science

Movietone News

Movietone News is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Movietone News rather than just read about it. In short: Movietone News was a newsreel that ran from December 1927 to 1963 in the United States. Under the name British Movietone News, it also ran in the United Kingdom from 1929 to 1979, in France also produced by Fox-Europa, in Spain in the early 1930s as Noticiario Fox Movietone before being replaced by No-Do, in Australia and New Zealand until 1970, and Germany as Fox Tönende Wochenschau from 1930 to 1940 and from 1950…

Key takeaways

Movietone News belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Movietone News to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Movietone News from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Movietone News was a newsreel that ran from December 1927 to 1963 in the United States. Under the name British Movietone News, it also ran in the United Kingdom from 1929 to 1979, in France also produced by Fox-Europa, in Spain in the early 1930s as Noticiario Fox Movietone before being replaced by No-Do, in Australia and New Zealand until 1970, and Germany as Fox Tönende Wochenschau from 1930 to 1940 and from 1950 to 1978. An Indian version called Indian Movietone News ran in 1942 and 1943 before getting replaced by Indian News Parade.

History

Movietone News evolved from an earlier newsreel established by Fox Films called Fox News which was founded in 1919. It produced silent newsreels. When Fox entered talkies in 1928 with Mother Knows Best, the name Fox Movietone was applied to Fox's sound productions. In the U.S. as Fox Movietone News it produced cinema sound newsreels from December 1927 to 1963, and from 1929 to 1986 in the UK (for much of that time as British Movietone News), as well as 1929 to 1975 in Australia. One of the earliest in the series featured George Bernard Shaw Talks to Movietone News, released on June 25, 1928. One of the known early producers of these newsreels was Abraham Harrison also known as Harry, father of notable black and white photographer Dody Weston Thompson who also found a brief career in film making. An early conductor of the Movietone News orchestra was Harry Lauder II, nephew of entertainer Sir Harry Lauder, who was contracted by the company for eighteen 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 May 26, 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-on-film recording. Fox's first use of recording a news event was on May 20, 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. After Fox Films merged with 20th Century Pictures in 1935 to form 20th Century-Fox, the name of Fox Movietone News was shortened to Movietone News. The company's last regular broadcast occurred in 1963, although it existed as a legal entity set to preserve important filmreels until Rupert Murdoch's acquisition of the parent company 20th Century Fox and the subsequent liquidation of Movietone in 1984 and 1986 respectively. In Australia, Movietone and Cinesound were competitors for newsreel coverage, but later combined under the Australian Movie Magazine name.

Status and licensing The University of South Carolina Moving Image Research Collections has a portion of the Fox Movietone newsreel collection. The vast majority of the Fox Movietone Newsreel, is managed by Fox Film Corporation's corporate successor (and namesake), Fox News Channel. During its early years, Fox News Channel had a weekend show which played the newsreels. Licensing Fox Movietone is handled by Fox Archives Licensing for Fox Movietone newsreels owned by the University of South Carolina is handled by the Moving Image Research Collections while licensing for Fox Movietone News is still owned by Fox Corporation and handled by Fox News Channel. British Movietone is owned separately by the films' successor-in-interest, operating under the name British Movietonews Ltd. The licensing of British Movietone newsreels is handled by AP Archive.

In September 2016, it was announced that the British Movietone archive had been acquired by Associated Press. The Movietone News Australia archive was donated to the National Film and Sound Archive in 1988.

Archive The Academy Film Archive houses the 20th Century Fox Movietone Shorts and Documentaries Series Collection. In 2015, British Movietone and Associated Press's archival footage were released on YouTube.

See also Newsreels List of online video archives Movietone sound system sound-on-film system introduced by Fox Film Corporation in 1927 Movietone Records, the budget subsidiary of 20th Century Fox's record division

References

External links Fox Movietone News (history) by FOX News Network, LLC Cinesound Movietone Australian newsreel licensing Movietone Records (1965—1967) at Both Sides Now - Oldies on CD Media

Fox Movietone News Collection archived at Moving Image Research Collections, University of South Carolina British Movietone, official YouTube channel, archival footage George Bernard Shaw Talks to Movietone News (1928) at IMDB Twelve Movietone newsreels from archive.org

Illustrations

Movietone News: Newspaper ad from a fully equipped theater in Tacoma, Washington, showing The Jazz Singer, on Vitaphone, and a Fox newsreel, on Movietone, together on the same bill. — Newspaper ad from a fully equipped theater in Tacoma, Washington, showing The Jazz Singer, on Vitaphone, and a Fox newsreel, on Movietone, together on the same bill.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Movietone News

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Movietone News claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Movietone News before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Movietone News ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Movietone News

In research: Movietone News appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Movietone News in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Movietone News is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 20th Century Studios, Fox Film, History of film, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Movietone News outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Movietone News in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Movietone News means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Movietone News out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Movietone News in simple terms?

Why does Movietone News matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Movietone News?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Movietone News.