by Vanda Krefft
* Fox later insisted that his only serious injury had been a loss of blood (Transcript, 245).
* His instincts were correct. Within two years, Corporation Securities stock would be worthless (William Fox to Upton Sinclair, July 13, 1932, 5, Sinclair MSS, Lilly Library, Indiana University), and in 1933 a federal grand jury would indict three Insulls and two Stuarts on charges of mail fraud in connection with Corporation Securities (“Insull Grand Jury to Continue Work,” New York Times, Mar. 1, 1933, 28).
* The idea wasn’t unprecedented. For one week in October 1920, Loew’s sold its stock, successfully, in the lobbies of two of its Washington, DC, theaters (“Stock for Patrons Sold in Washington,” Variety, Oct. 15, 1920, 3).
* Fox didn’t have another $2.5 million in cash to put, on the same $30 basis, the 250,000 Loew’s shares hypothecated with Greenfield’s Bankers Securities for its $10 million loan. Instead, Greenfield accepted an unmortgaged $3 million office and theater building at Sixteenth and Market in Philadelphia (Transcript, 261–62).
* Several year later, Fox said he thought he met the theater purchase obligation by selling two Warner Bros. notes. (William Fox testimony, Stock Exchange Practices Hearings, U.S. Senate, Part 8, Nov.–Dec. 1933, at 3741.)
* Fox had received a pledge from Hoover via Claudius Huston—at least Fox believed this was what the president meant—that if he made the sale, the government would approve it in order to save the Fox companies (Transcript, 476).
* The Eastman Kodak loan also allowed Fox to reclaim thousands of shares of Fox Film and Fox Theatres stock. As collateral for the loan, Bankers Trust retained 140,000 Loew’s shares (Fox Theatres to Bankers Trust Company, Dec. 2, 1929, attached to William Fox to Upton Sinclair, July 8, 1932, Sinclair MSS, Lilly Library, Indiana University).
* Otterson and Stuart were not necessarily out of line. Although Fox personally may have paid the premiums, $5 million was payable to Fox Film and $1.5 million to his estate (“Fox Insured for $6,500,000,” Film Daily, June 17, 1925, 1).
* The nominal plaintiff was Ira M. Gast, a Rutherford, New Jersey, schoolteacher.
* In 1933, Kresel would be sentenced to eighteen months in prison for abetting misapplication of $2 million in bank funds in connection with the failed Bank of United States (“Kresel Sentenced to 18-Month Term,” New York Times, Nov. 28, 1933, 1; “Kresel Convicted in Bank of U.S. Case,” New York Times, Nov. 16, 1933, 1).
* Although Eva did decorate Fox theaters, she received no salary and sometimes spent her own money for furnishings. Brother Aaron had bought into a company that already had a long-standing contract with twelve of the eight hundred Fox Theatres, and no further contracts had been granted (“Relatives Charge Assailed by Fox,” Motion Picture News, Feb. 8, 1930, 41).
* The term “debenture” has no precise definition, but in the United States it usually describes corporate obligations not secured by a property lien. (“Restrictive Covenants in Debentures: The Insull Case,” Harvard Law Review 49, no. 4 [Feb. 1936]: 620n1.)
* Evidently, she had fallen from 177th Street.
* Halsey, Stuart claimed that over the life of the two financing plans, its plan would have the further advantage of retiring $20 million more debt than would the Bancamerica-Blair plan (Display ad, Halsey, Stuart refinancing plan, New York Times, Mar. 5, 1930, 41).
* Two state appellate courts soon unanimously overturned that ruling (Samuel Untermyer, “Why Justice Aaron J. Levy Should Be Defeated for Re-Election to the Supreme Court,” Speech at Hunts Point Palace, Bronx, NY, Oct. 20, 1937, 7–8. Albert M. Greenfield Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania).
* ERPI’s original May 1928 licensing agreements were with the Fox-Case Corporation on a gross revenue royalty basis, rather than with Fox Film on (as they were with all the other studios) a more advantageous per-reel royalty basis. Fox had agreed to sign new contracts but had never done so.
* In fact, the Bancamerica-Blair bankers wanted only to escape their contract with Fox. Secretly, they had arranged to split the Fox companies’ refinancing with Halsey, Stuart. (Committee Exhibit No. 161, Stock Exchange Practices Hearings, U.S. Senate, Part 7, Nov. 1933, at 3599.)
* The Bancamerica-Blair group got a 40 percent interest in marketing these Fox Film notes. (Murray W. Dodge testimony, Stock Exchange Practices Hearings, U.S. Senate, Part 7, at 3602.)
* For ancillary expenses, Clarke had his $5 million loan from ERPI.
* The other four directors represented financial firms closely associated with Chase.
* The cost of converting all U.S. theaters to widescreen was estimated at $40 million (Philip K. Scheuer, “New Hit Made By Wide Film,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 5, 1930, B13).
* At that time, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, headed by Will Hays, declared itself opposed to the immediate adoption of widescreen for fear of the exorbitant expense—but announced that it would hire an engineer to spend a year investigating the best format. Clarke said only that he would scrap Grandeur if the expert recommended a width other than 70 mm (“Wide Film Declared Out,” Variety, May 7, 1930, 5).
* In 1946 a U.S. House of Representatives judiciary committee report would label Judge Johnson “wicked and malicious” and conclude that since his appointment to the federal bench in 1925, almost every party who appeared before him “became the immediate object of a crooked conspiracy whose sole interest was the amount of money that could be extorted from him for justice or the evasion of justice” (“Former Judge ‘Wicked,’ House Body Asserts,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Feb. 7, 1946, 18).
* After the vote, Fox tried to stay the consummation of the merger; he failed again. (“Refuses to Stay Fox Film Merger,” New York Sun, August 28, 1935.)
* In September 1936, fifty-three people would be indicted for election fraud in Atlantic City (“53 Indicted in Jersey In Vote Fraud Cases,” New York Times, Sept. 11, 1936, 4).
* Fox had personally guaranteed the last $1 million payment on the Roxy; the additional $250,000 of the judgment evidently represented interest and costs (“Statement of William Fox,” (Part 2), Mar. 22, 1941, 1–2. Box 15, 118 Files, United States v. J. Warren Davis, Morgan S. Kaufman, and William Fox, NARA, Philadelphia).
* Some forty thousand reels were destroyed (David Pierce, “The Legion of the Condemned—Why American Silent Films Perished,” Film History 9, no. 1 [1997]: 12).
* The other two jurors who voted for acquittal were Barbara Marter and Claire Roberts (“Third Davis Trial Is Being Planned,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, Aug. 23, 1941). They were evidently befriended and influenced by Ella Clark (H. J. Pharies, FBI Report, “J. Warren Davis, Judge, U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Third Circuit [et al.],” Oct. 2, 1941, 34. Box 15, 118 Files, United States v. J. Warren Davis and Morgan S. Kaufman, NARA, Philadelphia).