RKO Pictures

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RKO Radio Pictures Inc.
Classic opening logo of RKO Radio Pictures.
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Classic opening logo of RKO Radio Pictures.
Type of co. Corporation
Founded 1928 (as Radio-Keith-Orpheum Co.)
Headquarters 1270 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY
Industry Motion pictures
Dissolved 1959 (de facto)
This article is about the film production company. For the wrestler, see Randy Orton.

RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum) Pictures is an American film production company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the so-called Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. RKO was formed in October 1928 as a combination of the Keith-Albee-Orpheum (KAO) theater chains and Joseph P. Kennedy's Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) studio, under the control of the Radio Corporation of America.[1] RCA chief David Sarnoff engineered the merger in order to create a market for the company's sound-on-film technology, RCA Photophone. By the mid-1940s, the studio was under the control of investor Floyd Odlum.

RKO has long been celebrated for its cycle of musicals starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the mid- to late 1930s. Katherine Hepburn and, later, Robert Mitchum had their first major successes at the studio. Cary Grant was a mainstay for years. The work of producer Val Lewton's low-budget horror unit and RKO's many ventures into the field now known as film noir have been acclaimed, largely after the fact, by many film critics and historians. The studio left its deepest mark with two of the most famous films in motion picture history: King Kong and Citizen Kane.

In its later years, RKO was taken over by maverick industrialist Howard Hughes and finally by the General Tire and Rubber Company. The original RKO Pictures ceased production in 1957 and was effectively dissolved two years later. In 1981, broadcaster RKO General, the corporate heir, revived it as a production subsidiary, RKO Pictures Inc. In 1989, this business—with its few remaining assets, the trademarks and remake rights to many classic RKO films—was sold to new owners, who now operate the small independent company RKO Pictures LLC.

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, RKO's defining stars—the early years. Poster for Top Hat (1935).
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Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, RKO's defining stars—the early years. Poster for Top Hat (1935).
Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell, RKO's defining stars—the late years. Poster for Macao (1952).
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Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell, RKO's defining stars—the late years. Poster for Macao (1952).

Contents

[edit] The birth of RKO

The first Radio-Keith-Orpheum logo from 1929.
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The first Radio-Keith-Orpheum logo from 1929.
Radio Pictures logo from 1929.
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Radio Pictures logo from 1929.

Shut out of the profitable sound-film conversion business driven by the success of Warner Bros.' October 1927 release The Jazz Singer, RCA bought its way into the motion picture industry to gain an outlet for the optical sound-on-film system, Photophone, recently developed by General Electric, RCA's parent company. All of the major studios and their theater divisions were in the process of signing with ERPI, a subsidiary of AT&T's Western Electric division, to handle conversion. Hoping to join in the anticipated boom in sound movies, David Sarnoff, general manager of RCA, approached Joseph Kennedy in late 1927 about using the Photophone system for FBO pictures. Negotiations resulted in General Electric acquiring a substantial interest in the studio, the first step in a broader plan that appears to have been largely conceived by Sarnoff; next on the agenda was securing a string of exhibition venues like those the leading Hollywood production companies owned. Around the same time that Kennedy began investigating the possibility of such a purchase, the large Keith-Albee-Orpheum (KAO) circuit of theaters, then used primarily for live vaudeville performances, was increasing its focus on the movie business. The previous year, the filmmaking operations of Pathé (U.S.) and Cecil B. De Mille had united under the control of the theater chain. Early in 1928, KAO general manager John J. Murdock, who had assumed the presidency of Pathé, turned to Kennedy as an advisor in consolidating it with De Mille's company, Producers Distributing Corporation (PDC). This was the relationship Sarnoff and Kennedy were looking for; with Murdock's support, Kennedy led a syndicate that acquired KAO on May 10, 1928.[2] De Mille was soon bought out and the remnants of PDC subsumed into Pathé. After an aborted attempt by Kennedy to bring yet another studio that had turned to him for help, First National Pictures, into the Photophone fold, RCA was ready to step back in: the company acquired Kennedy's stock in both FBO and the KAO theater business, announcing, on October 23, 1928, the creation of the Radio-Keith-Orpheum holding company, with Sarnoff as chairman of the board. Kennedy, who was briefly president of the merged operation before stepping aside, kept what was known as Pathé Exchange separate from RKO and under his personal control.[3] RCA owned the governing stock interest in RKO, 22 percent; in the early 1930s, RCA's share of stock in the company would rise as high as 60 percent.[4] Looking to get out of the film business a couple of years later, Kennedy arranged in late 1930 for RKO to purchase Pathé from him. On January 29, 1931, Pathé, with its Culver City studio, backlot (formerly De Mille's), and contract players, was merged into RKO as Kennedy sold off the last of his stock in the company he had been instrumental in creating.[5]

[edit] RKO Radio Pictures Inc.

Poster for Rio Rita (1929), first smash hit for RKO (then releasing films under the "Radio Pictures" banner).
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Poster for Rio Rita (1929), first smash hit for RKO (then releasing films under the "Radio Pictures" banner).

[edit] The early years

Declaring that it would make only all-talking films, RKO began shooting at the former FBO studios in early 1929, with William LeBaron as production chief. The studio's first two releases were musicals, the melodramatic Syncopation, which premiered March 3, and the comedic Street Girl (by some obscure calculus, RKO's first "official" production), which debuted July 30. For the lavish musical Rio Rita, RKO spared no expense, including a number of Technicolor sequences. Opening in September to rave reviews, it was the studio's first major hit and was named one of the ten best pictures of the year by Film Daily. Encouraged by its success, RKO produced several costly musicals incorporating Technicolor sequences in 1930, among them Dixiana and Hit the Deck. Following the example of the other major studios, RKO even planned to create its own musical revue, Radio Revels.[6] Promoted as the studio's most extravagant production to date, it was to be photographed entirely in Technicolor. Another lavish all-color musical was also planned, the first screen version of Victor Herbert's operetta Babes in Toyland. Both of the projects were abandoned, however, as the public's taste for musicals temporarily subsided. The material already shot for Radio Revels was incorporated into short subjects, yet RKO still had a contract with Technicolor to produce two more features with the technology. Complicating matters, audiences had come to associate color with the momentarily out-of-favor musical genre due to a glut of such productions from the major Hollywood studios. Fulfilling its obligations, RKO produced two all-Technicolor pictures, The Runaround and Fanny Foley Herself (both 1931), containing no musical sequences. Neither was a success.

