ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 begins not with a new period but a shift in emphasis by examining how the American audience had started to turn inward and immigration became restricted in the 1920s. At the same time, Fox decided to engage with better written and directed pictures, with John Ford’s The Iron Horse (1924) capturing both the inward mood of the audience and Fox’s higher ambition for quality filmmaking. The Iron Horse continued the cycle of American western epics started by Paramount. Fox followed this with Raoul Walsh’s highly acclaimed What Price Glory (1926). Fox’s move towards artistry culminated in F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise (1927), with other notable entries directed by Frank Borzage as well as Ford. These works of art represent the tip of the general movement by various crafts in Hollywood to perfect filmic representation. Meanwhile competition from other studios continued. Fox tried to dominate the business by building and buying theaters, financing the development of sound on film and of a widescreen format named Grandeur. All this expansion climaxed when he arranged to gain controlling shares of his rival Loew’s company in the months before the stock market collapse of 1929. The crash forced Fox out. But Hollywood had become entrenched in the national culture with the adoption of sound on film. All the companies weathered the first year of the Great Depression with sound films and then the box office dropped. Fortunately Fox had the highly popular Will Rogers star in a series of films that spoke to the new political formations. The company merged with a small but incredibly successful production company called Twentieth Century in 1935. The merger provided an opportunity to a new cohort led by Darryl F. Zanuck.
