RELEASE DATE

RUN TIME
91 min

MPAA RATING
(PG), for thematic elements, brief language and some smoking images

GENRE
Documentary

STARRING
Walter L. Shaw, Frank Langella

DIRECTOR(S)
Gregory Marquette

PRODUCER(S)
Walter T. Shaw, Diana Ross-Shaw, Matthew T. Weiner

WRITER(S)
Gregory Marquette, Walter T. Shaw

DISTRIBUTOR
Freestyle Releasing

SYNOPSIS

At the heart of GENIUS ON HOLD is the story of Walter L. Shaw-a brilliant inventor with an astonishing list of telecommunications patents to his name including call forwarding, touchtone dialing, speakerphone and voice recognition. His ground-breaking designs should have earned him great fortune and lasting fame, but for one thing-the power, greed, and oppression of AT&T, the largest, government-sanctioned, telecommunications monopoly in the United States which blocked him from realizing his dream. Punished, imprisoned, and eventually destitute, Shaw was drawn to the only organization that would reward him for his talent-the mob, whose bookies used his "black box" and "blue box" to run their gambling operations and evade the Feds. His son, Walter T. Shaw, embittered by his father's destruction, turned to organized crime and became one of the most notorious jewel thieves in American history. All to get back at the system that destroyed his family -- but at what cost?