Television as a weapon: this medium operation and use models in Murder by television (1935)

Abstract

Here we try to understand historically a Hollywood suspense film - released in 1935 in the USA and distributed in Brazil from the middle of the following year - whose plot presents television as a weapon for murder in an unusual way. In a pioneer way, it contemplates a dispute between television stations and a foreign government for open TV transmission technology. Furthermore, scenes and texts/dialogues by Murder by television express, directly or metaphorically, visions and appraisals about operating models and the use of the nascent TV. All of them generated between facts and processes pertaining to the ownership and operation of open television, as well as the production and distribution of its contents, both in the USA and in some European countries.