''Fox Movietone Follies of 1929'', also known as ''Movietone Follies of 1929'' and ''The William Fox Movietone Follies of 1929'', is an American
black-and-white
Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey.
Media
The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...
and
color
Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associ ...
pre-Code
Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the Cinema of the United States, American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929LaSalle (2002), p. 1. and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorshi ...
musical film
Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, but in some cases, they serve merely as breaks ...
released by
Fox Film Corporation
The Fox Film Corporation (also known as Fox Studios) was an American Independent film 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 ...
.
Plot
George Shelby, a boy from the
Southern United States
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
, comes to the city to dissuade Lila, his sweetheart, from embarking on a stage career and finally buys out the controlling interest in the revue so that he can fire her. On the opening night, however, she goes onstage when the prima donna of the show becomes temperamental, and she proves to be a big hit. At this development, George is able to sell the show back to the producer, who had previously lacked confidence in his investment and planned to take advantage of the youth's inexperience.
Cast
* John Breeden as George Shelby
*
Lola Lane
Lola Lane (born Dorothy Mullican; May 21, 1906 – June 22, 1981) was an American actress and one of the Lane Sisters with her sisters Leota, Rosemary, and Priscilla Lane. She appeared on Broadway and in films from the 1920s to 1940s.
Early yea ...
as Lila Beaumont
*
DeWitt Jennings
DeWitt Clarke Jennings (June 21, 1871 – March 1, 1937) was an American film and stage actor. He appeared in 17 Broadway theatre, Broadway plays between 1906 and 1920, and in more than 150 films between 1915 and 1937.
Biography
He was born ...
as Jay Darrell
*
Sharon Lynn
Sharon Lynn (born D'Auvergne Sharon Lindsay, April 9, 1901 – May 26, 1963) was an American actress and singer. She began playing in silent films but enjoyed her biggest success in the early sound years of motion pictures before fading away i ...
as Ann Foster
*
Arthur Stone as Al Leaton
*
Stepin Fetchit
Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry (May 30, 1902 – November 19, 1985), better known by the stage name Stepin Fetchit, was an American vaudevillian, comedian, and film actor of Jamaican and Bahamian descent, considered to be the first black a ...
as Swifty
*
Warren Hymer
Edgar Warren Hymer (February 25, 1906 – March 25, 1948) was an American theatre and film actor.
Early life
He was born in New York City. His father, John Bard Hymer (1875/1876 – 1953) was a playwright (with nine Broadway plays to ...
as Martin
*
Archie Gottler
Archie Gottler (May 14, 1896 – June 24, 1959) was an American composer, screenwriter, actor, and film director. as Stage Manager
*
Arthur Kay as Orchestra leader
* Mario Dominici as Le Maire
*
Bobby Burns
Robert Paul Burns (September 1, 1878 – January 16, 1966) was an American film actor and director. He appeared in more than 200 films between 1908 and 1952 as well as directing 13 films between 1915 and 1916. Burns was born in Philadelphi ...
– unspecified performer (in "Song and Dance Numbers")
["Film Reviews: Fox Movietone Follies (of 1929)"](_blank)
''Variety''. May 29, 1929. Page 14. Retrieved February 21, 2021.
*
Sue Carol – unspecified performer (in "Song and Dance Numbers")
*
Dixie Lee
Dixie Lee (born Wilma Winifred Wyatt; November 4, 1909 – November 1, 1952) was an American actress, dancer, and singer. She was the first wife of singer Bing Crosby.
Biography
She was born Wilma Winifred Wyatt in Harriman, Tennessee, on No ...
– unspecified performer (in "Song and Dance Numbers")
*
Carolynne Snowden
Carrie Artiemissia Snowden (January 16, 1900 – September 5, 1985), known professionally as Carolynne Snowden, was an American actress, dancer, and singer who broke new ground for black people working in the entertainment industry.
Biograp ...
– unspecified performer (in "Song and Dance Numbers")
["Fox Movietone Gives Nation First Audible Screen Follies"](_blank)
''The Dothan Eagle''. May 23, 1929. Page 2. Retrieved February 21, 2021.