Even as the U.S. economy foundered, RKO had gone on a spending spree, buying up theater after theater to add to its exhibition chain. By the early 1930s, RKO was producing over forty pictures a year, releasing them under the names "Radio Pictures" and, for a short time after the 1931 merger, "RKO Pathé." Cimarron (1931), produced by LeBaron himself, would become the only RKO production to win the Academy Award for Best Picture; nonetheless, having cost an astonishing $1.4 million to produce, Cimarron was a clear domestic money-loser on original release.[7] Exceptions like Cimarron and Rio Rita aside, RKO's product was largely regarded as mediocre, so in autumn 1931 Sarnoff hired 29-year-old David O. Selznick to replace LeBaron as production chief. In addition to implementing rigorous cost-control measures, Selznick signed and promoted several young actors who would carry RKO through the decade, among them Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, and Katharine Hepburn. Selznick was a champion of the so-called unit production system that gave the producers of individual movies much greater independence than they had under the prevailing central producer system. Instituting unit production at RKO, he predicted substantial benefits in both "cost and quality."[8] To make films under the new system, he recruited prize behind-the-camera personnel, such as director George Cukor and producer/director Merian C. Cooper, and gave whiz kid producer Pandro S. Berman increasingly important projects. Along with those signed by Selznick, RKO stars of this pre-Code era included Joel McCrea, Ricardo Cortez, and Mary Astor. Richard Dix, Oscar-nominated for his lead performance in Cimarron, would serve as RKO's standby B-movie star through the early 1940s. The comedy team of Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, often wrangling over sweetie pie Dorothy Lee, were bankable mainstays for years. Irene Dunne made her debut as the lead in the 1930 musical Leathernecking and was a headliner at the studio for the entire decade. Constance Bennett, Ann Harding, and Helen Twelvetrees came over with Pathé, which was dissolved as a separate production unit in 1932. Pathé's distribution deal with the Van Beuren cartoon studio was also picked up. The Pathé acquisition, though a defensible investment in the long term for its physical facilities, was yet another major expense borne by the fledgling RKO.

Swedish poster for original 1933 release of King Kong, one of the great spectacles in Hollywood history. Most surviving posters are from the numerous re-releases of the film. Original posters carried the logo of "Radio Pictures" or, in some countries, "RKO Pathé."
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Swedish poster for original 1933 release of King Kong, one of the great spectacles in Hollywood history. Most surviving posters are from the numerous re-releases of the film. Original posters carried the logo of "Radio Pictures" or, in some countries, "RKO Pathé."

Selznick spent a mere fifteen months as RKO production chief, resigning over a dispute with corporate president Merlin Aylesworth concerning creative control. Despite Selznick's tenure, widely considered masterful, the shaky finances and excesses that marked the company's early days did not leave RKO in shape to withstand the Depression; the success of Selznick-backed projects such as A Bill of Divorcement (1932), with Cukor directing Hepburn's debut, and the monumental King Kong—largely Merian Cooper's brainchild—couldn't prevent the company from sinking into receivership in 1933, from which it would not emerge until 1940. Cooper took over as production head after Selznick's departure and oversaw the hit Little Women, with Cukor again directing Hepburn. Directors such as John Ford, George Stevens, and John Cromwell also made impressive films at the studio in the following years—Ford's The Informer and Stevens's Alice Adams were each nominated for the 1935 Best Picture Oscar. The Informer's Academy Award–winning star, Victor McLaglen, would appear in thirteen movies for RKO over a span of two decades. Along with Columbia Pictures, RKO became one of the two primary homes of the screwball comedy. As film historian James Harvey describes, compared to their richer competition, the two studios were "more receptive to experiment, more tolerant of chaos on the set. It was at these two lesser "majors"...that nearly all the preeminent screwball directors did their important films—[Howard] Hawks and [Gregory] La Cava and [Leo] McCarey and Stevens."[9]

Lacking the financial resources of industry leaders MGM, Paramount, and Fox, RKO turned out many pictures during the era that made up for it with high style, exemplified by such Astaire–Rogers musicals as The Gay Divorcee (1934) and Top Hat (1935). One of the figures most responsible for that style was Van Nest Polglase, chief of RKO's highly regarded design department for almost a decade. Indeed, the studio's craft divisions were among the best in the industry across the board. Costumer Walter Plunkett, who worked with the company from the close of the FBO era through the end of 1939, was known as the top period wardrobist in the business. Sidney Saunders, innovative head of the studio's paint department, was responsible for significant progress in rear projection quality.[10] On June 13, 1935, RKO premiered the first feature film shot entirely in advanced three-strip Technicolor, Becky Sharp. The movie was coproduced with Pioneer Pictures, founded by Cooper—who departed RKO after two years helming production—and John Hay "Jock" Whitney, who brought in his cousin Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney; Cooper had successfully encouraged the Whitneys to purchase a major share of the Technicolor business as well.[11] Though judged by critics a failure as drama, Becky Sharp was widely lauded for its visual brilliance and technical expertise. RKO also employed some of the industry's leading artists and craftsmen whose work was never seen. From the studio's earliest days through late 1935, Max Steiner, regarded by many historians as the most influential composer of the early years of sound cinema, made music for over 100 RKO films.[12] Murray Spivak, head of the studio's audio special effects department, made important advances in the use of rerecording technology first heard in King Kong.[13]

