RKO Pictures - Wikipedia. RKO Pictures Inc., also known as RKO Radio Pictures and in its later years RKO Teleradio Pictures, was an American film production and distribution company. It was one of the Big Fivestudios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith- Albee- Orpheum (KAO) vaudeville theatre circuit and Joseph P. Kennedy's Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) studio were brought together under the control of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in October 1. By the mid- 1. 94. Floyd Odlum. RKO has long been celebrated for its series of musicals starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the mid- to- late 1. Actors Katharine 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 film critics and historians. The studio produced two of the most famous films in motion picture history: King Kong, Citizen Kane and the beloved . ![]() Get the latest news and analysis in the stock market today, including national and world stock market news, business news, financial news and more.![]() Blewett's Daughter in Anne of Green Gables. Maverick industrialist Howard Hughes took over RKO in 1. After years of turmoil and decline under his control, Hughes sold the troubled studio to General Tire and Rubber Company in 1. The original RKO Pictures ceased production in 1. In 1. 98. 1, broadcaster RKO General, the corporate heir, revived it as a production subsidiary, RKO Pictures Inc. In 1. 98. 9, 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. Origin of company. Latest news, expert advice and information on money. Pensions, property and more. Its success prompted Hollywood to convert from silent to sound film production en masse. The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) controlled an advanced optical sound- on- film system, RCA Photophone, recently developed by General Electric. However, its hopes of joining in the anticipated boom in sound movies faced a major hurdle: Warner Bros. The industry's two largest major studios, Paramount and Loew's/MGM, with two other studios Universal and First National, were poised to contract with ERPI for sound conversion as well. Kennedy about using the system for Kennedy's modest- sized studio, Film Booking Offices of America (FBO). Negotiations resulted in General Electric acquiring a substantial interest in FBO—Sarnoff had apparently already conceived of a plan for the company to attain a central position in the film industry, maximizing Photophone revenue. Next on the agenda was securing a string of exhibition venues like those the leading Hollywood production companies owned. Kennedy began investigating the possibility of such a purchase. Around that time, the large Keith- Albee- Orpheum (KAO) circuit of theaters, built around the then- fading medium of live vaudeville, was attempting a transition to the movie business.
In mid- 1. 92. 7, the filmmaking operations of Path. De Mille's Producers Distributing Corporation (PDC) had united under KAO's control. Early in 1. 92. 8, KAO general manager John J. Murdock, who had assumed the presidency of Path. This was the relationship Sarnoff and Kennedy sought. On October 2. 3, 1. RCA announced the creation of the Radio- Keith- Orpheum holding company, with Sarnoff as chairman of the board. Kennedy, who withdrew from his executive positions in the merged companies, kept Path. Schnitzer, was incorporated early in 1. Radio Pictures. The new company's two initial releases were musicals: The melodramatic Syncopation premiered on March 2. This was billed as RKO's first . RKO spent heavily on the lavish Rio Rita, including a number of Technicolor sequences. Opening in September to rave reviews, it was named one of the ten best pictures of the year by Film Daily. Promoted as the studio's most extravagant production to date, it was to be photographed entirely in Technicolor. From a total of more than sixty Hollywood musicals in 1. 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 1. Neither was a success. In October 1. 93. New York's Van Beuren studio, which specialized in cartoons and live shorts. Cimarron (1. 93. 1), produced by Le. Baron himself, would become the only RKO production to win the Academy Award for Best Picture; nonetheless, having cost a profligate $1. Richard Dix, Oscar- nominated for his lead performance in Cimarron, would serve as RKO's standby B- movie star until the early 1. Selznick visited Sarnoff in New York and convinced him to replace Le. Baron as production chief. Cooper, and gave producer Pandro S. Berman, aged twenty- six, increasingly important projects. Also enlisted was established star John Barrymore for a few memorable performances, when also used by Paramount used as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1. Warner Bros. In 1. Selznick, forty- one features were made for only $1. Billed fourth and fifth respectively, the picture