)
Ralph Edwards
as Self - Host of 'This Is Your Life' (archive footage)
Susan Douglas
as Self - Historian
Erik Barnouw
as Self - Historian
Garrison Keillor
as Self - Writer
Nelson Rockefeller
as Self - Eulogizes Sarnoff (archive footage)
Franklin D. Roosevelt
as Self - Makes Broadcast About Banking Reform (archive footage)
John Barrymore
as Hamlet (archive sound)
Lee De Forest
as Self - Objects to Quality of Radio Programming (archive footage)
Marie Mosquini
as Self - with Lee De Forest (archive footage)
Arturo Toscanini
as Self - Conducts NBC Symphony (archive footage)
Fred Allen
as Self - Predicts Demise of Radio (archive footage)
Winston Churchill
as Self - Finest Hour Speech (archive sound)
Jason Robards
as Narrator (voice)
Dwight D. Eisenhower
as Self - Announces Landing in Normandy (archive footage)
Orson Welles
as Self - Professor in War of the Worlds Broadcast (archive sound)
