Movietone News
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Movietone News known in the U.S. as Fox Movietone News, produced cinema, sound newsreels from 1928-1963 in the U.S. and from 1929-1979 in the UK (for much of that time as British Movietone News). One of the earliest in the series featured George Bernard Shaw Talks to Movietone News released on 25 June 1928.
An early conductor of the Movietone News orchestra was Harry Lauder II, nephew of famous entertainer Sir Harry Lauder, who was contracted with them for 18 months before William Fox took him to his Hollywood studio. Sir Harry Lauder also appeared in test sound films made at the Fox Studios in New York City during the winter-spring of 1927.
One installment, Fox Grandeur News, was released on 26 May 1929 in Fox's short-lived widescreen process Grandeur, and shown before the feature film Fox Movietone Follies of 1929. Hearst Metrotone News initially leased the Case Research Lab patents from William Fox for its sound newsreels. Each of these studios used this system of recording sound film for news items because it was an easily transported single-system of sound film that recorded the action within the camera.
Fox's first use of recording a news event was on 20 May 1927: Charles Lindbergh's take-off from Roosevelt Field for his historic solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean was filmed with sound and shown in a New York theater that same night, inspiring Fox to create Movietone News.
A regular narrator of the newsreels was broadcaster/journalist Lowell Thomas.
In Australia, Movietone and Cinesound were competitors for newsreel coverage, but have now combined under the Movietone News name.
The University of South Carolina Newsfilm Library has a portion of the Fox Movietone newsreel collection, with the rest of it owned and managed by Fox News Channel. The majority of the collection is stored in New Jersey, mostly unseen since the newsreels were originally shown in theatres. During its early years, Fox News Channel had a weekend show which played the newsreels.
Licensing for Fox Movietone newsreels owned by the University of South Carolina is handled by the Newsfilm Library, while licensing for Fox Movietone News still owned by News Corp. is handled by the British company ITN, as part of its archive, including Fox News Channel, Reuters, Granada and the UK network Channel 4.
[edit] See also
- The March of Time newsreel series produced by Time-Life from 1935 to 1951
- Movietone sound system sound-on-film system introduced by Fox Film Corporation in 1927
- Harry Lauder in the Limelight, by William Wallace & Gregory Lauder-Frost, Lewes, East Sussex, 1988, p.52 (for Harry Lauder II). ISBN 0-86332-323-X
