Birth of a Titan

This is the first of six episodes about the history of RKO Studios. And, for anyone who considers themselves to be a film expert or lover of classic Hollywood, you MUST see this BBC-produced series! Unfortunately, that won't be so easy since it is NOT out on video or DVD...but fortunately it has been posted on YouTube. It is also fortunate that by 1987, a decent number of folks associated with the early days were still alive and participated in the documentary.

Episode one, not surprisingly, is about the founding of the studio and the early teething pains they encountered as well as their few successes (such as KING KONG and FLYING DOWN TO RIO). It features a lot of interviews with writers, directors, producers and a few stars...as well as narration by Ed Asner.

Overall, a terrific time capsule and a film worth seeing.

... and odd to see that it took the BBC to do the ultimate documentary on a little studio that only lasted thirty years but was part of some interesting Hollywood history during that time.

RKO was a studio founded for the purpose of producing talking pictures at a time - the end of 1928 - when all of Hollywood was converting to talkies from silents. Joe Kennedy is talked about much more in the book than in this documentary. Joe had a big part in founding RKO, but according to the book, those that founded and ran RKO said that "he only cares about money and broads" so they wanted him out and he wanted to go.

RKO struggled the first five years of its existence, ultimately ending up in receivership. This was in spite of bringing Kate Hepburn on board and her partnership with director George Cukor, winning a Best Picture Oscar two years into its existence, and even King Kong. An amusing segment is devoted to Rudy Vallee's foray into motion pictures, and includes an interview with an 84 year old Vallee talking about his dismal first motion picture - not at all his fault - and his problems with the people that ran RKO.

In 1933 Merion C. Cooper took over production at RKO and put quite a bit of time and money into their short subject production which allowed for lots of musical experimentation and ultimately led to the Astaire and Rogers pictures that got RKO back in the black. Astaire and Rogers and their films are the entire second episode, but that is another story.

What is left out? There is only a brief scene with Wheeler and Woolsey, and their comedy team was a big part of what actually made money for RKO the first five years they were in business, but the production code pretty much put them out of business since their trademark was raunchy humor. Perhaps they are left out because their brand of humor is just so odd it would take up too much time to explain it. They are definitely an acquired taste.

I'd recommend it if you are into film history at all. One of the things it does best is talk about the people behind the camera - the sound men and special effects teams that are responsible for what made RKO special. Ed Asner narrates this series, and he does an excellent job.