--Artwork added to previous announcements--
--Looks like Fox is mimicking their packaging from last year's Ford at Fox set--
--More details added to previous announcement--
--NOTE: Official name of set is Murnau, Borzage and Fox--
Lazybones (1925) – Frank Borzage
Steve Tuttle (Charles Jones), the titular lazybones, takes on the responsibility of raising a fatherless girl, causing a scandal in his small town. Many years later, having returned from World War I, he discovers that he loves the grown-up girl.
- Feature film (1.20:1 aspect ratio)
- Newly created score composed by Tim Curran
- Still gallery
Street Angel (1928) – Frank Borzage
First-ever ACADEMY AWARD-Winning actress Janet Gaynor plays Angela, in “a simple, but pathetically beautiful love tale” (Film Daily) that unfolds in the picturesque landscape of Naples, Italy.
- Feature film (1.20:1 aspect ratio)
- Still gallery
7th Heaven (1927) – Frank Borzage
- Frank Borzage’s inspiring romantic tale of love and courage is a true cinematic masterpiece. Starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. Winner of three Academy Awards®, including Best Director.
- Feature film (1.20:1 aspect ratio)
- Commentary by film historians Robert Birchard and Anthony Slide
- Still gallery
- The River reconstruction featurette
- The River Still gallery
Sunrise (1927) – F.W. Murnau
- In this fable-morality silent film masterpiece (which is subtitled “A Song of Two Humans”), an evil temptress (Margaret Livingston) bewitches a farmer (George O'Brien) and convinces him to murder his neglected wife (Janet Gaynor). After he comes to his senses - before he is about to kill his wife - the married couple renew their love in the city.
- Movietone version of feature film (1.20:1 aspect ratio)
- European silent version of feature film (1.33:1 aspect ratio)
- Original Movietone score
- Olympia Chamber Orchestra score composed and conducted by Timothy Brock
- Commentary by ASC Cinematographer John Bailey
- Outtakes with commentary by John Bailey
- Outtakes with text cards
- Original scenario by Carl Meyer with annotations by F. W. Murnau
- Theatrical trailer
- Still gallery
- Sunrise screenplay
- Restoration notes
Lucky Star (1929) – Frank Borzage
Mary (Janet Gaynor), a poor farm girl, meets Tim (Charles Farrell) just as word comes that war has been declared. Tim enlists in the army and goes to the battlefields of Europe, where he is wounded and loses the use of his legs. Home again, Tim is visited by Mary and they are powerfully attracted to each other; but his physical handicap prevents him from declaring his love for her. Deeper complications set in when Martin (Guinn Williams), Tim’s former sergeant and a bully, takes a shine to Mary.
- Feature film (1.20:1 aspect ratio)
- Newly created score composed and conducted by Christopher Caliendo
- Still gallery
They Had To See Paris (1929) – Frank Borzage
Oklahoma mechanic Pike Peters finds himself part owner of an oil field. His wife Idy, hitherto content, decides the family must go to Paris to get culture and meet the right kind of people. Pike and his grown son and daughter soon have flirtatious French admirers; Idy rents a chateau from an impoverished aristocrat while Pike responds to each new development with homespun wit. In the inevitable clash, will pretentiousness and sophistication or common sense triumph?
- Feature film (1.20:1 aspect ratio)
- Newly created score composed and conducted by Christopher Caliendo
- Still gallery
City Girl (1930) – F.W. Murnau
Lem goes to Chicago to sell the wheat his family has grown on their farm in Minnesota. There he meets the waitress Kate. They fall in love and get married before going back to the farm. Kate is accepted by Lem’s mother and kid sister but is rejected by his father, who believes she married for the money. The reapers arrive and quickly make things even more complicated by making their move on Kate. Lem misunderstands the situation and believes Kate is actually interested. In despair Kate leaves the farm and Lem goes looking for her.
- Feature film (1.19:1 aspect ratio)
- Still gallery
- Murnau’s 4 Devils: Traces of a Lost Film – a film by Janet Bergstrom
- 4 Devils screenplay
- 4 Devils treatment
- 4 Devils Still gallery
Liliom (1930) – Frank Borzage
This gorgeously mounted story — later remade as the musical Carousel — follows Liliom, a poor, but cocky man who turns to thieving to support his new family. But when a holdup turns disastrous and Liliom loses his life, he is allowed to return to Earth years later in an attempt to set things right.
- Feature film (1.20:1 aspect ratio)
- Still gallery
After Tomorrow (1932) – Frank Borzage
No matter how responsible they are, a young couple’s pending marriage plans are destroyed by their self-serving families.
- Feature film (1.33:1 aspect ratio)
- Still gallery
Young America (1932) – Frank Borzage
Already in trouble with the law, Arthur and his friend Nutty break into a drugstore to get medicine for Nutty’s grandmother. The druggist’s wife, Mrs. Doray, asks for custody. When he hears them arguing over him, Arthur runs away. When he returns Mr. Doray is being robbed by bandits at the drugstore.
