The Films of Wallace Fox ed. by Gary D. Rhodes and Joanna Hearne (review)

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• The Films of Wallace Fox ed. by Gary D. Rhodes and Joanna Hearne
• Courtney Fellion

Gary D. Rhodes and Joanna Hearne, eds., The Films of Wallace Fox. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2022. 280 pp. Hardcover, $110; e-book, $110.

This ambitiously wide-ranging collection of film essays examines and reevaluates the work of forgotten B-movie director Wallace Fox. The fact that Fox was also a registered member of the Chickasaw Nation adds interesting context to his body of work, though research in this regard is hampered by a lack of documentation or interviews with the director himself. And while the introduction suggests that one of the book's primary goals is to address the filmmaker's Indigenous background as part of his groundbreaking legacy, only the first three chapters make a concerted attempt to theorize about how this heritage may (or may not) have manifested across the director's vast career that includes an astonishing eighty-four films over the course of twenty-six years. The other essays in the book take a more traditional approach by examining genre motifs, plot/character devices, and latent social issues in Fox's films as compared to similar films of his era. The resulting scholarship covers a lot of different ground, and not unlike the filmmaker's own professional career, also leaves a lot of room for ambiguity.

As several authors in this book suggest, B-movie directors are not typically studied as auteurs but rather as technicians that can work with a tight budget and strict timeline. Given this economy of means, most of the analysis within this book hews toward story and dialogue, rather than formal or stylistic commentary (although there are some interesting exceptions that are noted in Fox's prudently planned camera direction to reduce the amount of editing needed for the finished film). In addition, most of the authors situate their arguments within a particular genre, such as horror, Westerns, and [End Page 87] science fiction, and spend much of their arguments elucidating historical threads tied to the rising popularity of each genre, including the real-life events and literature that spawned these projects.

As to research exploring Indigenous film history, Andrew H. Fisher's essay first provides a detailed summary of Fox's career that is grounded in relevant historical events and policy changes for Indigenous communities in Hollywood. Fisher compares Wallace Fox's career with that of Nipo Strongheart, as two vastly different but fascinating (and inspiring) film professionals with personal connections to Indigeneity. By comparison Strongheart's fervent activism for and within Native communities underscores the ambiguity of Fox within his own, despite the efforts of his brothers Edwin Carewe and Finis Fox to create working groups for Indigenous professionals in Hollywood.

Joanna Hearne then examines how several of Fox's Westerns include an "Indian agent" character that enacts a kind of "sympathetic colonialism" and emphasizes the need for federal government stewardship. She explains how this narrative is problematic since in reality Indian agents were "agents of genocide" but also notes that this theme is related to the broader desire in the postwar United States for reintegration and restoration of nuclear families (45). Fox's own intentions and views of these character types remains unclear.

Jacob Floyd takes a more optimistic approach and finds many convincing and creative arguments for the ways in which Fox's Westerns subtly transform traditional genre tropes. Floyd describes how acts of gender nonconformity like crossdressing are taken seriously as plot devices and not used purely for comedic aside; as he writes, "This is perhaps Fox's biggest departure from classical Hollywood norms where characters coded as Queer were typically villainous or untrustworthy" (73). And in later essays Floyd's observation holds true: Fox's masquerading characters, whether heroic women or devious villains, seem to always serve an allegorical function, giving dignity to narrative play as well as the characters that perform it.

Floyd also brilliantly observes how Fox reused stock footage against its original intent, such as turning a glorified "Indian attack" scene into one of justified defense that aligns with the goals of the heroes. While this recycled footage technique was likely designed to save the...