"The coming of the motion picture," newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst once said, "was as important as that of the printing press."
Hearst, as was his wont, exaggerated a bit. But during its humble beginnings in a Medo Park, N.J., laboratory, nobody could have guessed what an enormous impact on Americans' fantasies, mores, and morals the motion picture would have-least of all its inventor, the re- doubtable Thomas Alva Edison.
Edison and his assistant, William D...