20th Century-Fox: The First 50 Years

While in college, film history was one of my favorite subjects, so it was a cinch I would be interested in watching 20th Century Fox: The First 50 Years. But it wasn't a cinch that I would love it, and that I would learn a lot from it - but I did, on both counts! For those who start off with even less knowledge than I did, you'll get a great education. One aspect in particular that was rather obvious but I hadn't really realized was the monopoly Fox Studios had on musicals. Thanks to That's Entertainment!, MGM was more than happy to fool audiences into thinking they held that claim, because of Gigi and Howard Keel. But Fox produced The King and I, Carousel, Oklahoma!, The Sound of Music, Hello Dolly, South Pacific, Can-Can, and all Shirley Temple and Marilyn Monroe flicks. Those portions of the documentary were very entertaining, and the editing to make long numbers shorter, or to create montages of certain stars, was extremely impressive. Shirley Temple had a large segment dedicated to her, as did Marilyn Monroe. However, if you aren't an old movie buff, it will spoil a few endings for you, like Laura and Leave Her to Heaven. Countless familiar faces are shown, from regular contract players (Tyrone Power, Betty Grable, Alice Faye, Gregory Peck, Dana Andrews, Janet Gaynor, Henry Fonda, etc.) to those who were borrowed by the studio or only had a brief contract but made influential movies (John Wayne, Robert Young, Vincent Price, Susan Hayward, Humphrey Bogart, Paul Newman, etc.). Sometimes you might wonder why Sonja Henie got an entire montage to herself, while important flicks like Titanic and Three Coins in the Fountain weren't included, but just try to keep the big picture - pun intended - in mind. This is a historical recap from 1915-1965 of Fox Studios, and writer-director Kevin Burns did a very good job.

As an editor myself who specializes in montages, my hat goes off to the editors of this special: Craig A. Colton and David Comtois. Every montage was beautifully crafted, giving the audience a sentimental feeling and using music cues to help guide visual images. Since I've seen nearly every single feature included in this documentary, I was able to appreciate how careful each cut was. With brief interviews from Red Buttons, Julie Andrews, Robert Wagner, Don Murray, Debbie Reynolds, Roddy McDowall, Robert Wise, Jane Withers, and Alice Faye, the year before she died, the vast majority of the documentary contains James Coburn's beautiful narration as he takes us back in time to old Hollywood. I learned a lot, and I'd very happily sit down to watch this documentary again.

The litmus test for this kind of compilation film is usually the time spent on and the patience you have with lesser known material. Usually titles are lesser known for a reason. However, as this doco runs over 2 hours (It's no joke that one title is The Longest Day), I found myself growing more and more desperate for lesser known material, like a man with a restricted diet.

The problem with the films of this particular studio is that their catalogue doesn't contain much of anything that hasn't been featured in similar studies of Hollywood. I mean, how many times have you seen the Shall We Dance number from The King and I?! The expectation of seeing The Grapes of Wrath, Shirley Temple, Betty Grable, Carmen Miranda, Laura (with the murderer revealed!), All About Eve, The Robe, Marilyn Monroe, Cleopatra, and The Sound of Music, is met. Success is defined here by box office takings, and to a lesser extent Academy awards. This is ironic since Daryl Zanuck, head of the studio for the majority of the 50 years, is hailed for his literary aesthetic, as opposed to vulgarians like Jack Warner, Harry Cohn and Louis B Mayer. It is said that only a non-Jew like Zanuck was brave enough to make the anti-semitic Gentleman's Agreement, but not mentioned whether any Jews went to see it. (Maybe they didn't have to, if they lived it). There is a glimpse of Nightmare Alley, a work of great daring, which is deemed a failure, along with the dull Wilson, and a good 20 minutes devoted to Cleopatra, which bears the reputation of bankrupting the studio, though it did ultimately make a profit.

