Howard's Way

This story is in two parts. The first and largest part is how Howard Hughes bought a controlling interest in RKO in 1948 and allowed his weird obsessions, that would spiral into outright insanity in his later years, destroy RKO.

It wasn't like Hughes didn't know how to make a motion picture, even if he was weirdly obsessive about it even from the beginning. In the 20s "Two Arabian Nights" won the first Oscar for Best Director. There was also "The Racket", a great crime picture, the early sound "Hell's Angels" with some great aerial photography, "The Front Page", and "Scarface" one of the trilogy of the original sound gangster films.

But this success did not translate into what happened at RKO. He thought all of the actresses he had under contract belonged to him. That he could just order them to leave their children and husbands. When that didn't happen he either didn't let them work at all or he gave them bad assignments. Jean Simmons and her then husband Stewart Granger have much to say on the subject. Although I have to disagree with her on one point. "Angel Face" is one of her best films. He obsessed over costumes. He obsessed over advertising. He obsessed over everything but turning out a quality product.

So by 1955 RKO was a sinking ship and Hughes was tired of the play toy he had broken. He ended up selling to General Tire and Rubber who, opposite of Hughes, completely neglected it. They simply did not care that their product was a laughing stock because they were planning to use it as a tax write-off, which was very important in the days of 90% taxation.

So who bought RKO from them at a loss? Lucille Ball, one time contract player and now an international star due to TV and a successful businesswoman because of her Desilu TV production company. She has some humorous remarks about the whole incident, but says she was also depressed at what a rusted out hull of a place RKO's sound stages had become.

At the conclusion, Ed Asner does have an uplifting thing to say about RKO, years before Turner Classic Movies would regularly show the studio's product. He said that even though TV ended RKO Radio Pictures, we can still see the best of what they made on TV. He then makes a classy exit equal to his classy presentation during the entire six part documentary.

This episode, the final episode of the series, is about Howard Hughes' ownership of RKO and how his mental illness resulted in the destruction of the studio. His obsessive attention to meaningless details, his weird relationships with female actresses (acting as if by owning their contracts he owned them) and bad choices did a lot to ruining the once-proud lot. Now, bad and mediocre films were the norm and the studio struggled through his ownership to a slow, inexorable end. A few of the weird things you learn about him was that he never once visited the studio, destroyed womens' careers because they refused to sleep with him and seemed to enjoy the most artless and awful films...sometimes watching a film a hundred times or more!

A fascinating episode...not just because it is the history of Hollywood but because it's an interesting portrait of a crazy man who got away with so much because he was so incredibly rich and spoiled. And, my favorite part was when Stewart Granger talked about seriously considering killing Hughes because of all the unwelcomed advances he made on Granger's wife, Jean Simmons!