- Feature film (1.33:1 aspect ratio)
- Still gallery
Song O’ My Heart (1930) – Frank Borzage
(Full sound version, and music and effects version) In this “flawlessly” (The New York Times) recorded feature loosely based on his own life, “John McCormack’s famous tenor voice is reproduced so naturally and so pleasingly” (Film Daily).
- Feature sound version of the film (1.20:1 aspect ratio)
- Music and Effects version of the film (1.20:1 aspect ratio)
- Still gallery
Bad Girl (1931) – Frank Borzage
In this Winner of two Oscars (Best Director for Borzage and Best Writing/Adaptation) — a touching drama set during the depression — a poor young couple must marry when she becomes pregnant.
- Feature film (1.20:1 aspect ratio)
Murnau, Borzage and Fox
- Feature Length Documentary
PRESS RELEASE
CENTURY CITY, Calif. – At the very first Academy Awards® in May, 1929, two directors cemented their place in cinematic history as F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise took home the prize for Unique and Artistic Picture and Frank Borzage garnered Best Director for 7th Heaven. At the time, both men were under contract with William Fox, owner of Fox Film Corporation, who had invested heavily on making sure that movie directors were the stars of his films, gambling that audiences would gravitate to strong stories told by brilliant filmmakers. These awards validated Fox’s vision for movies as an art form and these two director’s craft.
Now, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment presents a collection saluting F. W. Murnau and Frank Borzage whose daring camera movements and visually extravagant styles were integral in the development of modern movies and the studio that allowed them to flourish with MURNAU, BORZAGE AND FOX, available December 9, 2008. Celebrating their collected works, their influence on director’s to follow and their collaborations with William Fox in the late 1920s and early 1930s, MURNAU, BORZAGE AND FOX features 12 films from the Hollywood legends including newly remastered versions of Murnau’s Sunrise and Borzage’s 7th Heaven, as well as an all-new feature length documentary from filmmaker John Cork looking at William Fox’s patronage and Murnau and Borzage’s effect on the film industry. Additionally, the set features two exclusive hard-cover books showcasing rare, unpublished photos from the careers of both filmmakers, one of which focuses solely on Murnau’s 4 Devils, the lost film considered by those that saw it to be the greatest movie ever made, pushing the boundaries of what Hollywood movies were at the time.
While his career was cut short due to a fatal auto accident in 1931 at the age of 42, the impact of F.W. Murnau on the film community can still be felt to this day. Heralded by his contemporaries such as John Ford, Allan Dwan, William Wellman, Howard Hawks and Raoul Walsh during his time at the studio, William Fox brought the expressionist director from Germany to Hollywood after he saw his 1924 film The Last Laugh. This premiere collection includes two surviving works that Murnau made with Fox from 1927-1930 including the beautifully filmed, three-time Oscar® winner Sunrise (1927) starring Janet Gaynor and George O’Brien and the country set, marital crisis City Girl (1930). Murnau’s lost, and perhaps most famous work 4 Devils (1928) is also paid tribute with a featurette and all-new book focused on the film as well as a look at the screenplay and more. Also included is the rarely seen European silent alternate version of Sunrise, restored by the Nardoni Filmovy Archiv.
Frank Borzage’s career at Fox lasted only seven years, but it would be the silent films he helmed at the studio that would come to define his career as he won the first Best Director Oscar® for 7th Heaven and again in 1931 for Bad Girl. Ten of Borzage’s surviving films are featured in the collection including the melodramatic love story 7th Heaven (1927), another triple-Oscar® winner at the inaugural ceremony also starring Janet Gaynor. Borzage would go on to collaborate with Gaynor two more times at Fox; as a spirited young woman who joins a traveling carnival in Street Angel (1928) and as a young farm girl who falls in love with a soldier during World War I in Lucky Star (1929). Other featured Borzage works include Lazybones (1925), They Had To See Paris (1929), two versions of Song O’ My Heart (1930), Liliom (1930), Bad Girl (1931), After Tomorrow (1932), Young America (1932) and a reconstruction of the lost film The River (1929).
Lastly, Murnau, Borzage & Fox (2008) is a feature length documentary by filmmaker John Cork examining the early history of Fox films and studio head William Fox and his patronage of German expressionist F.W. Murnau. In turn, Murnau’s cinematic styles would influence Fox’s stable of directors including Frank Borzage, John Ford and Raoul Walsh.
**Fox** has announced their much anticipated Murnau and Borzage Fox Box Set for release on December 9th. Info is preliminary, including the title, and no additional details are yet available.
The titles are:
- Lucky Star (1929)
- Sunrise - Special Edition (1927)
- Liliom (1930)
- They Had to See Paris (1929)
- Seventh Heaven (1927)
- Bad Girl (1931)
- Song 'O My Heart (1930)
- Lazy Bones (1925)
- Street Angel (1928)
- City Girl (1930)
Retail price is 239.98, but it's available at Classicflix.com for only $179.99.
Please note that due to the high cost of this set, it will not be available for rent.
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