A corporate restructuring in the mid-1930s expanded the ownership team, with investor Floyd Odlum buying 50 percent of RCA's stake in the company; the Rockefeller brothers also became major stockholders.[14] From 1935 onward, the Pathé name was used only on newsreels and documentaries; all features went out under the revised name "RKO Radio Pictures." (In 1947, the Pathé-branded newsreel would be sold to Warner Bros.) While the Astaire–Rogers team ran its course and RKO kept missing the mark in building Hepburn's career, major stars Cary Grant and Barbara Stanwyck joined the studio's roster—though Stanwyck would have little success during her few years there. Ann Sothern starred in seven RKO films between 1935 and 1937, paired five times with Gene Raymond. Soon after the appointment of a new production chief, Samuel Briskin, in late 1935, RKO dropped Van Beuren and entered into an important distribution deal with animator Walt Disney. From 1936 to 1954, the studio released his features and shorts; Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) was the highest grossing movie in the period between The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Gone with the Wind (1939). (The latter, a Selznick coproduction with MGM, was largely shot on RKO's Culver City backlot, known as Forty Acres.) RKO's own product, however, was widely seen as declining in quality and Briskin was gone by the end of 1937. Pandro Berman—who had filled in on three previous occasions—accepted the position of production chief on a noninterim basis. As it turned out, he would leave the job after a year-and-a-half, but his brief tenure resulted in some of the most notable films in the studio's history, including Gunga Din, with Grant and McLaglen; Love Affair, starring Dunne and Charles Boyer; and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (all 1939). Charles Laughton, who gave a now fabled performance as Quasimodo in the latter, returned periodically to the studio, headlining six more RKO features. For Maureen O'Hara, who made her American screen debut in the film, it was the first of ten pictures she would make for RKO through 1952. The studio's B Western star of the period was George O'Brien, who made eighteen RKO pictures, sixteen between 1938 and 1940. The studio's technical departments maintained their reputation as industry leaders; Vernon Walker's special effects unit became famous for its sophisticated use of the optical printer and lifelike matte work, an art that would reach its apex with 1941's Citizen Kane.[15]

Only one can be the greatest. Citizen Kane (1941), perhaps?
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Only one can be the greatest. Citizen Kane (1941), perhaps?

[edit] Kane and rebound in the 1940s

Berman, who had received his first screen credit as a nineteen-year-old assistant director on FBO's Midnight Molly in 1925, departed after clashing over studio policy with new RKO president George J. Schaefer, handpicked by the Rockefellers and backed by Sarnoff. With Berman gone, Schaefer became in effect production chief, though other men nominally filled the role. Schaefer was particularly keen on signing up independent producers whose films RKO would distribute. In 1941, the studio landed one of the most prestigious independents in Hollywood when it arranged to handle Samuel Goldwyn's productions. The first two Goldwyn pictures released by the studio were highly successful: The Little Foxes, directed by William Wyler, is seen as one of Bette Davis's finest films, while the Howard Hawks–directed Ball Of Fire at last brought Barbara Stanwyck a hit under the RKO banner. However, Schaefer agreed to terms so favorable to Goldwyn that it was next to impossible for the studio to make money off his films.[16] That same year, RKO released Citizen Kane, coproducing with director Orson Welles's Mercury Productions. While it opened to strong reviews and would go on to be hailed as one of the greatest movies ever made, it lost money at the time and brought down the wrath of the Hearst newspaper chain on RKO. The next year saw the commercial failure of Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons—like Kane, critically lauded and overbudget—and the expensive embarrassment of his aborted documentary It's All True. In June 1942, Schaefer departed a weakened and troubled studio, but RKO was about to turn the corner. Propelled by the box-office boom of World War II and guided by new management, RKO would make a strong comeback over the next half-decade.

Charles Koerner, former head of the RKO theater chain, had assumed the title of production chief some months prior to Schaefer's departure. With Schaefer gone, Koerner could actually do the job, bringing the studio much-needed stability until his death in February 1946. In 1943, Odlum took over a controlling interest in RKO, buying out both the Rockefellers and RCA, thus cutting David Sarnoff's ties to the studio that was largely his conception. With RKO on increasingly secure ground, Koerner sought to increase its output of handsomely budgeted, star-driven features. Aside from Rogers (through 1943) and Grant (whose services were shared with Columbia Pictures), however, the studio no longer had major stars under long-term contract, so Koerner—and his eventual successor, Dore Schary—made deals with the other studios to "loan out" their biggest names for top-drawer RKO productions.[17] Thus RKO pictures of the mid- and late forties offered Bing Crosby, Henry Fonda, and others who were out of the studio's price range for extended contracts. John Wayne appeared in 1943's A Lady Takes a Chance on loan from Republic Pictures; he was soon working regularly with RKO, making nine more movies for the studio. Gary Cooper appeared in RKO releases produced by Goldwyn and, later, the startup International Pictures, and Claudette Colbert starred in a number of RKO coproductions. Ingrid Bergman appeared under a variety of hats for RKO—on loan out from Selznick in The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), in the coproductions Notorious (1946) and Stromboli (1950), and in the independently produced Joan of Arc (1948). Freelancing Randolph Scott appeared in one major RKO release annually from 1943 through 1948. In similar fashion, many leading directors made one or more films at RKO during this era—most notably, Alfred Hitchcock, with Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Suspicion (both 1941), and Notorious, and Jean Renoir, with This Land Is Mine (1943), reuniting Laughton and O'Hara, and The Woman on the Beach (1947). John Ford's The Fugitive (1947) and Fort Apache (1948), which appeared right before studio ownership changed hands again, were followed by She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Wagonmaster (1950); all four were coproductions between RKO and Argosy, the company run by Ford and RKO alumnus Merian C. Cooper. The best-known director under contract to RKO for much of the 1940s was Edward Dmytryk, who first came to notice with the enormous success of Hitler's Children (1943), a sleeper hit made at minimal expense.

Film art at low budget. Lewton. Tourneur. Musuraca. I Walked with a Zombie (1943).
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Film art at low budget. Lewton. Tourneur. Musuraca. I Walked with a Zombie (1943).

More so than the other Big Five studios, RKO relied on B-pictures to fill up its schedule. These low-budget films served as training ground for new directors, among them Jacques Tourneur, Robert Wise, Mark Robson, and Anthony Mann. A number of RKO Bs, notably the movies created by producer Val Lewton's horror unit, such as Cat People (1942), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), and The Body Snatcher (1945), are highly regarded today. Richard Dix concluded his lengthy RKO career with the 1943 Lewton production The Ghost Ship. Tim Holt was RKO's B Western star of the era, appearing in over fifty movies for the studio. Thirteen films in the Falcon adventure series were produced between 1941 and 1946; Johnny Weissmuller starred in six Tarzan pictures for RKO between 1943 and 1948. Film noir, to which lower budgets lent themselves, became something of a house style at the studio; indeed, the RKO B Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) is widely seen as initiating noir's classic period. Its cinematographer, Nicholas Musuraca, who began at FBO in the 1920s and stayed with RKO through 1954, is a central figure in creating the look of classic noir. Albert D'Agostino—another long-termer who took over as head of the design department from Polglase in 1941—and his team, including art directors Jack Okey and Walter Keller and set decorator Darrell Silvera, are similarly credited. The studio's 1940s list of contract players reads like a noir who's-who: Robert Mitchum (who would graduate to major star status) and Robert Ryan each made no fewer than ten film noirs for RKO. Gloria Grahame, Jane Greer, Lawrence Tierney, and George Raft were also notable studio players in the genre. Tourneur, Musuraca, Mitchum, and Greer, along with D'Agostino's design group, would join to make Out of the Past (1947), now considered one of the greatest of all film noirs. Nicholas Ray began his directing career with the absorbing RKO noir They Live by Night (1948), the first of a number of well-received films he made for the studio.

