The Fox Film Corporation (also known as Fox Studios) was an American Independent
film
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
production studio formed by
William Fox (1879–1952) in 1915, by combining his earlier Greater New York Film Rental Company and Box Office Attractions Film Company (founded 1913).
The company's first film studios were set up in
Fort Lee, New Jersey, but in 1917, William Fox sent
Sol M. Wurtzel
Solomon Max Wurtzel (September 12, 1890 – April 9, 1958) was an American film producer.
Life and career
Born in New York City, the second of five brothers; his parents were both Polish Jews from the village of Ulanow (Surname ''Wurtzel'' i ...
to
Hollywood, California to oversee the studio's new
West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to:
Geography Australia
* Western Australia
*Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia
* West Coast, Tasmania
**West Coast Range, mountain range in the region
Canada
* Britis ...
production facilities, where the climate was more hospitable for filmmaking. On July 23, 1926, the company bought the
patents of the
Movietone sound system for recording sound onto
film
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
.
After the Wall Street
crash of 1929, William Fox lost control of the company in 1930, during a
hostile takeover. Under new president Sidney Kent, the new owners began conversations of a fusion with
Twentieth Century Pictures, under founders
Joseph M. Schenck
Joseph Michael Schenck (; December 25, 1876 – October 22, 1961) was a Russian-born American film studio executive.
Life and career
Schenck was born to a Jewish family in Rybinsk, Yaroslavl Oblast, Russian Empire. He emigrated to New York City ...
and his friend
Darryl Zanuck. Schenck, Zanuck, and
Spyros Skouras merged the Fox Studios with Twentieth Century to form
20th Century-Fox
20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Disn ...
in 1935.
History
Background
William Fox entered the film industry in 1904 when he purchased a one-third share of a
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Kings County is the most populous Administrative divisions of New York (state)#County, county in the State of New York, ...
nickelodeon for $1,667. He reinvested his profits from that initial location, expanding to fifteen similar venues in the city, and purchasing
prints
In molecular biology, the PRINTS database is a collection of so-called "fingerprints": it provides both a detailed annotation resource for protein families, and a diagnostic tool for newly determined sequences. A fingerprint is a group of conserve ...
from the major studios of the time:
Biograph,
Essanay
The Essanay Film Manufacturing Company was an early American motion picture studio. The studio was founded in 1907 in Chicago, and later developed an additional film lot in Niles Canyon, California. Its various stars included Francis X. Bushman, ...
,
Kalem
The Kalem Company was an early American film studio founded in New York City in 1907. It was one of the first companies to make films abroad and to set up winter production facilities, first in Florida and then in California. Kalem was sold to ...
,
Lubin,
Pathé
Pathé or Pathé Frères (, styled as PATHÉ!) is the name of various French people, French businesses that were founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France starting in 1896. In the early 1900s, Pathé became the world's largest ...
,
Selig,
Phonoson-Coles,
Tsereteli and
Vitagraph. After experiencing further success presenting live
vaudeville routines along with motion pictures, he expanded into larger venues beginning with his purchase of the disused Gaiety theater, and continuing with acquisitions throughout New York City and New Jersey, including the
Academy of Music.
Fox invested further in the film industry by founding the Greater New York Film Rental Company as a
film distributor
A film distributor is responsible for the Film promotion, marketing of a film. The distribution company may be the same with, or different from, the production company. Distribution deals are an important part of financing a film.
The distributo ...
. The major film studios responded by forming the
Motion Picture Patents Company
The Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC, also known as the Edison Trust), founded in December 1908 and terminated seven years later in 1915 after conflicts within the industry, was a trust of all the major US film companies and local foreign-bran ...
in 1908 and the
General Film Company in 1910, in an effort to create a
monopoly on the creation and distribution of motion pictures. Fox refused to sell out to the monopoly, and sued under the
Sherman Antitrust Act, eventually receiving a $370,000 settlement, and ending restrictions on the length of films and the prices that could be paid for screenplays.
In 1914, reflecting the broader scope of his business, he renamed it the Box Office Attraction Film Rental Company. He entered into a contract with the
Balboa Amusement Producing Company film studio, purchasing all of their films for showing in his
New York area
The New York metropolitan area, also commonly referred to as the Tri-State area, is the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass, at , and one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. The vast metropolitan area ...
theaters and renting the prints to other exhibitors nationwide. He also continued to distribute material from other sources, such as
Winsor McCay's early animated film ''
Gertie the Dinosaur''. Later that year, Fox concluded that it was unwise to be so dependent on other companies, so he purchased the
Éclair studio facilities in
Fort Lee, New Jersey, along with property in
Staten Island
Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull an ...
