Hollywood the Golden Years: The RKO Story (1987) 1.01

Birth of a Titan

narrated by Ed Asner

RKO was formed by David Sarnoff and Joe Kennedy, the father of JFK, just as the sound of era of film was beginning. It was unsuccessful in its early years despite lots of attempts to innovate. Most of the people interviewed for this episode worked behind the camera. Some of them talked about the technical innovations, most of which had to do with visual effects or the ways that sound was recorded.

Cimarron (1931) won the studio its first Academy Awards. The land rush scene involved 2000 extras, over 2500 horses, and was shot in a single day. There was some planning but there were no rehearsals for the scene.

David O. Selznick was brought in to run the studio in late 1931. His tenure did not last very long. He was replaced by Merian C. Cooper in 1933. Cooper was the director of King Kong (1933), another big hit for the studio. His plan to get the studio out of its financial troubles was to increase the amount of content being produced and the rate at which it was produced.  

King Kong (1933) introduced what would later become known as stop motion animation. The man behind the animation in the movie was Willis O'Brien.

So This Is Harris (1933) won the Academy Award for Best Short for 1933. It was directed by Mark Sandrich who went on to direct a number of movies that starred Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

Flying Down to Rio (1933) is probably best known for introducing the team of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, even though they only had one dance number in the movie. It is also notable for some of the visual effects that were employed in the making of the movie.

People who appeared in this episode include

• Rudy Vallee, actor and singer
• James G. Stewart, sound recording
• Murray Spivak, sound effects
• Pandro S. Berman, producer
• Kay Brown, story editor
• Joseph Biroc, camera operatpr
• Vernon Harbin, RKO archivist
• Katherine Hepburn, actor (A Bill of Divorcement)
• Dorothy Jordan, widow of Merian C. Cooper
• Fay Wray, actor (King Kong)
• Zoe Porter, secretary to Merian C. Cooper
• Ray Harryhausen, special effects
• Bert Granet, writer
• Linwood Dunn, optical effects (Flying Down to Rio)
• Edward Eliscu, lyricist (Flying Down to Rio)
• Gene Raymond, actor (Flying Down to Rio)

Movies discussed in the episode include

• The Vagabond Lover (1929) - Rudy Vallee
• Seven Keys to Baldpate (1930)
• The Gay Dipolat (1931)
• Cimmaron (1931) 
• A Bill of Divorcement (1932) - John Barrymore, Katherine Hepburn
• King Kong (1933) - Fay Wray
• Kentucky Kernels (1933)
• So This Is Harris (1933)
• Flying Down to Rio (1933) - Gene Raymond, Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire

Thoughts

This is part one of a six-part series. This episode covers from 1928 to 1933. The only one of the movies discussed in the episode that I have seen is King Kong (1933).

The copy I have of this series looks like it was copied from a VHS tape. The sound and picture quality are good enough. There are no subtitles but for the most part I was able to hear everything clearly enough.