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RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood 's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chain and Joseph P. Kennedy's Film Booking Offices of America studio were brought together ...
- January 25, 1929; 94 years ago (as RKO Productions Inc.)
- Motion pictures
May 12, 2017 · Although it would fall on hard times in the 1940s and 50s (thanks largely to Howard Hughes), in (circa) 1937, when this photo was taken, RKO was one of the five major studios. With its iconic globe and broadcast aerial at the corner of Melrose Ave and Gower St, this building was a landmark around Hollywood. It’s still there – sort of ...
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of Movie & Television Fame. (1926-1976) a RetroWeb Studio Backlots website. "40 Acres" is the misnomer that was given to what was actually about 29 acres of land in Culver City, California, first used as a movie studio backlot in 1926 by Cecil DeMille, after he leased the property from Italian immigrate Achille Casserini (on March 22, 1926).
In this photograph, the set is dressed for the 1945 RKO Radio Pictures film "China Sky," directed by Ray Enright, and starring Randolph Scott, Ruth Warwick, Ellen Drew and Anthony Quinn. RKO Tarzan Jungle on the RKO "40 Acres" Backlot in Culver City, CA., with the Baldwin Hills in the background. Photographed in October 1951.
- The Formation and Early Development of RKO
- Reworking The UA Model
- Wartime Recovery
- The Decline and Fall of RKO
- Further Reading
Legend has it that RKO was created in a 1928 meeting between RCA president David Sarnoff (1891–1971) and Boston financier Joseph Kennedy (father of JFK) in the Oyster Bar in New York's Grand Central Station. While the meeting itself may have been apocryphal, Sarnoff and Kennedy did in fact control the elements that would merge to create RKO. Most o...
The success of Disney's Snow White was a harbinger of major changes in RKO's production policies and market strategy, which coalesced after the arrival of George Schaefer (1888–1981) as RKO president in late 1938. Schaefer was a former top executive at United Artists who was hired to adapt the UA model—i.e., the financing and distribution of indepe...
Schaefer's departure in mid-1942 signaled the deepening financial concerns at RKO, which had not returned to consistent profitability despite the waning Depression, the banner year in 1939 (which resulted in net losses for the studio), and the emergence from receivership in January 1940. By early 1942 it was clear that the "war boom" would be as mo...
When the studio reopened, Hughes was supervising all aspects of administration and production, and the results were disastrous. RKO released a few notable films early in Hughes's regime—most of them initiated under Schary, including two noir classics, The Set-Up (1949), directed by Robert Wise, and They Live By Night (1948), directed by newcomer Ni...
Berg, A. Scott. Goldwyn: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1989. Croce, Arlene, The Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers Book. New York: Outerbridge & Lazard, 1972. Deitrich, Noah, and Bob Thomas. Howard: The Amazing Mr. Hughes. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett, 1972. Haver, Ronald. David O. Selznick's Hollywood. New York: Knopf, 1980. Hirsch, Foster. The Dark Side of t...
RKO Forty Acres was a film studio backlot in the United States, owned by RKO Pictures (and later Desilu Productions), located in Culver City, California. Best known as Forty Acres and "the back forty," [1] it was also called "Desilu Culver," [2] the "RKO backlot," and "Pathé 40 Acre Ranch," depending on which studio owned the property at the time.
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chain and Joseph P. Kennedy's Film Booking Offices of America studio were brought together under the control of the Radio Corporation of ...