, and arranged for actors and crew. The company became a film studio, with its name shortened to the Box Office Attractions Company; its first release was ''
Life's Shop Window''.
Fox Film Corporation
Always more of an entrepreneur than a showman, Fox concentrated on acquiring and building theaters; pictures were secondary. The company's first film studios were set up in
Fort Lee where it and many other early
film studio
A film studio (also known as movie studio or simply studio) is a major entertainment company or motion picture company that has its own privately owned studio facility or facilities that are used to make films, which is handled by the production ...
s in
America's first motion picture industry were based at the beginning of the 20th century.
[
That same year, in 1914, Fox Film began making motion pictures in California, and in 1915 decided to build its own permanent studio. The company leased the Los Angeles Edendale studio of the ]Selig Polyscope Company
The Selig Polyscope Company was an American motion picture company that was founded in 1896 by William Selig in Chicago. The company produced hundreds of early, widely distributed commercial moving pictures, including the first films starring Tom ...
until its own studio, located at Western Avenue and Sunset Boulevard, was completed in 1916. In 1917, William Fox sent Sol M. Wurtzel
Solomon Max Wurtzel (September 12, 1890 – April 9, 1958) was an American film producer.
Life and career
Born in New York City, the second of five brothers; his parents were both Polish Jews from the village of Ulanow (Surname ''Wurtzel'' i ...
to Hollywood to oversee the studio's West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to:
Geography Australia
* Western Australia
*Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia
* West Coast, Tasmania
**West Coast Range, mountain range in the region
Canada
* Britis ...
production facilities where a more hospitable and cost-effective climate existed for filmmaking. Between 1915 and 1919, Fox Films earned millions of dollars through films featuring Theda Bara, known as "The Vamp" due to her unique habit for displaying exoticism.
With the introduction of sound technology, Fox moved to acquire the rights to a sound-on-film process. In the years 1925–26, Fox purchased the rights to the work of Freeman Harrison Owens, the U.S. rights to the Tri-Ergon system invented by three German inventors, and the work of Theodore Case. This resulted in the Movietone sound system later known as "Fox Movietone" developed at the Movietone Studio
Sony Music Studios was an American music recording and mastering facility in New York City. The five-story building was a music and broadcasting complex located at 460 W. 54th Street, at 10th Avenue, in the Hell's Kitchen section of Manhattan. ...
. Later that year, the company began offering films with a music-and-effects track, and the following year Fox began the weekly '' Fox Movietone News'' feature, that ran until 1963. The growing company needed space, and in 1926 Fox acquired 300 acres (1.2 km2) in the open country west of Beverly Hills and built "Movietone City", the best-equipped studio of its time.
Because William Fox opted to remain in New York, much of the Hollywood filmmaking at the Fox Film Corporation was instead managed by Fox's movie makers. Janet Gaynor
Janet Gaynor (born Laura Augusta Gainor; October 6, 1906 – September 14, 1984) was an American film, stage, and television actress.
Gaynor began her career as an extra in shorts and silent films. After signing with Fox Film Corporation (later ...
would also become one of the company's most prominent stars by the late 1920s.
Decline
When rival Marcus Loew died in 1927, Fox offered to buy the Loew family's holdings. Loew's Inc. controlled more than 200 theaters, as well as the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio. The Loew family agreed to the sale, and the merger of Fox and Loew's Inc. was announced in 1929; MGM studio bosses Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg were not included in the deal, and fought back. Using powerful political connections, Mayer called upon the Justice Department's antitrust
Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...
unit to delay giving final approval to the merger. William Fox was badly injured in a car crash in the summer of 1929, and by the time he recovered, he had lost most of his fortune in the stock market crash of 1929, ending any chance of the Fox/Loew's merger being approved, even without the Justice Department's objections.
Overextended and close to bankruptcy, Fox was stripped of his empire in 1930 and later ended up in jail on bribery
Bribery is the Offer and acceptance, offering, Gift, giving, Offer and acceptance, receiving, or Solicitation, soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official, or other person, in charge of a public or legal duty. With reg ...
and perjury charges. Fox Film, with more than 500 theatres, was placed in receivership. A bank-mandated reorganization propped the company up for a time, but it soon became apparent that despite its size, Fox could not stand on its own. William Fox resented the way he was forced out of his company and portrayed it as an active conspiracy against him in the 1933 book ''Upton Sinclair Presents William Fox
''Upton Sinclair Presents William Fox'' is a 1933 non-fiction work by the American writer Upton Sinclair.Solomon p.177 Sinclair based the book on a series of interviews he had conducted with William Fox, a former Hollywood film tycoon. The tit ...
''.
