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RKO Radio Pictures: A Titan Is Born
£28.50
One of the “Big Five” studios of Hollywood’s golden age, RKO is remembered today primarily for the famous films it produced, from King Kong and Citizen Kane to the Astaire-Rogers musicals. But its own story also provides a fascinating case study of film industry management during one of the most vexing periods in American social history. RKO Radio Pictures: A Titan is Born offers a vivid history of a thirty-year roller coaster of unstable finances, management battles, and artistic gambles. Richard Jewell has used unparalleled access to studio documents generally unavailable to scholars to produce the first business history of RKO, exploring its decision-making processes and illuminating the complex interplay between art and commerce during the heyday of the studio system. Behind the blockbuster films and the glamorous stars, the story of RKO often contained more drama than any of the movies it ever produced.
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Additional information
| Publisher | University of California Press (1 April 2012) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 340 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 0520271793 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0520271791 |
| Dimensions | 15.24 x 2.16 x 22.61 cm |
by Wingate
RKO Radio was formed mainly by Joseph kennedy sr.having completed the job he took his millions and wisely made his exit.for the first couple of years the company made a profit.then the books were awash with red ink.Oné could suggest that it would have been appropriate to print this book in red ink.Not surprisingly the company went into receivership and stayed there for 7 years.When it finally emerged it had a board of 13 directors.It is therefore little surprising that the company had an unstable management set up.no less than 9 during the period covered by the book.Compare this with the 2 for MGM over a period of nearly a quarter of a century.the only change being as a result of the death of Irving Thalberg.Yet despite these problems the company produced some of the finest films of the era.Films which have stood the test of time and are now regarded as classics.The author charts the progress of the company from its formation to the begining of 1942.He does it in a clear concise and very entertaining manner.he quotes from many of the inter office memos having had full access to the company archives.There is a second part due which the author is currently working on and i am impatient to read it.This even though there is no happy ending as would have been essential to the films produced by RKO.
by Vienna
Author Richard Jewell has already done a pictorial history of RKO and his new book RKO RADIO PICTURES,A TITAN IS BORN takes a new angle on the studio – how it functioned as a business.
The answer seems to be not very well. And yet this is the studio that gave us ASTAIRE & ROGERS, CITIZEN KANE,GUNGA DIN and KING KONG.
I thoroughly recommend this book which is the first of two on the subject. The second part will cover the era when Howard Hughes ran the studio .