If this documentary demonstrates anything, it is the fickleness of trends. After rescuing the studio from the Depression, Temple was let go because she grew up. Grable did marvels for morale in WW2 but she was outed by Monroe, just as Grable had outed Alice Faye. Monroe was fired from Something's Got to Give because of her unreliability, though we aren't told she was re-hired before she died. We see out-takes from the incompleted film, which are fascinating and highlight her luminous beauty. And the attempts to battle TV in the 1950's by producing Cinemascope spectacles are exhausted by the fate of Cleopatra. (It is thought that the studio would have had more patience with Monroe if it wasn't for their pre-occupation with Liz). Of amusing note is how Hello Dolly! is hailed as one of Fox' later successes, along with The Poseidon Adventure, Planet of the Apes, The Omen, and Star Wars, when my understanding was that Dolly lost about as much money for the studio as The Sound of Music had made. Perhaps it was best to wrap up this "story of our century" with the mythology intact, and Fox being the multi-media giant it now is.

Before I talk about the content of this film, I want to point out that it is NOT 150 minutes as is indicated on IMDb, but 129 minutes. Just in case you want to know.

This is a retrospective of the 20th Century-Fox Studio from its inception to 1997--a period MUCH greater than 50 years. However, the emphasis clearly is mostly on the first 40-50 years. It's narrated by James Coburn and is pretty typical of such a film--having LOTS of clips of films, photos and interviews. On the plus side, the clips were in good condition and consisted of many rare clips. On the negative, and it's a small one, there could have been more interviews--but, of course, perhaps many of the folks who could have been in the film simply chose not to participate--though I would loved to have seen and heard from Shirley Temple today (among others). Still, it was nice to see the likes of Alice Faye, Debbie Reynolds and Roddy McDowell. I also would LOVED it if the film was a mini-series or at least much longer (and considering the material, it easily could have been).

The film is the type that will make cinephiles drool and is nearly as perfectly done as "When the Lion Roars"--the great film about the history of MGM. However, I also realize that the average person couldn't care less about much of the material--silent films, the advent of sound and Hollywood's Golden Age. A treat for me, that's for sure.

"20th Century Fox: The First 50 Years," narrated by James Coburn, gives us a history of the studio's dual beginnings, merger, and success as a great Hollywood studio under the aegis of the ambitious Darryl F. Zanuck.

There are wonderful clips and homages to some of the stars that made 20th Century Fox great: Will Rogers, Shirley Temple, Tyrone Power, Betty Grable, Henry Fonda, Alice Faye, Don Ameche et al. What's usually missing in these compilations is depth because so much has to be covered, but in this case, they did an okay job. There were also brief comments by stars such as Alice Faye and Roddy McDowell. Of special interest were the early sound tests and a look at the development of Fox's sound system. The early sound clips featured two very young actors, Humphrey Bogart and Spencer Tracy.

20th Century Fox is a particularly fascinating studio because around the late '50s, the lunatics started taking over the asylum, the Cleopatra debacle being a great example as well as all the problems with Marilyn Monroe. There are some clips from the film she did not complete, "Something's Gotta Give," that are great. The fact is, the radiant Monroe was always a problem, as anyone who has ever seen a documentary on Billy Wilder will attest. It's just that once a woman hit 30 in Hollywood - let alone travel down the road past it - the powers that be started to lose patience.

The previous poster mentioned the fickleness of trends as demonstrated by this documentary. I submit it's not the fickleness of trends but of the studios who put some of these great stars out to pasture and/or treated them badly after they'd kept the studios solvent. Since 20th Century Fox is the subject, here are a few examples not mentioned. Alice Faye left because of the hatchet job done on her role in the film "Fallen Angel" in favor of Linda Darnell; there was a small clip shown of "Nightmare Alley," with no explanation that Tyrone Power pleaded with Zanuck to make it, and when Zanuck saw it, he was so terrified for Power's image that he withdrew it from distribution and never publicized it. Nice way to treat somebody who gave you hit after hit after hit. It also isn't mentioned that after "Marie Antoinette," Zanuck refused to lend Power out - not for Ashley in "Gone with the Wind," not for the "The Last Tycoon," which was as a result not made until many years later, not to Harry Cohn, who was desperate to get him for anything, not to Columbia for "Golden Boy," not for "Kings Row." Linda Darnell was of no use to Zanuck when she got married and couldn't play virginal roles anymore, though to her credit, she staged a sexy comeback. And on and on.

Despite its self-serving theme, "20th Century Fox: The First 50 Years" is interesting and entertaining, though a little long. The producers also could have dug a little deeper for unusual clips and paid a little more attention to the clips that were shown. Not everyone has seen "Laura" - was it necessary to show the murderer?