A Dispatch From Reuters [DVD]

Edward G. Robinson builds the world's first international news agency in this engrossing true story costarring Edna Best and Eddie Albert. Struggling to establish a system that delivers messages with reliability and speed, Julius Reuter (Robinson) becomes a success when he launches a European telegraph service that transmits news by wire. Competing with a British concern that's out to steal his clients, Reuter lays a line to a remote coastal town that gives him the lead on American news brought to England by boat. The first to report Lincoln's assassination, Reuter faces ruin when his exclusive causes London's stock market to crash and no one else can confirm the story. Lavishly produced and featuring an extraordinary cast of supporting players, A Dispatch from Reuters was directed by William Dieterle, who specialized in biographical dramas and whose The Life of Emile Zola won the 1937 Academy Award for Best Picture.