Merger
Under new president Sidney Kent, the new owners began negotiating with the upstart, but powerful independent Twentieth Century Pictures in the early spring of 1935. The two companies merged that spring and became 20th Century-Fox
20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Disn ...
. The company was purchased by News Corporation in 1985, becoming "20th Century Fox" without the hyphen, and in 2020 was purchased by The Walt Disney Company and renamed 20th Century Studios
20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Disn ...
. For many years, 20th Century-Fox claimed to have been founded in 1915; for instance, it marked 1945 as its 30th anniversary. However, in recent years it has claimed the 1935 merger as its founding, marking its 75th rather than 95th anniversary in 2010.Is Fox really 75 this year? Somewhere, the fantastic Mr. (William) Fox begs to differ
New York Post, 2010-02-10.
Products
Feature films
A 1937 fire in a Fox film storage facility destroyed over 40,000 reels of negatives and prints, including the best-quality copies of every Fox feature produced prior to 1932; although copies located elsewhere allowed many to survive in some form, over 75% of Fox's feature films from before 1930 are completely lost.
Newsreels
In 1919, Fox began a series of silent newsreels, competing with existing series such as '' Hearst Metrotone News'', ''International Newsreel
The International News Service (INS) was a U.S.-based news agency (newswire) founded by newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst in 1909. '', and '' Pathé News''. '' Fox News'' premiered on October 11, 1919, with subsequent issues released on the Wednesday and Sunday of each week. ''Fox News'' gained an advantage over its more established competitors when President Woodrow Wilson endorsed the newsreel in a letter, in what may have been the first time an American president commented on a film. In subsequent years, ''Fox News'' remained one of the major names in the newsreel industry by providing often-exclusive coverage of major international events, including reporting on Pancho Villa, the airship ''Roma
Roma or ROMA may refer to:
Places Australia
* Roma, Queensland, a town
** Roma Airport
** Roma Courthouse
** Electoral district of Roma, defunct
** Town of Roma, defunct town, now part of the Maranoa Regional Council
* Roma Street, Brisbane, a ...
'', the Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
, and a 1922 eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The silent newsreel series continued until 1930.
In 1926, a subsidiary, Fox Movietone Corporation, was created, tasked with producing newsreels using Fox's recently acquired sound-on-film technology. The first of these newsreels debuted on January 21, 1927. Four months later, the May 25 release of a sound recording of Charles Lindbergh's departure on his transatlantic flight was described by film historian Raymond Fielding as the "first sound news film of consequence". '' Movietone News'' was launched as a regular newsreel feature December 3 of that year. Production of the series continued after the merger with Twentieth Century Pictures, until 1963, and continued to serve 20th Century Fox after that, as a source for film industry stock footage.
Unlike Fox's early feature films, the ''Fox News'' and ''Fox Movietone News'' libraries have largely survived. The earlier series and some parts of its sound successor are now held by the University of South Carolina, with the remaining ''Fox Movietone News'' still held by the company.
Serials
Fox Film briefly experimented with serial films, releasing the 15-episode '' Bride 13'' and the 20-episode '' Fantômas'' in 1920. William Fox was unwilling to compromise on production quality in order to make serials profitable, however, and none were produced subsequently.
Short films
Hundreds of one- and two-reel short films
A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...
of various types were also produced by Fox. Beginning in 1916, the Sunshine Comedy
Sunlight is a portion of the electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun, in particular infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light. On Earth, sunlight is scattered and filtered through Earth's atmosphere, and is obvious as daylight w ...
division created two-reel comedy shorts. Many of these, beginning with 1917's ''Roaring Lions and Wedding Bliss
A roar is a type of Animal communication#Auditory, animal vocalization that is deep and acoustic resonance, resonating. Many mammals have evolved to produce roars and other roar-like vocals for purposes such as long-distance communication and intim ...
'', starring Lloyd Hamilton, were slapstick
Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. Slapstick may involve both intentional violence and violence by mishap, often resulting from inept use of props such a ...
, intended to compete with Mack Sennett's popular offerings. Sunshine releases continued until the introduction of sound. Other short film series included ''Imperial Comedies'', ''Van Bibber Comedies'' (with Earle Foxe), ''O'Henry'', ''Married Life of Helen and Warren'', and ''Fox Varieties''. Fox's expansion into Spanish-language films in the early 1930s also included shorts.
Notes
References
Bibliography
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External links
{{Authority control
1915 establishments in California
1935 disestablishments in California
American companies established in 1915
American companies disestablished in 1935
Mass media companies established in 1915
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Companies based in Los Angeles
Defunct American film studios
Film production companies of the United States
Film distributors of the United States
20th Century Studios
Articles containing video clips
Academy Award for Technical Achievement winners