turned them into stars. As film historian James Harvey describes, compared to their richer competition, the two studios were . It was at these two lesser 'majors'.. Seiter directed the studio's first significant contribution to the genre, The Richest Girl in the World (1. It never had a stable of important actors, writers, or directors, but .. As a result, its most distinctive pictures contained a strong element of fantasy—not so much the fantasy of horror, which during the thirties was the province of Universal, but the fantasy of the marvelous and adventurous. The movie was coproduced with Pioneer Pictures, founded by Cooper—who departed RKO after two years helming production—and John Hay . From the studio's earliest days through late 1. Max Steiner, regarded by many historians as the most influential composer of the early years of sound cinema, made music for over 1. RKO films. Barbara Stanwyck joined the studio's roster—though Stanwyck would have little success during her few years there while Ann Sothern enjoyed a career boost. Between 1. 93. 5 and 1. Miss Sothern was paired five time with Gene Raymond out of her seven RKO films. Cary Grant regularly appeared in RKO films for some years, but was one of the first leading men of the sound era to work extensively as a freelancer, under nonexclusive studio deals. Briskin, in late 1. RKO entered into an important distribution deal with animator Walt Disney (Van Beuren consequently folded its cartoon operations). In February 1. 93. Selznick, now an independent producer, leased RKO's Culver City studio and Forty Acres backlot. In addition to its central Hollywood studio, RKO productions now revolved around its vast Encino movie ranch. Modern sources state that Briskin's departure in late 1. RKO's product, although admitting that the Disney association was beneficial. As it turned out, he would leave the job before the decade's turn, but his brief tenure resulted in some of the most notable films in studio history, including Gunga Din, with Grant and Mc. Laglen; Love Affair, starring Dunne and Charles Boyer; and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (all 1. The Saint in New York (1. B detective series featuring the character Simon Templar that would run through 1. RKO filled the void by releasing independently produced features such as the Dr. Christian series and the Laurel and Hardy comedy The Flying Deuces (1. Schaefer, handpicked the previous year by the Rockefellers and backed by Sarnoff. Breen—nominally filled the role. The first two Goldwyn pictures released by the studio were highly successful: The Little Foxes, directed by William Wyler and starring Bette Davis, garnered four Oscar nominations. However, Schaefer agreed to terms so favorable to Goldwyn that it was next to impossible for the studio to make money off his films. Selznick loaned out his leading contracted director for two RKO pictures in 1. Alfred Hitchcock's Mr. Smith was a modest success and Suspicion a more substantial one, with an Oscar- winning turn by Joan Fontaine. 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. Rogers, after winning an Oscar in 1. Kitty Foyle, held out for a freelance contract like Grant's; after 1. RKO production, thirteen years later. 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 and allied with Odlum, had assumed the title of production chief some time prior to Schaefer's departure. He announced a new corporate motto, . RKO became the first major studio to produce for television with Talk Fast, Mister, a one- hour drama filmed at RKO- Path. In collaboration with Mexican businessman Emilio Azc. However, the studio's only remaining major stars under anything like extended contracts were Grant, whose services were shared with Columbia Pictures, and O'Hara, shared with Twentieth Century- Fox. 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. Mary's (1. 94. 5), the biggest hit of any in- house RKO production during the 1. Shot on a $2. 05,0. Big Five studio productions, it was one of the ten biggest Hollywood hits of the year. Of the thirty- one features released by RKO in 1. In contrast, a clear majority of the features put out by the other top four studios were budgeted at over a half a million dollars. The Lewton unit's moody, atmospheric work—represented by films such as Cat People (1. I Walked with a Zombie (1. The Body Snatcher (1. He bowed out after four Falcon films and was replaced by his brother, Tom Conway. Conway had a nine- film run in the part before the series ended in 1. Personal finance news, advice & information. We've noticed you're adblocking. We rely on advertising to help fund our award- winning journalism. We urge you to turn off your ad blocker for The Telegraph website so that you can continue to access our quality content in the future. Thank you for your support.
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