the *** 20th Century Fox *** thread

One of the awful things about Disney buying Lucasfilm is that the 20th Century Fox fanfare no longer precedes Star Wars films. Sad.

Marilyn & Betty & Betty

[quote] 20th Century Fox

The image is fascinatingly exciting with those fantastic curved Art Deco Moderne details!

The fanfare is genuinely exciting. It's one of the top three works by Alfred Newman.

It is, r3. It sets you up with the anticipation that you're about to see something special.

Composed by nine-time Academy Award-Winning Alfred Newman (father of Thomas, uncle of Randy).

Who designed it?

OT, I used to park on the Fox lot each day when I worked in Century City. Great fun to see the studio and sets left.

[Quote] One of the awful things about Disney buying Lucasfilm is that the 20th Century Fox fanfare no longer precedes Star Wars films. Sad.

So sad!

That isn't OT, r7. It relates to 20th Century Fox.

[quote]OT, I used to park on the Fox lot each day when I worked in Century City. Great fun to see the studio and sets left.

How did you get past the guard house? Did you tell them you were Shirley Temple and without you there wouldn't be any Fox Studios?

Don't we have this dame to thank for Century City?

No, the company I worked for at the Mid America Building, a talent management agency, rented the spot since they exceeded their parking allotment for the building.

I guess they were still trying to recoup the Cleopatra film.

I've always enjoyed the Columbia torch lady intro.

We all used to call it Twentieth Penitentiary Fox back then, bitches.

She was only interesting when they added to her, r13.

Shirley Temple's Pussy made them a lot of money.

[quote] the Columbia torch lady

I used to think it was Jean Simmons.

But she looks progressively worse over the later decades.

I always wanted to visit the 20th Century Fox building when I was little. I also enjoyed when Columbia was owned by Coca-Cola and it would always have the Coca-Cola script under the torch lady.

But my favorite is Mimsie the Cat.

We'll always have The Doors.

I was on the Fox lot once in the 80s for a shoot.

All I remember is many of the outsides of the soundstages were still painted as backgrounds for Hello Dolly

Alice, Carmen, Busby...

Century City = FOLLIES' demise

^

Very trippy! an obvious influence on Kubrick.

[quote] what more could you ask for?

A sexy man.

[quote] "Who designed it?"

R6 Originally, it was the work of watercolor/matte artist Emile Kosa Jr., who first created it in 1933. The logo has undergone a few variations over the decades, and I find it all very fascinating, Kosa also created the ruined Stayue Of Liberty in "The Planet Of The Apes", but you can read that in the linked article.

[quote] "Stayue Of Liberty"

Oh, dear.

*Statue Of Liberty

Another casualty of the Disney takeover is that many of the 20th Century Fox Blu-Rays are now out of print, and Disney has no interest in reissuing them. So they go for high prices.

Did Fox ever do one of those grand photos of all their stars gathered together to celebrate the studio's anniversary? They had quite a roster by the early 1940s. one to rival MGM and Warner Bros.

Tyrone Power, Shirley Temple, Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Betty Grable, John Payne, Loretta Young, Dana Andrews, Anne Baxter, Joseph Cotten, Jeanne Crain, Clifton Webb, Linda Darnell, Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, James Dunn, Janet Gaynor, Frederic March, Gene Tierney, Rex Harrison, Susan Hayward, Robert Mitchum, Sonja Henie, Cesar Romero, Celeste Holm, Laurel & Hardy, Victor Mature, Carmen Miranda, Jack Haley, Maureen O'Hara, Charles Laughton, Vincent Price and Cornel Wilde were just some of the long-term contract players on the Fox roster in the late 1930s and1940s.

As a kid I remember running my bike over to the FOX lot and they were doing the last episode of M.A.S.H.

I always thought it was a stupid show with recorded laugh tracks. That crossdresser was the cool thing about that show.

Fun Fact: Jamie Farr who played Corporal Klinger is of Lebanese descent. As was Vic Tabac, Mel from Alice.

[quote] Jamie Farr is of Lebanese descent.

That 'fact' would be obvious to a blind man.

He used his real name, 'Jameel Joseph Farah', in his first decade in the business. He played Jesus' brother in that 1964 Jesus movie and he played a character named "Fraternity Brother With Big Nose" on the Red Skelton Show.

Don't forget Hazel!

R28 What's interesting is how most of the women were all Republicans. Shirley Temple, Loretta Young, Anne Baxter, Jeanne Crain, Gene Tierney, Susan Hayward, Celeste Holm, and Maureen O'Hara.

That makes me wonder what Linda Darnell's political affiliation was.

