Editing 20th Century Studios (section)

=== From founding to 1956 ===
{{see also|Fox Film|Twentieth Century Pictures}}
[[File:Gangs all here trailer.jpg|upright|thumb|230px|right|[[Carmen Miranda]] as Dorita in ''[[The Gang's All Here (1943 film)|The Gang's All Here]]''. In 1946, she was the highest-paid actress in the United States.{{sfn|Livingston|Caracas Garcia|2005|page=101}}]]
[[File:Photo Don Ameche, Alice Faye, and Carmen Miranda in THAT NIGHT IN RIO (1941).jpg|220px|thumb|right|[[Alice Faye]] as Baroness Cecilia Duarte, [[Don Ameche]] as Larry Martin and Baron Manuel Duarte, and [[Carmen Miranda]] as Carmen in ''[[That Night in Rio]]'', produced by Fox in 1941]]
[[File:Again in 1939 ... 20th Century Fox.jpg|thumb|The 20th Century-Fox logo depicted in a 1939 advertisement in ''[[Boxoffice Magazine|Boxoffice]]'']]
[[File:Viva Zapata movie trailer screenshot (3).jpg|thumb|right|220px|From the 1952 film ''[[Viva Zapata!]]'']]

[[Twentieth Century Pictures]]' [[Joseph Schenck]] and [[Darryl F. Zanuck]] left [[United Artists]] over a stock dispute, and began merger talks with the management of financially struggling [[Fox Film]], under President Sidney Kent.<ref name="Cobbles">{{cite web |title=The Formation of Twentieth Century-Fox |url=http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/zanuck-schenck.htm |access-date=April 29, 2016 |website=Cobbles |location=United States}}</ref>{{sfn|Lev|2014|p=7|loc=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dA3LcAd5O5gC&pg=PA7#v=onepage}}

[[Spyros Skouras]], then manager of the [[Fox West Coast Theaters]], helped make it happen (and later became president of the new company).<ref name="Cobbles" /> The company had been struggling since founder [[William Fox (producer)|William Fox]] lost control of the company in 1930.<ref>{{cite web |date=August 2, 2018 |title=1935–1940 – Life in the Foxhole: Insiders Recall 83 Years of Scandal and Stardom at 20th Century Fox |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/a-look-at-83-years-20th-century-fox-1131133/item/eulogy-a-studio-1935-1940-1131136 |access-date=March 5, 2019 |website=The Hollywood Reporter}}</ref>

Fox Film Corporation and Twentieth Century Pictures merged in 1935. Initially, it was speculated in ''[[The New York Times]]'' that the newly merged company would be named "Fox-Twentieth Century". The new company, Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, began trading on May 31, 1935. Kent remained at the company, joining Schenck and Zanuck. Zanuck replaced [[Winfield Sheehan]] as the company's production chief.

The company established a special training school. [[Lynn Bari]], [[Patricia Farr]] and [[Anne Nagel]] were among 14 young women "launched on the trail of film stardom" on August 6, 1935, when they each received a six-month contract with 20th Century-Fox after spending 18 months in the school. The contracts included a studio option for renewal for as long as seven years.<ref>{{Cite news |date=August 6, 1935 |title=The Hollywood Roundup |page=35 |work=The Times |agency=United Press |location=Indiana, Hammond |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/5323575/the_times/ |access-date=May 20, 2016 |via=[[Newspapers.com]]}} {{Open access}}</ref>

For many years, 20th Century Fox identified themselves as having been founded in 1915, the year Fox Film was founded. For instance, it marked 1945 as its 30th anniversary. However, it has considered the 1935 merger as its founding in recent years, even though most film historians agree it was founded in 1915.<ref name="NY Post">{{Cite news |date=February 10, 2010 |title=Is Fox really 75 this year? Somewhere, the fantastic Mr. (William) Fox begs to differ |work=[[New York Post]] |publisher=[[News Corp]] |url=https://nypost.com/2010/02/10/is-fox-really-75-this-year-somewhere-the-fantastic-mr-william-fox-begs-to-differ |access-date=December 19, 2014}}</ref> The company's films retained the 20th Century Pictures searchlight logo on their opening credits as well as its opening fanfare, but with the name changed to 20th Century-Fox.

After the merger was completed, Zanuck signed young actors to help carry 20th Century-Fox: [[Tyrone Power]], [[Linda Darnell]], [[Carmen Miranda]], [[Don Ameche]], [[Henry Fonda]], [[Gene Tierney]], [[Sonja Henie]], and [[Betty Grable]]. 20th Century-Fox also hired [[Alice Faye]] and [[Shirley Temple]], who appeared in several major films for the studio in the 1930s.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Natale |first=Richard |date=February 11, 2014 |title=Shirley Temple, Legendary Child Star, Dead at 85 |work=Variety |url=https://variety.com/2014/film/news/shirley-temple-black-dies-1201097477/ |access-date=March 13, 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Natale |first=Richard |date=May 11, 1998 |title=Fox tuner Faye dies at 83 |url=https://variety.com/1998/film/news/fox-tuner-faye-dies-at-83-1117470631/ |access-date=March 13, 2019 |website=Variety}}</ref>

