A different Fox Legacy

The Fox Movie Channel's Friday night feature Fox Legacy normally looks at one significant movie from the Fox studio, with an introduction by studio exec Tom Rothman; the film and intro are repeated three times in a row. This week, FMC is doing something slightly different: they're looking at one of Fox's top contract players from the 1940s -- Tyrone Power, and airing two of his movies.

Those two happen to be The Razor's Edge at 8:30 PM, followed at 11:00 PM by Nightmare Alley (from which the picture at left, with Power and Joan Blondell, is taken), both of which are worth watching (although I've got another movie to write a full-length blog post about later today).

There are quite a lot of stars FMC could do a similar Fox Legacy episode on. After World War II, a lot of stars started working at different studios from where they first signed a contract, with many stars making a realtively small number of films at Fox. I've recommended Bette Davis in Phone Call From a Stranger before, never mind that All About Eve has already been given the Fox Legacy treatment. James Stewart made half a dozen movies or so at Fox after the war, from the docudrama Call Northside 777 (worth another showing) to Bandolero!. Cary Grant's An Affair to Remember would be another worthy Fox Legacy selection. And, in addition to Gentleman's Agreement, Gregory Peck was in the equally significant Twelve O'Clock High.

And then there were the people who were under contract to Fox, who would probably be even better choices for Fox Legacy. Fox could have shown Kiss of Death Richard Widmark, for example. Henry Fonda started his career at Fox, although outside of The Grapes of Wrath and The Ox-Bow Incident, he didn't really like the movies he made in those early Fox days. Spencer Tracy was under contract to Fox before going to MGM, making such movies as The Power and the Glory. And, of course, there's Vincent Price's work before he became the king of horror.