Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: RKO Radio Picture still releasing product?

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 11-19-2007, 12:55 PM:

I just saw the film LAURA SMILES (VERY odd film, btw). It had the old RKO opening and the titling actually said it was an RKO release. What's with that? I thought that company, which changed hands numerous times had long ago died a quiet death. It was a surprise seeing the radio tower on top of the globe again with the animated circles radiating from it and the hokey morse code beeps on the soundtrack. Is this a real company or did someone just decide to use the logo (and for what reason....it didn't fit with the time peroid of the film).

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 11-19-2007, 01:03 PM:

RKO is still in business, or more specifically, a direct successor the the movie studio of old. Although mostly a licensing company for remaking RKO scripts, they are also an active independent producer. Laura Smiles is listed as on their web site under recent production.

RKO Radio Pictures

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 11-20-2007, 07:37 AM:

Hey, Mitchell,

Thanks for the link. I see tho that they took the "Radio" out of the logo (good idea seeing as how "radio" is no longer the hot leading edge technology it was in the 20s [Big Grin]

). Now it's just RKO Pictures.

The site explained that they were not only a studio, but they were merged out of the Keith's theatre chain. One of my favorite theatres of all time that I went to very often as a kid, was in Flushing Queens -- the RKO Keiths at the end of Main Street.

It was a grand movie palace in the "atmospheric" style with ever-changing cloud projections on the "sky." They would do a 15min "sunset" before every show using the multicolored houselights to simulate a transition from full daylight to evening, to dusk, to a deep purple night sky with hundreds of twinkling stars coming out in the night sky....and then the cartoon would hit the screen. In the lobby, there was a 2 story, gilded working water fountain. This was the apex of the movie palace era.

I imagine there is something to be said for the studios owning their own movie theatres -- aside for all that pesky anti-trust business, you could be sure that the films that a studio released and played in their own theatres were going to be presented to their best advantage. There was no relying on some third party, only marginally concerned with presentation values, to show your films as we have today.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 11-20-2007, 09:00 AM:

RKO, which stands for Radio Keith Orphium was formed by the merger of the Keith and Orphium theatre circuits with Radio Pictures. Radio Pictures was created when Joseph Kennedy (JFK's father) purchased the silent production company FBO, Film Buyers Organization.

In the 1950's, RKO was sold to General Tire which owned a number of television stations under what became RKO General Corporation. They owned Channel 9 in NY when we were young. General Tire had no interest in running a studio, they just wanted the films for their TV stations. The studio limped along for a few more years under General Tires ownership before it was finally shut down. The lot was sold to Desi Arnaz and Lucillie Ball, and became the home of Desilu Productions. The first season of Star Trek had the Desilu Studio logo at the end. When Desi and Lucy broke up and desolved the partnership, the studio lot was sold to Paramount, who's studio is right next store. It is still part of the Paramount lot. The building on the corner of Sunset and Gower still has the concrete globe molded into the building where the "rko" radio tower once sat.

The history of RKO is really interesting. I highly recommend the book "The RKO Story".

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 12-03-2007, 03:08 AM:

If my brain is working correctly at this time in the morning, I seem to remember that RCA was a big initial investor in RKO: they wanted to launch their Photophone variable area sound system for feature films, but couldn't license it to any of the other Hollywood majors because they'd all signed up with either Vitaphone or Movietone.

Posted by Jeffry L. Johnson (Member # 453) on 12-03-2007, 11:52 AM:

RKO at Wikipedia