Editing Fox Film (section)

===Fox Film Corporation===
[[File:Fox-Stage-1918-1.jpg|thumb|This large stage at the Fox Studio on North Western Avenue was used as the men's dressing room when more than 2,000 people were needed for the Jerusalem street scenes in [[Theda Bara]]'s ''[[Salomé (1918 film)|Salomé]]'' (1918)]]
[[File:The Heart Snatcher - Roy Del Ruth - 1920, Fox Film Corporation - EYE FLM6884 - OB 685715.ogv|thumb|Silent film ''The Heart Snatcher'' (1920) directed by [[Roy Del Ruth]] for Fox Film Corporation.]]
Always more of an entrepreneur than a showman, Fox concentrated on acquiring and building theaters; pictures were secondary. The company's first film studios were set up in [[Fort Lee, New Jersey|Fort Lee]] where it and many other early [[film studio]]s in [[America's first motion picture industry]] were based at the beginning of the 20th century.<ref name=Koszarski/><ref name=FtLeeFilmComm/><ref name=FtLeeFilmComm2/>

That same year, in 1914, Fox Film began making motion pictures in California, and in 1915 decided to build its own permanent studio. The company leased the Los Angeles [[Edendale, Los Angeles, California|Edendale]] studio of the [[Selig Polyscope Company]] until its own studio, located at Western Avenue and Sunset Boulevard, was completed in 1916.<ref>{{cite book |last=Slide |first=Anthony |date=1998 |title=The New Historical Dictionary of the American Film Industry |location=Lanham, Maryland |publisher=Scarecrow Press |pages=[https://archive.org/details/newhistoricaldic00slid/page/78 78–79] |isbn=0-8108-3426-X |author-link=Anthony Slide |url=https://archive.org/details/newhistoricaldic00slid/page/78 }}</ref> In 1917, William Fox sent [[Sol M. Wurtzel]] to Hollywood to oversee the studio's [[West Coast of the United States|West Coast]] production facilities where a more hospitable and cost-effective climate existed for filmmaking. Between 1915 and 1919, Fox Films earned millions of dollars through films featuring [[Theda Bara]], known as "The Vamp" due to her unique ability to display exoticism.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/theda-bara|title=Theda Bara (1885-1955)|publisher=Jewish Virtual Library|accessdate=April 21, 2021}}</ref> Fox also produced 85 films featuring lead Western actor [[Tom Mix]], who joined Fox in 1917.<ref name=mixhelpsbuildfoxmore /> The popularity of Mix's Western films earned Fox large sums of money, and he eventually was paid $17,000 per week.<ref name=mixhelpsbuildfoxmore>{{cite web|url=https://www.tommixmuseum.com/about-tom|title=Tom Mix|publisher=Tom Mix Museum|accessdate=February 2, 2025}}</ref>

With the introduction of sound technology, Fox moved to acquire the rights to a [[sound-on-film]] process. In the years 1925–26, Fox purchased the rights to the work of [[Freeman Harrison Owens]], the U.S. rights to the [[Tri-Ergon]] system invented by three German inventors, and the work of [[Theodore Case]]. This resulted in the [[Movietone sound system]] later known as "Fox Movietone" developed at the [[Movietone Studio]]. Later that year, the company began offering films with a music-and-effects track, and the following year Fox began the weekly ''[[Fox Movietone News]]'' feature, that ran until 1963. The growing company needed space, and in 1926 Fox acquired<span style="white-space:nowrap"> 300&nbsp;acres&nbsp;(1.2&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup>)</span> in the open country west of Beverly Hills and built "Movietone City", the best-equipped studio of its time.

Because William Fox opted to remain in New York, much of the Hollywood filmmaking at the Fox Film Corporation was instead managed by Fox's movie makers.<ref name=foxandcompany>{{cite news|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/review-william-fox-the-man-who-made-the-movies-1512770853|title=Review: William Fox, 'The Man Who Made the Movies'|first=Scott|last=Eyman|publisher=Wall Street Journal|date=December 8, 2017|accessdate=April 22, 2021}}</ref> [[Janet Gaynor]] would also become one of the company's most prominent stars by the late 1920s.<ref name=foxandcompany />