Hollywood the Golden Years: The RKO Story (1987) User Reviews (9)

precious moments from the Golden Age of Hollywood

[didi-5 · 8/10 · 15 January 2009]

'The RKO Story' is almost as good as 'MGM: When The Lion Roars' and benefits from a large array of interviews with RKO stars and directors such as Katharine Hepburn, Lucille Ball, Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire, Jane Russell, and Robert Mitchum.

Each episode of six touches on a different aspect of the studio (beginnings, women in leading roles, Fred and Ginger, Orson Welles, the McCarthy trials, and the decline of the studio with Howard Hughes at the helm), mixing comments, clips, and interviews.

Well worth watching if you're interested in the history of the big studios, and this story is well told. My only quibble would be that focusing one whole episode on Citizen Kane is a bit much when the rest of the studio's output is taken into consideration: but still, it is often slated as the greatest film ever made and this episode gives it honest discussion time.

An interesting tale about a unique studio

[AlsExGal · 9/10 · 20 September 2021]

RKO only existed as a motion picture studio for 30 years, founded in late 1928 solely for the purpose of making talking pictures at a time when many studios were still releasing silents, but the transition was in progress. Thus RKO never released a silent film. The story itself sounds like the plot of a motion picture. Birthed by one financial titan - Joe Kennedy - pretty much annihilated by another - Howard Hughes. The documentary is divided into six parts:

1. Birth of a Titan (Struggling through the first five years)

2. Let's Face The Music and Dance (Astaire and Rogers)

3. A Woman's Lot (RKO's many female stars and women's films)

4. It's All True (Orson Welles' time at RKO)

5. Dark Victory (The war years, film noir, and the Hollywood blacklists)

6. Howard's Way (Howard Hughes uses RKO as a plaything and breaks it)

Probably the most questionable move was to devote an entire episode to Orson Welles since he only made four films at RKO with only three released and two of those heavily cut and edited by someone not himself.

The series comes full circle with one of RKO's early contract players, Lucille Ball, buying the studio in 1958 to serve her rapidly growing Desilu production company. Since Lucille Ball's commentary is plentiful on these episodes, she gets to comment about what it was like to buy the place where her acting career started in the 1930s. Ed Asner narrates the series, and shows great enthusiasm for the subject.

I'd highly recommend this for film history fans.

DVD for RKO asap?

[ptb-8 · 24 March 2005]

This astonishing major TV series is one of the great movie studies ever made. A six part series, each at least an hour long, with a title for each decade or category with an array of interview talent as well as more clips than all the THAT'S ENTERTAINMENTs combined. It is exactly the sort of TV event I would love to see from all the studios...especially MONOGRAM-ALLIED ARTISTS and UNIVERSAL. Imagine what FOX could create! Anyway, this is the definitive version of what is possible and it is created and explained with a feast of clips and scenes and musical numbers more than one could hope for. I taped it from TV in the 80s and have not seen it re screened since. One screening only! More please! It urgently needs to find the DVD market and like the British produced series on DW Griffith and the SILENTS series it is a collectors dream. It certainly does not shy away from the Hughes years disasters and the downfall of the studio is as fascinating as the 1928-35 intro. This is absolutely essential viewing, entertaining in its fullest sense. The Republic Pictures Story and the AIP doco also available are good but have big bits missing..... this RKO series is the bullseye! Superb!

A Wonderful Documentary

[whizzkid7 · 10/10 · 21 August 2005]

This is a documentary much needed of a DVD release (like MGM: When The Lion Roars). I have yet to see this since the 80's when 1st aired and historical images and facts like these should be available for all fans to own or rent in this information age. If anyone out there has access to a copy I would love to gain a copy. If anyone out there has influence over getting this or the MGM title released on DVD, please see that it gets done. If a throwaway sitcom like "Ned & Stacey" can see a DVD release, why can't a quality documentary such as these see the light of day? Come on fans...let your voice be heard and seek out the things worth seeing again, and again and again!

The best "Hollywood Studio System" documentary ever made!

[howyoodoon · 10/10 · 16 February 2017]

What a surprise treat this series was! All six of the one-hour episodes are available at present on YouTube, which is where I found it. Having never heard of it before, it came as a total revelation to me. Since they had the luxury of having six hours time to tell the fascinating saga of this once-great studio, it contains extensive film clips (some of which are shown here for the first time) and lengthy "talking head" interviews with the men and women who ran RKO, as well as the great stars who acted there (Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Mitchum). It's hosted by actor Ed Asner, who provides the perfect light touch and jocularity to host such an undertaking. He is, surprisingly, quite wonderful as a host! The producers of this excellent mini- series (from The UK) had the good fortune of making the series while several of RKO's "major players" were still living and willing to tell their stories (some of them, in the nick of time, too-- Fred Astaire died that very year; Lucille Ball two years later). There is a WEALTH of background information that I'd never heard before, anywhere. If you're a fan of "CITIZEN KANE," you'll be over-the-Moon with glee at the episode that is almost completely dedicated to Orson Welles and his epic RKO masterpiece--and beyond. The series also paints a fairly incisive picture of the enigmatic Howard Hughes, who bought the studio in 1948, later selling it to Desilu (Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz) for $6 million. Jane Greer is especially compelling, telling her tale of how Hughes kept her under contract at RKO for years--but refused to use her in films--since she refused to sleep with him. There are wonderful cameos throughout--a special surprise was a (sadly brief) appearance by the wonderful Erik Rhodes, who provided such wonderful comic relief in many of the Astaire/Rogers films (and passed away only three years after the making of this documentary).