Poster for the hit Crossfire (1947). No American studio would hire blacklisted director Edward Dmytryk again until he named names to HUAC in 1951. Producer Adrian Scott wouldn't get another screen credit for two-and-a-half decades.
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Poster for the hit Crossfire (1947). No American studio would hire blacklisted director Edward Dmytryk again until he named names to HUAC in 1951. Producer Adrian Scott wouldn't get another screen credit for two-and-a-half decades.

[edit] HUAC, Hughes, and decline

RKO (and the movie industry as a whole) had its most profitable year ever in 1946, but 1947 brought a number of unpleasant harbingers for all of Hollywood. The British government, followed by others, imposed limits on how much capital American movie companies could withdraw annually, curtailing one of the studios' primary sources of earnings. Television was beginning to drain audiences away from the movies; across the board, attendance—and profits—fell. The phenomenon that would become known as McCarthyism was building up steam, and in October, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began hearings into Communism in the motion picture industry. Two of RKO's top talents, Dmytryk and producer Adrian Scott, refused to cooperate; blacklisted as members of the so-called Hollywood Ten, they were fired by RKO per the terms of the Waldorf Statement, the industry's "antisubversive" declaration. Ironically, the studio's major success of the year was Crossfire, a Scott–Dmytryk fim. Floyd Odlum concluded it was time to cash in his RKO holdings, and he put his shares on the market.

It was widely predicted that British film magnate J. Arthur Rank would be the buyer of Odlum's interest in RKO. Defying expectations, however, in May 1948 eccentric multimillionaire and occasional movie producer Howard Hughes gained control by acquiring 25 percent of the outstanding stock. During his tenure RKO suffered its worst years since the early 1930s, as Hughes's capricious management style took a heavy toll. Production chief Schary quit almost immediately due to his new boss's interference. Within weeks of taking over, Hughes had dismissed three-fourths of the work force; production was virtually shut down for six months as Hughes ordered investigations into the politics of all remaining studio employees. Completed pictures would be sent back for reshooting if the stars, especially female, weren't presented to his liking, or if a film's anticommunist sentiments weren't sufficiently blatant. Offscreen, Robert Mitchum's arrest and conviction for marijuana possession—he would serve two months in jail—was widely assumed to mean career death for RKO's most promising young star, but Hughes surprised the industry by announcing that his contract was not endangered. Of much broader significance, Hughes decided to get the jump on his Big Five competitors by being the first to settle the federal government's antitrust suit against the major studios. Under the consent decree he signed, Hughes split RKO's production-distribution business and its theater chain into two separate companies in 1951, with the obligation to sell off one or the other by a certain date. Hughes's decision was one of the crucial steps in the collapse of classical Hollywood's studio system.[18]

Two of noir's finest, Robert Ryan and Ida Lupino, in Beware, My Lovely (1952), directed by Harry Horner and produced by Lupino's partner in The Filmakers, her soon-to-be-ex-husband Collier Young.
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Two of noir's finest, Robert Ryan and Ida Lupino, in Beware, My Lovely (1952), directed by Harry Horner and produced by Lupino's partner in The Filmakers, her soon-to-be-ex-husband Collier Young.

While Hughes's time at RKO was marked by dwindling production and a slew of expensive flops (as well as further witch hunts for suspected Reds), the studio continued to turn out some good films under production chiefs Sid Rogell and Sam Bischoff, each of whom became fed up with Hughes's meddling and quit after less than two years. (Bischoff would be the last man to hold the job under Hughes.) There were B noirs such as The Set-Up and The Window (both 1949), whose reputation has only grown over the decades, and The Thing (1951), a thrilling science-fiction drama coproduced with Howard Hawks's Winchester Pictures. In 1952, RKO put out two films directed by Fritz Lang, Rancho Notorious and Clash by Night. The company also began a close working relationship with Ida Lupino. She would star in two memorable suspense films with Robert Ryan—Nicholas Ray's On Dangerous Ground (1952, though shooting had been completed two years earlier) and Beware, My Lovely (1952), a coproduction between RKO and Lupino's company, The Filmakers. Of more historic note, Lupino was Hollywood's only female director during the period; of the five pictures The Filmakers made with RKO, Lupino directed three, including her now celebrated The Hitch-Hiker (1953). Exposing many moviegoers to Asian cinema for the first time, RKO distributed Akira Kurosawa's epochal Rashomon in the United States, sixteen months after its original 1950 Japanese release.

In September 1952, Hughes and his corporate president, Ned E. Depinet, sold their RKO stock to a Chicago-based syndicate with no experience in the movie business; the syndicate's chaotic reign lasted until February 1953, when the stock and control were reacquired by Hughes. During the turmoil, Samuel Goldwyn ended his 11-year-long distribution deal with RKO. Nineteen fifty-two had been disastrous for the studio financially, and Hughes's divestiture of the RKO theaters the following year did nothing to help. Hughes soon found himself the target of no less than five separate lawsuits filed by minority shareholders in RKO, accusing him of malfeasance in his dealings with the Chicago group and a wide array of acts of mismanagement. Looking to forestall a major legal imbroglio, in early 1954 Hughes offered to buy out all of RKO's other stockholders. By the end of the year, at a cost of $23.5 million, he had gained near-total control of RKO Pictures, becoming the first virtual sole owner of a studio since Hollywood's pioneer days. Virtual, but not quite actual. Floyd Odlum reemerged to block Hughes from acquiring the 95 percent ownership of RKO stock he needed to write off the company's losses against his earnings elsewhere. Hughes had reneged on his promise to give Odlum first option on buying the RKO theater chain when he divested it and was now paying the price.[19] Thus stalemated, in July 1955, Hughes turned around and sold RKO to General Tire and Rubber Company for $25 million. Hughes retained the rights to pictures he had personally produced, including those made at RKO; he also kept the contract of his discovery Jane Russell. For Hughes, this was the effective end of a quarter-century's involvement in the movie business.

