Rummaging Through Fox's Vaults
For decades, discarded musical numbers and outtakes starring such legends as Alice Faye, Betty Grable and Shirley Temple have been languishing in the vaults at 20th Century Fox.
Thanks to the largess of a retiring studio vault manager, former Fox publicist-turned-filmmaker Kevin Burns was given access to these treasures.
"People knew about them, but nobody had really seen them," Burns says.
Until now.
"Hidden Hollywood: Treasures From the 20th Century Fox Film Vaults," premiering Tuesday on American Movie Classics, is manna from heaven for the movie buff. The hourlong special, hosted by Joan Collins, features more than a dozen never-before-seen musical sequences, outtakes, screen tests and other material.
Among the highlights:
* Shirley Temple and Jimmy Durante performing "Hop, Skip and Jump" from 1938's "Little Miss Broadway."
* Ethel Merman belting out "Marching Along With Time" from 1938's "Alexander's Ragtime Band" and "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better," with Dan Dailey, from 1954's "There's No Business Like Show Business."
* Al Jolson performing a medley of "April Showers" and "Avalon" from 1939's "Rose of Washington Square."
* Alice Faye singing "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows," also from "Rose."
* Betty Grable jiving to "This Is It" from 1944's "Pin Up Girl" and trying not to crack up while Victor Mature lip-syncs to "Blue Shadows and White Gardenias" from 1942's "Song of the Islands."
* Carmen Miranda, wearing a New England lighthouse headdress, singing "True to the Navy" from 1945's "Doll Face."
* Makeup and wardrobe tests from 1954 featuring Joan Collins and Robert Wagner from the never-produced "Lord Vanity."
Executive producer Burns and his staff spent three years restoring these sequences. All of the footage was on highly unstable nitrate film stock and had to be transferred to safety film and then to video. In addition, some of the scenes featured in the program had never been edited; others were lacking sound elements. Also missing were any blueprints or guides on how to edit the scenes.
"It's been a three-year process of going through dailies, piecing together and matching up audio to picture blind," Burns says. "Once you synced it up, you had to piece the sequence together in what you think is its intended order."
Luckily, most of the footage was in pristine condition, and the missing original nitrate audio tracks were found in mint condition in a separate section of the vaults.
