Twentieth Century-Fox: The Zanuck-Skouras Years, 1935–1965

by Peter Lev

When the Fox Film Corporation merged with Twentieth Century Pictures in 1935, the company posed little threat to industry juggernauts such as Paramount and MGM. In the years that followed however, guided by executives Darryl F. Zanuck and Spyros Skouras, it soon emerged as one of the most important studios. Though working from separate offices in New York and Los Angeles and often of two different minds, the two men navigated Twentieth Century-Fox through the trials of the World War II boom, the birth of television, the Hollywood Blacklist, and more to an era of exceptional success, which included what was then the highest grossing movie of all time, The Sound of Music. Twentieth Century-Fox is a comprehensive examination of the studio’s transformation during the Zanuck-Skouras era. Instead of limiting his scope to the Hollywood production studio, Lev also delves into the corporate strategies, distribution models, government relations, and technological innovations that were the responsibilities of the New York headquarters. Moving chronologically, he examines the corporate history before analyzing individual films produced by Twentieth Century-Fox during that period. Drawn largely from original archival research, Twentieth Century-Fox offers not only enlightening analyses and new insights into the films and the history of the company, but also affords the reader a unique perspective from which to view the evolution of the entire film industry.

Genres: Film

326 pages, Hardcover

First published March 15, 2013

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Lev has written the first scholarly history of 20th- Century Fox using archival materials including contracts, memos, budgets, and analysis of the films. Unlike previous studio histories that focus on Hollywood, Lev structures his book so that it focuses on the decisions made in the New York offices. His chapter on the production and failure of the film Cleopatra is eye opening as he shows how the studio nearly went bankrupt but was then rescued for a short time by the profits of their musical films.

[Christopher Pufall · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel this was a middling effort to cover a major studio -- 20th Century Fox -- and a broad swath of its history. The premise of the book from the outset was that 20 CF was chosen over other studios due to certain unique qualities that made it of interest for this historical survey. I feel the book did not adequately deliver on that promise to the reader until the last portion, when it covered the period leading into and including the 1960's. Prior to that, there were too many pages padded in a sort of extended readers-digest recap of key movies Fox has released since the earlier 30's, with only a sprinkling of juicy insights.

Although I believe it is certainly important to summarize milestone films, I believe those pages could have been greatly tightened and then enhanced with much more historical insight into the operations of Fox during their making.

To be fair the book does contain a fair amount of interesting research, but it feels like the pace and intensity of that information was focused in the last act of the book, and so it is an effort of great patience to get to the meat. I gave the book three stars but it reflects an averaging of two-stars for the first 2/3's to 3/4's of the book, with the latter portion gaining a 4-star nod to reflect the immensely interesting section covering the 60's plus the epilogue.