[edit] General Tire and the end of RKO Pictures

In taking control of the studio, General Tire restored RKO's links to broadcasting. General Tire had bought the Yankee Network, a New England regional radio network based around WNAC (AM) in Boston, in 1943. In 1950, it purchased the West Coast regional Don Lee Broadcasting System, and two years later, the Bamberger Broadcasting Service, owner of the WOR TV and radio stations in New York City. General Tire then merged its broadcasting interests into a new division, General Teleradio. Thomas O'Neill, son of General Tire's founder William O'Neill and chairman of the broadcasting group, saw that the company's new television stations, indeed all TV outlets, were in need of programming. In 1953, O'Neill had approached Hughes about buying RKO's film library; with the 1955 purchase of the studio that library was his, and rights to the approximately 740 RKO films the studio retained clear title to were quickly put up for sale. C&C Television Corp., a subsidiary of beverage maker Cantrell & Cochrane, won the bidding and was soon offering the films to independent stations with the RKO trademarks replaced by "C&C Films" or "MovieTime USA" logos. RKO—now consolidated with General Tire's other media interests as RKO Teleradio—retained the broadcast rights for the cities where it owned TV stations. By 1956, RKO's classic movies were playing widely on television, allowing many to see such films as Citizen Kane for the first time. The $15.2 million RKO made on the deal convinced the other major studios that their libraries held profit potential—a turning point in the way Hollywood did business.[20]

Emblem of RKO's demise. Poster for Jet Pilot, a Hughes pet production launched in 1949, wrapped in May 1951, finally released in 1957 after Hughes's interminable tinkering. RKO was by then out of the distribution business. The movie was released by Universal-International.
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Emblem of RKO's demise. Poster for Jet Pilot, a Hughes pet production launched in 1949, wrapped in May 1951, finally released in 1957 after Hughes's interminable tinkering. RKO was by then out of the distribution business. The movie was released by Universal-International.

The new owners of RKO made a half-hearted effort to run the studio, hiring veteran producer William Dozier to head production. RKO Teleradio Pictures, as it was now known, released Fritz Lang's final two American films, While the City Sleeps and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (both 1956), but years of mismanagement had driven away many directors, producers, and stars; convinced that RKO was sinking, Disney had followed Goldwyn in ending his arrangement with the studio and setting up his own distribution firm. The studio was also saddled with the last of the lumbering, inflated B-movies such as Pearl of the South Pacific (1955) and The Conqueror (1956) that enchanted Hughes. After a year and a half without a notable success, General Tire shut down production at RKO for good at the end of January 1957. The Hollywood and Culver City facilities were sold later that year for $6.5 million to Desilu Productions, owned by Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, who had been an RKO contract player from 1935 to 1942. Desilu would be acquired by Gulf and Western Industries in 1967 and merged into G+W's other production company, Paramount Pictures; the former RKO Hollywood studio became home to Paramount Television (now CBS Paramount Television, owned by CBS Corporation), which it remains to this day. The renovated Culver City studio is now owned and operated as an independent production facility. Forty Acres, the Culver City backlot, was razed in 1976.[21]

With the closing down of production, RKO also shut its distribution exchanges; from 1957 forward, remaining pictures were released through other companies, primarily Universal-International. The final RKO film, Verboten!, a coproduction with director Samuel Fuller's Globe Enterprises, was released by Columbia Pictures in March 1959. That same year, "Pictures" was stripped from the corporate identity; the holding company for General Tire's broadcasting operation and the few remaining motion picture assets was renamed RKO General.[22] In the words of scholar Richard B. Jewell, "The supreme irony of RKO's existence is that the studio earned a position of lasting importance in cinema history largely because of its extraordinarily unstable history. Since it was the weakling of Hollywood's 'majors,' RKO welcomed a diverse group of individualistic creators and provided them...with an extraordinary degree of freedom to express their artistic idiosyncracies.... [I]t never became predictable and it never became a factory."[23]

[edit] The Astaire–Rogers RKO films

Ginger and Fred, Flying Down to Rio (1933)—their first film together.
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Ginger and Fred, Flying Down to Rio (1933)—their first film together.

[edit] The initial team-up

[edit] The classic cycle

[edit] Hepburn and Grant at RKO

Katharine Hepburn's last film for RKO was a bomb. Today, Bringing Up Baby (1938) is regarded as the best screwball comedy of all time.
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Katharine Hepburn's last film for RKO was a bomb. Today, Bringing Up Baby (1938) is regarded as the best screwball comedy of all time.

[edit] As costars

[edit] Other Katharine Hepburn RKOs

Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, who play antagonists in My Favorite Wife (1940), were domestic partners in the 1930s.
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Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, who play antagonists in My Favorite Wife (1940), were domestic partners in the 1930s.

[edit] Other Cary Grant RKOs

[edit] Robert Mitchum at RKO

He might've looked like he didn't give a damn, but insiders knew Robert Mitchum as one of Hollywood's hardest-working actors. Poster for The Lusty Men (1952), directed by Nicholas Ray.
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He might've looked like he didn't give a damn, but insiders knew Robert Mitchum as one of Hollywood's hardest-working actors. Poster for The Lusty Men (1952), directed by Nicholas Ray.

[edit] RKO studios and buildings

[edit] RKO General

For more details on this topic, see RKO General.
1961 ad for Million Dollar Movie on Windsor, Ontario's CKLW-TV.
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1961 ad for Million Dollar Movie on Windsor, Ontario's CKLW-TV.

One of North America's major radio and television broadcasters from the 1950s through the late 1980s, RKO General traces its roots to the 1943 purchase of the Yankee Network by General Tire. In 1952, the company united its newly expanded broadcasting interests into a division dubbed General Teleradio. With the tire manufacturer's acquisition of RKO Pictures in 1955, its media businesses were brought together under the rubric of RKO Teleradio. In 1959, following the breakup of the movie studio, the media divsion was given the name it would operate under for the next three decades, RKO General. In addition to its broadcasting activities, RKO General was also the holding company for many of General Tire's (and, after its parent company's reorganization, GenCorp's) other noncore businesses, including soft-drink bottling, hotel enterprises, and, for seventeen years, the original Frontier Airlines.