[quote] most of the women were all Republicans

It's pointless psycho-analysing the dead. Lincoln was a Republican.

The Dolly Sisters...

Wasn't Mitchum famously at RKO?

Mitchum was definitely at Fox by the mid-50s where he made River of No Return with MM, White Witch Doctor with Susan Hayward and Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison with Deborah Kerr, among other films.

I know this because in the early 60s on Saturday night prime time, there was Saturday Night at the Movies which solely featured Fox films and those pictures were all memorably featured.

I wish we had more information about the contract system.

The studios would push their contract players into TOTALLY unsuitable roles just to keep production churning to create new product every 12 weeks.

River of No Return

[quote] long-term contract players on the Fox roster in the late 1930s and1940s.

You make that list at @28 sound definitive but I suspect there were loan-outs, sweetheart-deals and special wartime charity appearances that mess with your list.

R36 He ended his contract with RKO around the mid 1950s, the same time he did The Night of The Hunter. I can't find anything saying he was a FOX contract player rather than a freelancer except Wikipedia categories.

Most of his films were from United Artists, which (in my understanding) was "indie" label of the time. His only FOX pictures were the ones with Monroe and Kerr and something called "The Hunters." He did a couple with MGM, Warners, and Columbia as well.

I thought United Artists merely distributed other company's products and didn't have studios or contract players.

? ? ?

Also, didn't the system that R37 describes die out by the early 1950s? Obviously the big studios and their contract players and disputes still existed, but it was much easier to loan out stars. For example, Marlon Brando wasn't even signed to a studio, I believe he did single picture deals because he was such a hot commodity.

R41 Right, I'm misspeaking I suppose, but they distributed films from individual producers or smaller companies, not major studios, in the 40s-50s.

R34…. LOL at that! Can you just imagine the room full of 50s nelly QUEENS, camping around ideas for that vid? All fussing on the set to make that the gayest thing on the planet? Ru Paul and her drag sisters couldn’t make anything THAT homo. Love love love it!

The Mascara dress is at the Academy of Motion Pictures Museum.

I like when a film is allowed to alter the studio logo. Here is a memorable example of a Fox's fanfare being altered slightly, for Alien 3, to great effect:

The Peanuts Movie

No...just...

"The Ghost and Mrs Muir" (1947) started with the logo, but with Bernard Hermann's splendid score instead of the fanfare.

Of course the jewel in their crown...

There was the time they cut back on the budget for the Fanfare intro

Zanuck

They did a cute job with the Columbia logo for "The Trouble with Angels".

Always my favorite.

I knew the collector who owned the Mascara dress in the 1990s, R45. I've held it in my hands along with the All About Eve "Fasten Your Seatbelt" dress (among his Marilyn's Liza's and more.) He must've sold or donated it to the museum.

I hadn't seen How to Marry a Millionaire in years but i caught it on Movies! TV this past week and was surprised by how clever, witty and funny it was. Great production values. Marilyn gave a great performance.

Did you remember it had an overture, r56?

Yes, r57, and Movies!tv showed it! Loved the entire presentation.

And realize, R56, Travilla had to design three complete wardrobes for three distinctively different actresses. And on top of that had to create an entire fashion show. Marilyn's red swimsuit sleeveless jacket from that scene was found now quite faded at a SoCal flea market. Sold for nearly $30K, even in that condition.

Another dramatic, dark opening with no fanfare. Opening Christmas Day, 1945 it was Fox' biggest hit of the year and the second biggest hit film of 1945 (the first was "The Bells of St. Marys"). Earning $5,505,000 in domestic rentals. Internationally, the film earned $2.7 million in rentals, making for a worldwide rental gross of $8.2 million.

Their prized Betty...

Betty took the reins from Alice Faye...

Alice Faye --> Betty Grable --> Marilyn Monroe

^Ahem.

Noted contralto, Barbara Stanwyck...

Best Picture - How Green Was My Valley...

The 20th Century Fox Mambo

[quote]*** 20th Century Fox ***

*** Asterisks *** are *** annoying *** as *** fuck ***

Well, r68, when you start a thread, simply don't use them. Now kindly *fuck off*.

*** It *** would *** never *** occur *** to *** me *** to *** do *** something *** so *** assholescently *** attention*** seeking *** twatessa *** r69.

The RKO logo flashing on my dark living room scared a friend over for dinner when she saw flashes of lightning and thought it was really until I reminded her I keep TCM on all the time muted. I enjoy seeing what Harlow or Gable are up to as I pass by during the day.

I like the early Universal...

^Then start your own fucking thread rather than hijack one.

I'm OP, r73. I shall do as I please.