RKO Studios was one of the most important film studios in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Their work was amazing, so what happened?
You slide the videotape into the VCR, press play, grab your bowl of popcorn and head for the couch turning the lights off along the way. You sit in the dark reaching a few previews before the screen goes black and your heart picks up in anticipation. It's your ears that register it first, that dee-dee-dee-dee beeping, sounding like what you'd imagine Morse Code does. Your eyes then pick up the spinning Earth fading into view at the bottom of the screen, on top of which stands a massive radio tower emanating lightening bolt stretches of sound. Then the words fall into place: An R-K-O Radio Picture. The credits roll and you sit back and enjoy.
Nearly every film fan has seen an RKO picture at some point, mainly because they were responsible for producing some of the best and most important movies to ever come from Hollywood (including "˜King Kong' (1933) and "˜Citizen Kane' (1941)). RKO flourished during the "˜Golden Age' of Hollywood and yet for all its prestige, awards and skill it was not able to make the move, as many other studios did, into the "˜Modern Era'. The history, productions and eventual comeback of the studio are an interesting story not just to the diehard film fan but to anyone who has felt the power of a Katherine Hepburn performance, marveled as King Kong climbed the Empire State Building and laughed along as Lucille Ball got into one situation after another.
The history of RKO actually begins not in film but in Vaudeville. In 1882, B. F. Keith opened his first Vaudeville theatre just outside of New York City. Over the next forty years Keith would become know as "˜The King of Vaudeville', turning that one theatre into a nationwide chain: the Keith-Albee-Orpheum Circuit. By the 1920's, Vaudeville had started to wane in popularity and that is when Joseph Kennedy entered the picture, but we are getting ahead of ourselves.
In 1921, an English Company Robertson-Cole felt it would be a good idea to enter the film business so they bought a parcel of land from the Hollywood Cemetery and set up shop as FBO Studios. A few years later, sensing that the timing was right for him to enter the business, Joseph P. Kennedy, traveled to England and purchased the entire FBO Studio. His goal was to consolidate as many of these "˜small' studios as he good into one major "˜Dream Factory'. By 1929 he was well on his way having pulled under his wing FBO, Pathe, and the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theatres.
To step back and over a bit, in 1927 Warner Brothers unleashed "˜The Jazz Singer' on America. The first talking/singing movie smash. The public went wild for it and clambered for more. Studio after studio quickly scrambled to fill the new need for sound. On of the first places they turned to was RCA. By 1928 RCA had developed a sound system for film but by this time most of the studios were using the system developed by Western Electric. Denied but not defeated David Sarnoff, the head of RCA, decreed that if no studio would take his sound system, he'd build his own studio to use it. This all brings us right back around to Joe Kennedy in 1929. He and Sarnoff agreed to merge their respective companies which is the marriage that produced RKO. The studio came out of the gates quickly releasing its first film, and an all talking one at that, this same year. (The film was "˜Syncopation')
The next big partnership with RKO occurred in the 1930s when they agreed to distribute the films of Walt Disney. RKO was on its way. The studio, though, soon found that it's golden road had a huge block in it, a block in the shape of the Depression. As it was one of the smaller of the major studios, RKO seemed hit especially hard by the economic downturn of the country. As 1933 rolled around, the future of the studio was bleak at best. So it came as a surprise to all that that was the year that really put them on the cultural map.
RKO may well be the only film studio in history who can say that their fortunes were saved by a monkey. In 1933 at their darkest hour, "˜King Kong' roared onto the screen. That picture alone would have been quite a triumph for any studio, but RKO was not done. By the end of the year they had also released "˜Little Women' and "˜Flying Down to Rio' which featured the first pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The studio went roaring through the decade and at the end they had amassed 150 Academy Award nominations and released the classic films "˜Bringing Up Baby' (1938) and "˜The Hunchback of Notre Dame' (1939). They also released several more Astaire-Rogers pairings and produced the early films of such noteworthy directors as George Cukor, John Ford and Howard Hawks.
This momentum carried through into the 40's with the production of "˜Citizen Kane' in 1941. Felt to be a flop in its initial release, this Orson Welles film has continuously been named the best movie ever made. The early part of the decade also saw RKO working with Alfred Hitchcock, Frank Sinatra (in his first starring role), Johnny Weissmuller (as Tarzan in a series of films), Cary Grant and acting as co-producer on the holiday classic "˜It's a Wonderful Life'. These happy days would not last much longer though.
In 1948 RKO fell under new management as millionaire Howard Hughes bought a controlling interest in the studio. His "˜micro-management' of the studio would lead to its downfall. Hughes continued his systematic disruption and dismantling of the studio up through 1955 when he split it into two entities: RKO Pictures, Inc. and RKO Theatres, Corp. He then sold RKO Pictures to a subsidy of General Tire and Rubber. In 1959 the name changed again to RKO General, Inc. RKO General was notable not for what they produced but what they released, a massive backlog of movies and shorts were all sent to television. Then, when the last film was out the door, the studio was up for sale again. In 1959 the physical studios of RKO were sold to Desilu Productions as a place to produce "˜I Love Lucy' among other shows. Unfortunately though the trend that Hughes had started of dividing and selling portions of the company continued for the next thirty years.
The story is not over yet though and perhaps those beeps coming from the RKO radio tower are crying out the famous Mark Twain line: The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. In 1990 Ted Hartley and Dina Merrill purchased RKO and are working to restore some of its shine. It's interesting that again, a monkey may save the studio as the first film put out by the "˜new' RKO was 1998's "˜Mighty Joe Young'.