The RKO General radio lineup included some of the highest rated, most influential popular music stations in North America. In May 1965, KHJ (AM) in Los Angeles introduced the Boss Radio variation of the top 40 format. The restrictive programming style was soon adopted by many of RKO's other stations and imitated by non-RKO broadcasters around the country. RKO's FM station in New York pioneered numerous formats under a variety of call letters, including WOR and WXLO ("99X"); in 1983, as WRKS ("98.7 Kiss FM"), it became one of the first major stations to regularly program rap music.

The company's television stations, for the most part non–network affiliated, were known for showing classic films (both RKO productions and many others) under the banner of Million Dollar Movie, launched by New York's WOR-TV in 1954.[24] In summer 1962, RKO General and Zenith Electronics initiated what became the first extended venture into subscription television service: through early 1969, Hartford, Connecticut's WHCT-TV aired movies, sports, classical and pop music concerts, and other live performances without commercials, generating income from descrambler installation and weekly rental fees as well as individual program charges. However, RKO General's most notable legacy is what may be the longest licensing dispute in television history. It began in 1965, when General Tire was accused of obliging vendors to buy advertising with one of its stations if they wanted to keep their contracts. More than two decades' worth of legal actions ensued, eventually forcing GenCorp (the parent company since 1983 of both General Tire and RKO General) to sell off its broadcast holdings under FCC pressure. RKO General exited the media business permanently in 1991.

[edit] The new RKO Pictures

Nastassia Kinski starred in Paul Schrader's unsuccessful Cat People (1982) for the new RKO Pictures, a remake of the original studio's 1942 classic.
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Nastassia Kinski starred in Paul Schrader's unsuccessful Cat People (1982) for the new RKO Pictures, a remake of the original studio's 1942 classic.

Beginning with 1981's Carbon Copy, RKO General became involved in the coproduction of a number of feature films (and one TV movie) through a newly created subsidiary, RKO Pictures Inc. Collaborating on an average of about two pictures per year, RKO frequently worked with major names—including Jack Nicholson (The Border [1982]) and Meryl Streep (Plenty [1985])—but met with little success. In 1986, Half Moon Street became the first RKO solo production in almost three decades; more solo ventures, including the Vietnam War drama Hamburger Hill, appeared the next year, but production ended as GenCorp underwent a massive reorganization following an attempted hostile takeover. The company's flagship tire division was sold to Germany's Continental Tire. With RKO General dismantling its broadcast business, RKO Pictures Inc., along with the original RKO studio's trademark, remake rights, and other remaining assets, was spun off and put up for sale. After a bid by RKO Pictures' own managers failed, it was acquired in 1987 by Wesray Capital—under the control of former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury William E. Simon and Ray Chambers—and linked with their Six Flags amusement parks to form RKO/Six Flags Entertainment Inc.[25]

In 1989, RKO Pictures was spun off yet again and a majority interest in it was acquired by its present owners: actress and Post Cereals heiress Dina Merrill and her husband, producer Ted Hartley, who merged it with their Pavilion Communications to form the present RKO Pictures LLC.[26] Hartley and Merrill announced that the new RKO Pictures, which had ceased producing films while under Wesray control, would return to moviemaking full-time. With the inaugural RKO production under their leadership, False Identity (1990), the company also stepped into the distribution business. In 1992, the new RKO made its first significant contribution to cinema, distributing the well-regarded independent production Laws of Gravity, directed by Nick Gomez. For the next five years, however, the company neither produced nor distributed a single film as Hartley and Merrill sorted out the ownership rights of RKO's vast library. RKO Pictures reemerged in 1998 with Mighty Joe Young, a remake of a 1949 RKO movie that was itself something of a King Kong redux. During the current decade, the company has been involved as a coproducer on TV movies and modestly budgeted features at the rate of about one annually. In 2002, RKO produced a stage version of the 1937 Astaire–Rogers vehicle Shall We Dance, under the title Never Gonna Dance.

RKO Pictures LLC
Logo of the new RKO Pictures.
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Logo of the new RKO Pictures.
Type of co. Limited liability company (LLC)
Founded 1989
Headquarters L.A. Office: 1875 Century Park East, Suite 2140, Los Angeles, CA 90067
N.Y. Office: 3 East 54th Street, 12th Floor, New York, NY 10022
Key people Ted Hartley (Chairman and CEO)
Dina Merrill (Vice Chairman)
Aaron Ray (Chief Strategy Officer)
Kevin Kornish (VP of Development)
Industry Motion pictures
Website www.rko.com

In 2003, RKO Pictures entered into a legal battle with Wall Street Financial Associates (WSFA) concerning a Short Form Acquisition Agreement dated that March 3. Hartley and Merrill, the majority interest holders in RKO, claimed that the owners of WSFA fraudulently induced them into signing an acquisition agreement by concealing their "cynical and rapacious" plans to acquire RKO Pictures with the intention only of dismantling it. WSFA sought a preliminary injunction prohibiting RKO's majority owners from selling their interests in the company to any third parties.[27] The WSFA motion was denied in July 2003, freeing RKO to deal with another potential purchaser, InternetStudios.com. In 2004, that planned sale fell through when InternetStudios.com apparently folded.[28] At present, the company is evidently focusing on its remake rights, with Are We Done Yet?, based on Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948), in production and a new version of Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956) announced.

[edit] The RKO library

Today, RKO Pictures LLC is the owner of all the trademarks and logos connected with RKO Radio Pictures Inc., as well as the rights concerning stories, screenplays (including 800 to 900 unproduced scripts), remakes, sequels, and prequels connected with the RKO library.[29] The television, video, and theatrical distribution rights, however, are in other hands: The U.S. and Canadian TV—and, consequently, video—rights to the bulk of the RKO film library were sold at auction in 1971 after the holders, TransBeacon (a corporate descendant of C&C Television), went bankrupt. The auctioned rights were split between United Artists and Marian B. Inc. (MBI). In 1984, MBI created a subsidiary, Marian Pictures Inc. (MBP), to which it transferred its share of the RKO rights. Two years later GenCorp's subsidiaries, RKO General and RKO Pictures, repurchased the rights then controlled by MBP.[30] In the meantime, United Artists had been acquired by MGM. In 1986, MGM/UA's considerable library, including its RKO rights, was bought by Turner Broadcasting for its new Turner Entertainment division. During RKO Pictures' brief Wesray episode, Turner acquired many of the distribution rights that had returned to RKO via MBP, as well as both the theatrical rights and the TV rights originally held back from C&C for the cities where RKO owned stations. In 1995, Turner Broadcasting was merged into Time Warner, which controls and distributes the bulk of the RKO library today, though RKO Pictures retains the copyright.[31]

