I watched The Secret of Nikola Tesla today and want to at least get a blog post out of it so that I don't feel like it totally wasted my time.  Here are the broad strokes:

Orson Welles plays JP Morgan.  I think he just stayed in costume after playing a film executive in The Muppet Movie and occasionally changed out cigars.

The standard Rich and Famous Contract, Mr. Tesla?

Sure, his presence adds a little credibility and gravitas to the production, but the real JP Morgan looked like the love child of John McCain and Papa Smurf.  The movie was ridiculous anyway; they could have at least provided a goofy prosthetic nose.

Taken just prior to the public caning of Gargamel

A pointless love interest shows up.  Though charming in social contexts when he needed to be, Tesla stayed clear of female company in real life.  In the film, however, he has a weird, muted romantic connection with Katharine Johnson, the wife of one of his longtime friends.

Why

A stupid environmentalist message that has nothing to do with anything pops up everywhere.  In the film, Tesla continuously voices his quest for energy that is "in line with nature."  This is accompanied by some shots of smoggy Los Angeles in 1980, even though the bulk of the story takes place at the other end of the twentieth century.

There is one redeeming moment where Thomas Edison squares off with Tesla about their approaches to science.  The drama of this disagreement could have lent sufficient thematic juice to dramatize Tesla's life and conflict with Edison.  Instead, it's an excuse to wallow in Orson Welles' presence.

You can see in the first few seconds of the video that it's personal for Edison, who had to stubbornly keep trying solution after solution in order to make progress because of his lack of formal education.  This movie could have played on themes similar to the ones that show up in Amadeus where diligent mediocrity is frustrated by the presence of transcendent genius.  And even in that movie, many of the facts are fudged.  But it's okay because it tells a story worthy of its subject.  Hell, even The Prestige is a better Tesla movie than this one, even though he's portrayed by Ziggy Stardust himself.

Contemplating the electro-cloning of Bing Crosby

With another Tesla biopic on the way in 2014, I hope someone has figured out how to milk this guy's life for all it's worth, in terms of an enjoyable narrative.  You would think that it's impossible to get something boring out of a real-life wizard's biography, but you'd be astounded.

"It's about horses"

Check out my serial "Buzzards Over Carson" at Jukepop Serials for a Tesla-related story that has nothing to do with Orson Welles.  Yet.