Wallace Fox

Director Wallace Fox has sort of been forgotten in time, though he does have a few films that have become cult favorites. There isn't much known about Fox, but he was born 3/9/1895 in Purcell, OK, and began directing in the silent era (his first film was The Bandit's Son (1927)). He worked mainly on "B" films for "B" studios, especially "Poverty Row" studio Monogram Pictures, for whom he made such films as Bowery at Midnight (1942) and The Corpse Vanishes (1942)--both with Bela Lugosi-- and Pillow of Death (1945), which starred Lon Chaney Jr. and was made for Universal (Universal in the 1940s was more of a "minor major", but was still several steps above Poverty Row). He made quite a few films with the East Side Kids, all at Monogram. Fox specialized in low-budget westerns, with quite a few to his credit, for a variety of studios including RKO and Universal. In the 1950s he began doing episodic TV, as the market for "B" pictures began to dry up because of television. In 1951 he directed his final film, Montana Desperado (1951), and thereafter turned exclusively to TV. His final directing job was Annie Oakley: Bull's Eye (1954), after which he retired. He died on 6/30/1958 at age 63.