RobertKearns Tagged Articles at Cinematical

In this weekend's well-meaning docudrama, Flash of Genius, Greg Kinnear portrays an inventor who struggled for years to sue car manufacturing behemoth Ford and get them to admit that they helped themselves to his patent on the intermittent windshield wiper. (Eugene reviewed it back at Telluride, and I basically agree with his assessment.)

Despite the real-life case being settled a couple of decades ago, Ford has taken this current opportunity to point out the factual inaccuracies in the movie that they've taken issue with, doing so in the form of this handy timeline, without causing any sort of formal stir, as covered in this accompanying text. Especially considering that the film's subject, Robert Kearns, passed away over three years ago, I doubt it would (and hope it won't) come to any sort of renewed head.

Maybe in thirty years or so, we'll get a movie about a blogger battling impossible odds to get all the facts straight on either side of a movie in which an inventor battled impossible odds to get just some facts straight. Now, to just work the word 'Genius' back into the title...

The cinematic version of the late, struggling inventor Robert Kearns finally has a friend. In June, Christopher Campbell posted that Greg Kinnear had been cast as the inventor in Flash of Genius, with Lauren Graham once again taking on the wifely role. (Is she becoming the token wife to balance out many years as the pretty-much-single Lorelai Gilmore!?) Now Variety has reported that Dermot Mulroney will be taking on the role of Gil Privick, Kearns' best friend, who owns a chain of auto-parts stores.

To recap, Kearns was the man who invented the intermittent windshield wiper. He took his invention to car manufacturers, and years later, Ford slapped his design onto cars and he got nothing for it. He had a breakdown, became obsessed and went after the companies that used them. After fighting for years, all the way up to the Supreme Court, Kearns finally got $30 million. However, it was at the cost of his family and dream.

As for Mulroney, maybe he'll finally get a little recognition. The man has been in a ton of films over the years but where all of his Young Guns co-stars made it big, he's always existed as that guy people recognize but don't remember -- the token co-star or supporting cast.