Cool place, huh? You can see, like the Academy Theater, the Fox has a large tower in response to the growing trend of motoring.
So, more Hollywood history. Hey, this blog is like jazz, we're just gonna find a groove and milk it. Started with the phone numbers thing, and I still might get back on that beat, but for not, that map with all the Hollywood studios is really doing it for me.
Last time, when I realized that Warner Bros on Sunset and Gower moved out to Burbank and merged with First National to make the WB lot we know today, that was awesome. I mean that in the I almost had an orgasm sense and not in the pizza is cool sense.
The WB studio tour is actually supposed to be pretty neat, while I'm on it. You get to see lots of Harry Potter stuff (way to go Warner Bros, snatching up that franchise), and there are always sitcoms being filmed on the lot, so you never know what star you'll see.
Anyhow, I want to do that for all the Big 5 studios, show where they went from that map up above. We've covered Warner pretty well, and both Fox and Paramount have come up. We'll do Fox today, and Paramount in the near future.
Now Fox Film Corp. was founded in 1915 by William Fox, who owned a chain of nickelodeon theaters. He started out in the garment industry, but nickelodeons and the original short silent films were seen as more of a working class pursuit. Upper class folk went to the theater, it was the working class immigrants who were entertained by these short pieces. For some, it was how they learned English.
Fox had established both a distribution company and a production company, and merged them in 1915 to create Fox Film Corp. So already, he's a player in the vertical integration game.
Fox had a production studio out west by 1917. They bought the old Selig Polyscope Company lot on Western and Fernwood (stretched all the way to Sunset along Western on the map) and started making pictures at a much lower cost than their production studio in New Jersey.
Remember how WB had it's branded sound technology? Well Fox bought the rights to the Movietone sound system, which is most notably remembered in the Fox Movietone newsreels.
Now that Fox lot on the map took up two big lots along Sunset. There was one lot for soundstages, and another for movie sets. Fox outgrew that lot after acquiring the movietone technology, and so purchased an open lot west of Beverly Hills called Movietone City at the time. The Fox lot is still there today, the biggest presence on the lot is production of the Bones TV show.
So now we're up to about 1929. Fox ends up in a real bad car crash, then the stock market crashes. Fox, who had tried to purchase part of MGM, ends up in jail for some reason, everything looks bleak when in steps 20th Century pictures.
Now 20th Century isn't on that map. They were founded in 1933, by a bunch of industry heads founded this independent, which was nominated Best Picture in 1934 for The House of Rothchild and in 1935 for Les Miserables. Still, treated as an outsider, 20th Century decided to purchase the dying Fox to gain some legitimacy.
Now, this isn't to say from 1929 to 1935 Fox sat idly. The production end suffered a bit, but Fox went on building theaters. That's where the Fox Theater in Westwood comes in. Announced in 1929, a month before the stock market crash, Fox purchased $250,000 worth of land near the University of California, Southern Branch in Westwood. Of course, this was down the street from the new Fox Movietown City, so it would be perfect for premiers.
The theater became the anchor of the Westwood Village, and sat 1,400. But it wasn't Fox's first choice. After building his west of Beverly Hills production studio, Fox had actually planned to build a $2 million dollar theater in Beverly Hills. That was reported in April of 1929, so it's clear Fox's problems started before the big crash. Anyhow, as a result Westwood got it's movie house that still runs today, and Beverly Hills eventually got a Warner that they demolished.
I keep getting distracted, the historical article in the LA Times where I'm getting much of this info is dwarfed by a giant add for Bullock's advertising their collegiene apparel. Of course, collegiene is a registered trademark of Bullock's. Guess a department store series in store after the Hollywood/Vaudeville series.
When Fox announced the Westwood theater was soon to open, they had many plans for opening theaters all throughout the suburbs. The Academy came to fruition, but plans to build theaters in Venice and Compton did not. The company struggled financially (which, why they kept building theaters is beyond me) was eventually merged with 20th Century and here we are.
20th Century Fox was built back into a power, with stars like Betty Grable. And they kept producing Movietone newsreels, like this one from 1939. It's kind of famous.
Goodnight, everybody : )
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