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Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio. Prod. by Ken Burns, Morgan Wesson, and Tom Lewis. Florentine Films, 1991. 2 hrs. (PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, VA 22314-1698)
The biggest problem with Ken Burns's Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio--a lively biography of Lee De Forest, Edwin Armstrong, and David Sarnoff, based on the book of the same name by Tom Lewis--is its subtitle. Students and casual viewers who watch this film may be left with a misleading impression that the three were the most important, even decisive, people in the development of the new cultural form of broadcasting. Certainly, they were major figures, and they receive worthy treatment here. But one wishes that Burns had hedged by saying "Three Men Who Made Radio" or at least indicated that the picture was a little broader than he suggests.
The director draws on techniques he perfected in making his epic...