Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Notes on Contributors
- Introduction: Wallace Fox and the B Film
- 1 Between Compliance and Resistance: Mapping the Careers of Wallace Fox and Nipo Strongheart in Early Hollywood
- 2 Indian Agents and Indigenous Agency at Universal: Wild Beauty (1946) and Gun Town (1946)
- 3 Neglected Western Traditions and Indigenous Cinema in the 1945–1946 Series Westerns of Wallace Fox
- 4 The Corpse Vanishes and the Case of the Missing Brides
- 5 “Like a crazy nightmare”: Noirish Vampirism and Deviance in Bowery at Midnight
- 6 Voices and Vaults: Pillow of Death
- 7 Wallace Fox and America’s “Career Girls”
- 8 She Made Her Own Deadline: Fox’s Brenda Starr, Reporter
- 9 Bathos in the Bowery
- 10 Infernal Devices: Wallace Fox’s Aeroglobe, Cosmic Beam Annihilator, and the Pit of Everlasting Fire
- 11 A Fox in the Wild: Ramar of the Jungle and the Crisis of Representation
- Index
Introduction: Wallace Fox and the B Film
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 October 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Notes on Contributors
- Introduction: Wallace Fox and the B Film
- 1 Between Compliance and Resistance: Mapping the Careers of Wallace Fox and Nipo Strongheart in Early Hollywood
- 2 Indian Agents and Indigenous Agency at Universal: Wild Beauty (1946) and Gun Town (1946)
- 3 Neglected Western Traditions and Indigenous Cinema in the 1945–1946 Series Westerns of Wallace Fox
- 4 The Corpse Vanishes and the Case of the Missing Brides
- 5 “Like a crazy nightmare”: Noirish Vampirism and Deviance in Bowery at Midnight
- 6 Voices and Vaults: Pillow of Death
- 7 Wallace Fox and America’s “Career Girls”
- 8 She Made Her Own Deadline: Fox’s Brenda Starr, Reporter
- 9 Bathos in the Bowery
- 10 Infernal Devices: Wallace Fox’s Aeroglobe, Cosmic Beam Annihilator, and the Pit of Everlasting Fire
- 11 A Fox in the Wild: Ramar of the Jungle and the Crisis of Representation
- Index
Summary
Beyond the industrial structures and the typical glossy Hollywood cinema … there is another entire category of American fictional feature films created and shown under different conditions. These are the B-movies, also called “quickies,” “cheapies,” “low-budget,” or simply “budget films,” even “C” or “Z” films … B films occupied an equally important role in Hollywood; to concentrate upon the A would emphasize the art of a few films and elide the basis of production, the underlying commercial and artistic means by which the industry survived—as well as the vast quantity and range of films offered to spectators during the studio era.
Brian Taves, “The B Film: Hollywood’s Other Half “In asking “hakarʉ marʉʉmatʉ kwitaka?” [who is bullshitting who?] we have to remember: movies are movies, reels of data captured on camera, never to be trusted and producing multitudes of incommensurable interpretive possibilities. We also have to remember: movies are far more than that, something far-reaching, endless, and rooted in ancient traditions of storytelling and storied tales.
Dustin Tahmahkera, “Hakarʉ Marʉʉmatʉ Kwitaka?: Seeking Representational Jurisdiction in Comanchería Cinema”How have Native Americans participated in the creation of films in the twentieth century?
Liza Black, Picturing IndiansBringing together two streams of film history from the quotations above— at the intersection of B film history and Indigenous film history—we find one answer to Cherokee historian Liza Black’s question in the life and career of Wallace Fox, the youngest member of the first family of Indigenous filmmakers in Hollywood. Born in Purcell, Indian Territory (later Oklahoma) on March 9, 1895, Wallace (or “Wally”) Fox began his Hollywood career as an assistant director in 1921. The film was The Invisible Fear, directed by Fox’s brother Edwin Carewe. After working as an actor and later director, Carewe ascended to major studios as the producer-director of such films as Resurrection (1927), Ramona (1928), and Evangeline (1929). Some of Carewe’s films were written by the third brother, scenarist and scriptwriter Finis Fox. Together, Edwin and Finis became major Hollywood players, and part of the social scene of the 1920s. By contrast, Wallace Fox did not appear at Tinseltown parties, at least not so far as the Los Angeles press noticed. Nor did Fox become a director at major studios.
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- ReFocus: The Films of Wallace Fox , pp. 1 - 14Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2022