It's enjoyable enough to see once, but that’s really all it needs. The film doesn’t spend much time on the actual invention of the Telephone; it feels more like something happening in the background. Instead, the central focus is a somewhat predictable romance—Bell develops feelings for the deaf daughter of someone funding his work. It has the feel of an older-fashioned romantic drama reminiscent of films from the ea…

Don Ameche portrays the central figure in this biographical film about the Boston-area Scotsman known for inventing the telephone, and he injects some energy into what is fundamentally a fairly straightforward narrative. The movie follows his experimental work alongside Thomas Watson (Henry Fonda) and interweaves it with a developing romantic relationship with Mabel (Loretta Young). For a good portion of its running …