Ownership of the major European TV and video distribution rights to RKO's library is divided on a virtual country-by-country basis: In the UK, many of the RKO rights are currently held by Universal Studios.[32] The German rights were acquired in 1969 by KirchGruppe on behalf of its KirchMedia division. When KirchMedia went bankrupt in 2002, proposed sales of its assets first to publisher Heinrich Bauer Verlag, then to American media mogul Haim Saban both fell through. Saban finally took control of Kirch's broadcast arm, ProSiebenSat.1, in August 2003, arranging a deal to buy majority ownership the following year. ProSiebenSat.1 presently leases the German broadcast rights to KirchMedia's former library holdings (including the RKO films) from two concerns: EOS Entertainment's Beta Film, which purchased many of the rights in 2004, and Kineos, a joint venture created in 2005 by Beta Film and KirchMedia, now run by its creditors.[33] In 1981, RAI, the public broadcasting service, acquired the Italian rights to the RKO library, which it now shares with Silvio Berlusconi's Fininvest.[34] In France, the rights are held by Ariès.[35] As for RKO's primary release deals, the Disney pictures originally distributed by the studio are controlled by the Walt Disney Company and its subsidiary Buena Vista. Rights to the Goldwyn features released by RKO, which had been held by the Samuel Goldwyn Company, are now controlled by Sony Pictures, via MGM.

All RKO Radio Pictures Inc. films produced between 1929 and 1957 have an opening logo displaying the studio's famous trademark, the spinning globe and radio tower, nicknamed "The Transmitter." Orson Welles called it, "My favorite among the old logos, not just because it was so often a reliable portent.... [I]t reminds us to listen."[36] Instead of the Transmitter, many Disney films released by the studio originally appeared with colorful versions of the RKO closing logo as part of the main title sequence. For decades, re-releases of these films had Disney/Buena Vista logos plastered over the RKO insignia, but the originals have been restored in many recent DVD editions.[37] (The 1948 Sierra Pictures production Joan of Arc, though distributed by RKO, shows neither the Transmitter nor the studio's end logo.) The Hartley–Merrill RKO Pictures has created a new version of the Transmitter, which was first used theatrically for the 1998 Mighty Joe Young remake. The original closing logo, no longer employed for new films in any version, is also a well-known trademark, a triangle enclosing a thunderbolt.

The classic closing logo of RKO Radio Pictures.
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The classic closing logo of RKO Radio Pictures.