Higher attendance during World War II helped 20th Century-Fox overtake [[RKO]] and [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]] to become the third most profitable film studio. In 1941, Zanuck was commissioned as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Signal Corps and assigned to supervise the production of U.S. Army training films. His partner, [[William Goetz]], filled in at 20th Century-Fox.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Behlmer |first=Rudy |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8y9K8-ucZAsC&q=william+goetz+took+over+while+zanuck+served+overseas&pg=PA63 |title=Memo from Darryl F. Zanuck: The Golden Years at Twentieth Century-Fox |publisher=Grove Press |year=1993 |isbn=9780802133328}}</ref>

In 1942, [[Spyros Skouras]] succeeded Kent as president of the studio.{{sfn|Troyan|Thompson|Sylvester|2017|p=29|loc=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=JLCzDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA29#v=onepage}} During the next few years, with pictures like ''[[Wilson (1944 film)|Wilson]]'' (1944), ''[[The Razor's Edge (1946 film)|The Razor's Edge]]'' (1946), ''[[Boomerang (1947 film)|Boomerang]]'', ''[[Gentleman's Agreement]]'' (both 1947), ''[[The Snake Pit]]'' (1948), and ''[[Pinky (film)|Pinky]]'' (1949), Zanuck established a reputation for provocative, adult films. 20th Century-Fox also specialized in adaptations of best-selling books such as [[Ben Ames Williams]]' ''[[Leave Her to Heaven]]'' (1945), starring [[Gene Tierney]], which was the highest-grossing 20th Century-Fox film of the 1940s. The studio also produced film versions of Broadway musicals, including the [[Rodgers and Hammerstein]] films, beginning with the musical version of ''[[State Fair (1945 film)|State Fair]]'' (1945), the only work that the partnership wrote specially for films.

After the war, audiences slowly drifted away. 20th Century-Fox held on to its theaters until a court-mandated "divorce"; they were spun off as Fox National Theaters in 1953.{{sfn|Lev|2013|page=162}} That year, with attendance at half the 1946 level, 20th Century-Fox gambled on an unproven process. Noting that the two film sensations of 1952 had been [[Cinerama]], which required three projectors to fill a giant curved screen, and "Natural Vision" [[3-D film|3D]], which got its effects of depth by requiring the use of polarized glasses, 20th Century-Fox mortgaged its studio to buy rights to a French anamorphic projection system which gave a slight illusion of depth without glasses. President [[Spyros Skouras]] struck a deal with the inventor [[Henri Chrétien]], leaving the other film studios empty-handed, and in 1953 introduced [[CinemaScope]] in the studio's groundbreaking feature film ''[[The Robe (film)|The Robe]]''.<ref>{{cite web |date=March 1, 2008 |title=Zanuck Remembered as a Hollywood Powerhouse |url=https://wahooschools.socs.net/vnews/display.v/SEC/Community%7CWahoo%27s%20Famous%20Sons%3E%3EDarryl%20Zanuck |access-date=April 29, 2016 |website=[[Wahoo, Nebraska|Wahoo School District]]}}</ref>

Zanuck announced in February 1953 that henceforth all 20th Century-Fox pictures would be made in CinemaScope.<ref>{{cite web |date=June 16, 2012 |title=Moving Pictures That Move: House of Bamboo in CinemaScope |url=http://www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org/2012/07/16/moving-pictures-that-move-house-of-bamboo-in-cinemascope/ |access-date=April 29, 2016 |website=Northwest Chicago Film Society}}</ref> To convince theater owners to install this new process, 20th Century-Fox agreed to help pay conversion costs (about $25,000 per screen); and to ensure enough product, 20th Century-Fox leased access to CinemaScope to any rival studio choosing to use it. Seeing the box-office for the first two CinemaScope features, ''The Robe'' and ''[[How to Marry a Millionaire]]'' (also 1953), Warner Bros., MGM, RKO, [[Universal Pictures|Universal-International]], [[Columbia Pictures|Columbia]], UA, [[Monogram Pictures|Allied Artists]], and [[Walt Disney Studios (division)|Disney]] quickly adopted the process. In 1956, 20th Century-Fox engaged [[Robert Lippert]] to establish a subsidiary company, [[Regal Pictures]], later [[Associated Producers Incorporated]] to film [[B picture]]s in CinemaScope (but "branded" RegalScope). 20th Century-Fox produced new musicals using the CinemaScope process including ''[[Carousel (film)|Carousel]]'' and ''[[The King and I (1956 film)|The King and I]]'' (both 1956).

CinemaScope brought a brief upturn in attendance, but by 1956 the numbers again began to slide.{{sfn|Watson|2015|page=290}}<ref>{{cite web |title='The Modern Miracle You See Without Glasses' – CinemaScope: 1953–1954: 'Twentieth Century-Fox presents A CinemaScope Production': 1953–1954 (Films made in CinemaScope from 1953 to 1956) |url=http://www.davidbordwell.net/books/poetics_10cinemascope.pdf |access-date=April 29, 2016 |website=David Bordwell |page=290 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130430113332/http://www.davidbordwell.net/books/poetics_10cinemascope.pdf |archive-date=April 30, 2013 |url-status=live }}</ref> That year Darryl Zanuck announced his resignation as head of production. Zanuck moved to Paris, setting up as an independent producer, seldom being in the United States for many years.