*
The Four Covans (uncredited)
["The Most Intimate Follies Ever Seen Or Heard"](_blank)
''The Akron Beacon-Journal''. June 6, 1929. Page 33. Retrieved March 1, 2021.
*
Cee Pee Johnson
Cee Pee Johnson (born Clifton Byron Johnson,["Cee Pee's Wife Faints ...](_blank)
(uncredited)
Soundtrack
All songs were written by Con Conrad, Archie Gottler and Sidney D. Mitchell.
* "Walking With Susie"
* "Why Can't I Be Like You?"
* "Legs"
* "Breakaway"
* "That's You Baby"
* "Look What You've Done To Me"
* "Big City Blues"
* "Pearl of Old Japan"
Production
Filming locations for ''Fox Movietone Follies of 1929'' included
Havana
Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center. ,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, and
Palm Beach, Florida
Palm Beach is an incorporated town in Palm Beach County, Florida. Located on a barrier island in east-central Palm Beach County, the town is separated from several nearby cities including West Palm Beach and Lake Worth Beach by the Intracoas ...
.
Preservation status
The film had
Multicolor
Multicolor is a subtractive two-color motion picture process. Multicolor, introduced to the motion picture industry in 1929, was based on the earlier Prizma Color process, and was the forerunner of Cinecolor.
For a Multicolor film, a scen ...
sequences in its original release, as well as being filmed in the experimental
Grandeur wide-screen process
Grandeur may refer to:
* 70 mm Grandeur film
* Hyundai Grandeur, a car introduced in 1986
* Grandeur of the Seas, a cruise ship placed in service in 1996
* Grandeur Terrace, a public housing estate in Tin Shui Wai, Hong Kong
* " Oh! The Grandeur ...
. It is now considered a
lost film
A lost film is a feature or short film that no longer exists in any studio archive, private collection, public archive or the U.S. Library of Congress.
Conditions
During most of the 20th century, U.S. copyright law required at least one copy o ...
,
as all film prints known to exist were destroyed in fires at the Fox storage facility in New Jersey in 1937. The sequel, ''
New Movietone Follies of 1930
''New Movietone Follies of 1930'' is a 1930 American Pre-Code musical film released by Fox Film Corporation, directed by Benjamin Stoloff. The film stars El Brendel and Marjorie White who also costarred in Fox's ''Just Imagine'' in 1930.
The fi ...
'', also has Multicolor sequences and exists in the
UCLA Film and Television Archive
The UCLA Film & Television Archive is a visual arts organization focused on the preservation, study, and appreciation of film and television, based at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Also a nonprofit exhibition venue, the archiv ...
.
Some audio elements of the 1929 film still survive, however. Specifically, "Movietone Sound-on-Disc" audio for reels 6 and 7 still survive, offering the only record of dialogue and music taken directly from the movie.
Fox Movietone Follies of 1929 (Movietone Sound On Disc Reel 6 & 7)
Youtube.com
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most vis ...
, August 19, 2016; accessed August 19, 2019
In addition, several songs from the film were recorded for record release.
See also
*List of early color feature films
This is a list of early feature-length color films (including primarily black-and-white films that have one or more color sequences) made up to about 1936, when the Technicolor three-strip process firmly established itself as the major-studio fa ...
*List of lost films
For this list of lost films, a lost film is defined as one of which no part of a print is known to have survived. For films in which any portion of the footage remains (including trailers), see List of incomplete or partially lost films.
Reas ...
*1937 Fox vault fire
The 1937 Fox vault fire was a major fire that broke out in a 20th Century-Fox film-storage facility in Little Ferry, New Jersey, United States, on July 9, 1937. Flammable nitrate film had previously contributed to several fires in film-industr ...
References
External links
Surviving Vitaphone soundtrack disk
at SoundCloud
SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website that enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is one of the largest music streaming se ...
*
''New York Times''
{{David Butler
1929 films
1929 musical films
1920s color films
1929 lost films
American musical films
American black-and-white films
Films shot in Florida
Films shot in Havana
Films shot in New York City
Lost American films
Fox Film films
1920s English-language films
1920s American films