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Thirty-Eight Silent Fox Pictures, the circa 1929 (see below) promotional poster ("38 Silent Fox Pictures that speak volumes at your Box Office"; "Pictures to shout about! With features such as these you don't have to worry about sound! Here's the greatest array of silent pictures ever produced. 38 box office knockouts! Play them and profit with Fox record wreckers") promoting Fox Films' line-up of silent features. Showcased images include: Christina, In Old Arizona, Romance of Rio Grande, 4 Devils, Thru Different Eyes, Lucky Star and many more. This poster solely features movies from 1929 and 1930, so it seems certain that it was made during 1929, to promote movies that would be released later that year and the following year. Note the incredible miscalculation on the part of William Fox, who had been one of the absolute most important early pioneers of the film industry! Apparently, Fox could not accept that "sound" movies were going to completely replace "silent" movies (perhaps he thought it was a passing fad), and so he made a complete lineup of silent movies for the coming year! No doubt, this had a disastrous impact on the bottom line of Fox Pictures profit and loss, and, combined with the impending Stock Market crash later that year, helped drive Fox Pictures into bankruptcy (they overcame this error, emerged from bankruptcy, and merged with Twentieth Century Pictures into 20th Century Fox, and remained one of the leading studios for the rest of the century). But surely this poster is a wonderful documentation of how even the most savvy of industry insiders can completely misread a change in the industry!

If you know who did the art (if any), please let us know.

Important Added Info: Apparently William Fox was not a big believer in sound films (or perhaps he was just trying to finish up the silent pictures he had in production)! The bottom of the poster says "Pictures to shout about! With features such as these you don't need to worry about sound." Unfortunately Fox was wrong about this and soon after this and other business miscalculations caused him to lose control of the company he had founded.