[edit] References

  1. ^ The current online edition of Encyclopædia Britannica erroneously claims that RKO resulted "from the merger of the Radio Corporation of America, the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theatre chain, and the American Pathé production firm." See RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. entry. Retreived 11/24/06. Many other online sources make the same demonstrably false claim or similar ones.
    Note also that many sources incorrectly give FBO's full name as "Film Booking Office of America"; the proper name is Film Booking Offices of America, which may be confirmed by examining several different versions of its official logo (ironically, this source also gives the incorrect name in its headline and text).
  2. ^ Goodwin, Doris Kearns, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 376.
  3. ^ Goodwin, 375–379; Jewell, Richard B., with Vernon Harbin, The RKO Story (New York: Arlington House/Crown, 1982), 9–10; Gomery, Douglas, "The Coming of Sound: Technological Change in the American Film Industry" (1985) in Technology and Culture—The Film Reader, ed. Andrew Utterson (Oxford and New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis, 2005), 63–65; Crafton, Donald, The Talkies: American Cinema's Transition to Sound, 1926-1931 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1997), 136–139; "Cinemerger," Time, May 2, 1927 (available online).
  4. ^ Crafton, 210.
  5. ^ Goodwin, 422–423; Jewell, 32.
  6. ^ Bradley, Edwin M., The First Hollywood Musicals: A Critical Filmography of 171 Features, 1927 Through 1932 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1996), 260; "R.-K.-O. Signs More Noted Names," Los Angeles Times, June 20, 1929; "Studios Plan Huge Programs," Los Angeles Times, July 21, 1929.
  7. ^ Crafton, 552. Only one previous sound film had cost more than $1 million, and just barely: Noah's Ark (1929), from Warner Bros. (549).
  8. ^ Bordwell, David, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style & Mode of Production to 1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), 320–321.
  9. ^ Harvey, James, Romantic Comedy in Hollywood, from Lubitsch to Sturges (New York: Da Capo, 1998), 290.
  10. ^ Morton, Ray, King Kong: The History of a Movie Icon from Fay Wray to Peter Jackson (New York: Applause, 2005), 43; Cotta Vaz, Mark, and Craig Barron, The Invisible Art: The Legends of Movie Matte Painting (San Francisco: Chronicle, 2002), 59.
  11. ^ "What? Color in the Movies Again?" Fortune, October 1934 (available online); Morton, 111–112.
  12. ^ Finler, Joel W., The Hollywood Story (New York: Crown, 1988), 184.
  13. ^ Brunelle, Ray, "The Art of Sound Effects," Experimental Musical Instruments, vol. 12, nos. 1 and 2 (September and December 1996) (available online); Morton, 75–77, 108–109.
  14. ^ Jewell, 18.
  15. ^ Bordwell et al., 349. For Walker's earlier work on King Kong, see Morton, 30, 43, 52.
  16. ^ Jewell, 142.
  17. ^ For Grant's unusual contract situation, see McCann, Graham, Cary Grant: A Class Apart (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 79–80, 144.
  18. ^ The Independent Producers and the Paramount Case, 1938–1949: Part 6 "The Supreme Court Verdict That Brought an End to the Hollywood Studio System, 1948" (see "The First Studio Is Dissolved" and "The Mighty Paramount Is Broken"); part of the Society Of Independent Motion Picture Producers research archive. Retrieved 7/22/06.
  19. ^ Jewell, 244–245.
  20. ^ Segrave, Kerry, Movies at Home: How Hollywood Came to Television (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1999), 40–41; Hilmes, Michelle, Hollywood and Broadcasting: From Radio to Cable (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 160–161; Film Collecting Basics—A Guide to Buying Films essay by Gordon R. Bachlund, P.E.; part of the eFilmCenter website. Retrieved 9/25/06.
  21. ^ RKO Forty Acres part of the Bonanza: Scenery Of The Ponderosa website. Retrieved 7/23/06.
  22. ^ O'Neill, Dennis J., A Whale of a Territory: The Story of Bill O'Neil (New York: McGraw Hill, 1966), 180. Many online information sites give RKO General's year of inception as 1958, without sourcing; support for O'Neill's 1959 dating is provided by the fact that there is no mention of RKO General in either the New York Times or the Los Angeles Times before February 1960.
  23. ^ Jewell, 15.
  24. ^ For the early history of Million Dollar Movie and WOR's film programming, see Segrave, 40, 48; "News of TV and Radio; 'Studio One' Returns for the Winter Season," New York Times, September 19, 1954 (excerpted online); "WOR-TV Acquires 10 Selznick Films; It Pays Record $198,000 for 'Package'—Will Be Shown on 'Million Dollar Movie' Discord Theme of Show," New York Times, February 25, 1956; "2 Feature Films Bought By WOR-TV; Station Adds 'Champion' and 'Home of the Brave' to its 'Million Dollar Movie,'" New York Times, June 16, 1956.
  25. ^ "Wesray in Deal for RKO Studio," New York Times, September 18, 1987 (available online); EDGAR Online—Playboy Enterprises International Inc. Proxy Statement SEC form DEF 14A filing dated September 27, 1995. Retrieved 8/13/06.
  26. ^ "Pavilion Buys Stake in RKO," New York Times, September 1, 1989 (available online); "Ted Hartley...and the Rebirth of RKO Studios" detailed 1999 article by Joseph DiSante based on interview with Hartley. Retrieved 7/26/06. Note that while the article refers to Hartley–Merrill's "RKO Pictures Inc.," SEC filings establish that the company is, at least currently, structured as an LLC.
  27. ^ Entertainment Law Digest summary of "New Filing—RKO Acquisition": RKO Pictures v. Wall Street Financial Associates, LLC; L.A. Superior Court SC077345. Complete filing available at ELD, July 2003. Retrieved 8/8/06.
  28. ^ Internetstudios Com Inc 10QSB SEC small business quarterly report filing dated June 30, 2004. For more on InternetStudios.com see StockLemon Report on InternetStudios. Both retrieved 7/22/06.
  29. ^ "Dina Merrill on Mrs. Johnson" 2002 A&E interview with Merrill. Retrieved 8/14/06; Ted Hartley ’46 U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association and Foundation biographical essay. Retrieved 8/17/06.
  30. ^ FindLaw—U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, Saltzman v CIR ruling in docket nos. 96-4195, 96-4203—argued October 3, 1997; decided December 11, 1997. Retrieved 8/10/06. Note that the association of the corporate name "Marian Pictures Incorporated" with the acronym "MBP" is per this legal document.
  31. ^ See Turner Broadcasting System Inc DEFM14A SEC merger/acquisition proxy solicitation filing dated September 17, 1996. Retrieved 8/17/06.
  32. ^ "The Val Lewton Horror Collection: Introduction" essay on new digital video release, December 12, 2005 (see "The DVDs"); part of the DVD Times website. Retrieved 8/17/06.
  33. ^ TaurusHolding GmbH & Co. KG—Company History detailed history of KirchGruppe under the name it adopted in 2002; part of the Funding Universe website; "German Film and TV Giant KirchMedia Collapses" interview with media journalist Julie Rigg, October 4, 2002; part of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation—Radio National/Night Club website; "KirchMedia: Opportunity Lost" BusinessWeek Online, July 28, 2003; "Saban's Lands KirchMedia at Last" Advanced-Television.com, August 6, 2003; ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG Interim Report quarterly financial statement dated September 30, 2003 (see p. 6); "Saban Takes Majority Stake in Restructured ProSiebenSat.1" Advanced-Television.com, September 21, 2004; "DLA Piper Advises KirchMedia GmbH & Co. KGaA in the Sale of the National Film Library" DLA Piper press release dated May 13, 2005; Jan Mojto CV of EOS Entertainment chief dated May 21–24, 2005; part of the 18th medienforum.nrw website. All retrieved 8/18/06.
  34. ^ L'Universale—La Grande Enciclopedia Tematica, vol. 2 (Milan: [Garzanti] Libri S.p.A., 2003–4), 986; "Un satellite per la cultura" 2002 statement by Luigi Mattucci, president of RAISat; part of the Emilia-Romagna IBC website. Retrieved 8/18/06.
  35. ^ "Interview: Dans la tête des Editions Montparnasse" interview with Renaud Delourme, head of company handling French RKO DVD releases, November 22, 2000; part of the DVDFr website; "DVD RKO: Interview des Editions Montparnasse" 2001 interview with two EM professionals; part of the DVDrama website; "La gazette du doublage: Laurence Sabatier, Responsable technique des Editions Montparnasse" 2002 interview with EM professional; part of the Objectif Cinéma website. All retrieved 8/18/06.
  36. ^ Quoted in Thomson, David, Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles (New York: Vintage, 1997 [1996]), 170.
  37. ^ Culhane, John, Walt Disney's Fantasia (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1999); The RKO Logo essay by Rick Mitchell; part of Hollywood: Lost and Found website. Retrieved 10/22/06.

Note: The standard history and reference guide to the studio's films, The RKO Story, by Richard B. Jewell, with Vernon Harbin (New York: Arlington House/Crown, 1982)—and not IMDb.com—is used as the final arbiter of whether specific films made between 1929 and 1957 were RKO solo productions, coproductions, or completely independent productions. Year of release is per IMDb-provided release date, independently verified in case of conflict.

[edit] External links

[edit] RKO Radio Pictures history

[edit] RKO Pictures LLC

  • RKO Pictures the Hartley–Merrill company's website
  • Ted Hartley personal website of RKO Pictures LLC's chairman and CEO
  • "Flight of Fancy" Hartley interviewed by Darrell Satzman, Los Angeles Business Journal, July 8, 2002
  • "Newman Helms Doc" article by Michael Fleming on planned Hartley documentary, Variety.com, September 11, 2003

[edit] RKO library and logos

  • C&C RKO 16mm Prints extensive discussion of RKO preservation and rights issues, by David Chierichetti; part of eFilmCenter website
  • The RKO Logo essay by Rick Mitchell; part of Hollywood: Lost and Found website
  • RKO Pictures Logos detailed, quirky descriptions by Nicholas Aczel and Sean Beard
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../r/k/o/RKO_Pictures_78f3.html"