The 20th Century Fox Story (1955-1959)

The second half of the 1950's saw 20th Century Fox continue to release the majority of their films in the very well received CinemaScope format. It even got to a point where the studio was giving their lower budget or "B-level" features the widescreen treatment by launching a subsidiary company called Regal Films (later renamed Associated Producers Incorporated) to produce smaller scale or "second features" that would use CinemaScope (renamed RegalScope in these cases). A new generation of young stars including Jayne Mansfield and Robert Wagner were making names for themselves with their starring roles in Fox films. Among the other major highlights in this five year span were Marilyn Monroe starring in what may very well be her signature film with "The Seven Year Itch" (1955), Ingrid Bergman and Yul Brynner personally taking home the Oscar gold with their performances in "Anastasia" (1956) and "The King and I" (1956) respectively and Joanne Woodward doing the same with "The Three Faces of Eve" (1957). Other classics included "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing" (1955), "Oklahoma" (1955, picked up for distribution from RKO), "Carousel" (1956), "The Girl Can't Help It" (1956), "An Affair to Remember" (1957), "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison" (1957), "Peyton Place" (1957), "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter" (1957), "South Pacific" (1958), "The Young Lions" (1958), "Compulsion" (1959) and "The Diary of Anne Frank" (1959). Fox's reputation for producing daring, groundbreaking, adult dramas continued all through this decade and a little ways into the next. Marking the end of a legendary era, these are the final years of the partnership between the production dream team of studio founder Darryl F. Zanuck and longtime studio president Spyros P. Skouras. Big corporate and financial changes, few of them positive, were in store for all of the major Hollywood studios during the 1960's and 20th Century Fox was not immune.

Listed here is the complete 1955-1959 theatrical feature film release output for Fox. With most of the studio's box office stars from the 30's and 40's having either passed away, retired from the screen or suffered a steep decline in their careers by the end of the 50's, the final years of the Golden Age of Hollywood were underway. By the end of the 60's, a whole new era of film making and filmmakers would be ushered in.

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