This invaluable series makes "MGM: When The Lion Roared" seem like lightweight fluff by comparison. There are so many fascinating side- stories. Six hours sounds like quite a commitment--but, rest assured: When it's over, you'll wish it were even longer! Really top-notch stuff! And there won't be another like it, since by now, nearly all of the major players are gone. Can't recommend it highly enough!

A must for film fans....if you can find it.

[planktonrules · 10/10 · 15 February 2018]

This BBC series was made back in the 1980s...and fortunately many of the RKO actors, writers, directors, etc. were still alive and participated in the show. However, despite being very well made and important for film historians and fans, "Hollywood the Golden Years: The RKO Story" is not currently available on DVD nor videotape. I think the only way to see it is to go to YouTube. There is a slight problem with this option, however, as in a few of the episodes portions are missing....and in its place is an announcement that these parts were removed for copyright reasons! Grrrr!!! How annoying but fortunately it was NOT a major problem.

The show is broken into six episodes--following the studio from its creation in the late 20s until it was bought and ultimately destroyed by Howard Hughes in the 1950s. Well worth seeing and fascinating throughout.

The first studio to fall was also one of the finest.

[mark.waltz · 10/10 · 30 October 2017]

While their studio doors never officially closed, RKO Radio stopped making movies in 1957, having gone through so much turmoil over the past decade that it's amazing that they lasted a long as they did. But for all of those who liked Fred and Ginger, the young Katharine Hepburn and a boy genius (who wasn't really a boy), their legacy of greatness was already destined before the end of the golden era of film. Unlike the other major Hollywood studios already around when RKO made its entrance, they didn't have an involvement in the silent era, so RKO could start making sound films from scratch. Their early films in many cases are rather creaky, with camera movements making their films look more like filmed stage plays. Slowly they developed a list of contract players (among them a young Irene Dunne and Joel McCrea) and had a popular comic team (Wheeler and Woolsey) who could bring tremendous profits on a budget. By 1932, RKO was considered one of the majors, winning an Oscar for "Cimarron" for Best Picture, and they joined MGM, Paramount, Warner Brothers and Fox as one of the majors, with Columbia and Universal lingering behind but slowly moving up.

It was the Astaire and Rogers films that put RKO on the map, making them the most beloved movie musical screen couple of all time. A stage actress named Katharine Hepburn would get an Oscar during her first year in Hollywood and would replace Dunne and Ann Harding as the top prestige female star. When a giant ape climbed up the Empire State Building with the beautiful Fay Wray in his hands, audiences were glued. It may have been beauty who killed the beast, but it was the beast who conquered the box office. The young David O. Selznick for a while ran the studio and would use this as an opportunity to prepare for his own independent production company. Everything looked fine as their products included critically acclaimed screwball comedies ("Vivacious Lady", "Bachelor Mother", "My Favorite Wife"), classic versions of novels ("The Hunchback of Notre Dame", "Gunga Din"), biographies ("Annie Oakley"), serious social dramas ("None But the Lonely Heart"), and eventually gritty film noir ("Crossfire", "They Wouldn't Believe Me", "Out of the Past") that helped change the way that movies looked at big city streets and humanity in general.

But as Hollywood moved from the end of the war years into a serious political front, RKO too changed, and even with such successful contract players as Jane Russell, Jane Greer and Robert Mitchum, they couldn't keep a consistent executive. None other than Howard Hughes ended up running the studio, and by the mid 1950's, they faced (along with the other studios) rivalry with TV. By the end of the 1950's, the studio had switched completely to TV, selling itself to none other than former contract player Lucille Ball and husband Desi Arnaz who, upon their divorce, would separately produce for TV. This documentary covers the golden years, the in between, and the sudden fall. Interviews with some of the surviving stars and vintage newsreels show what it took to run a studio of this survive.

For me, I always look forward to much of the RKO product, whether it be funny boys Wheeler and Woolsey, "Mexican Spitfire" Lupe Velez and her rubber-legged co-conspirator Leon Errol, sexy Jane (both Russell and Greer) and macho Mitchum; Fred and Ginger dancing; a little bit of Fibber McGee and Molly; dashing Irene Dunne exchanging cracks with Cary Grant; Barbara Stanwyck pre-dating Merman and Hutton as Annie Oakley; Charles Coburn being the devil to Jean Arthur's Miss Jones; and even Fred-less Ginger selling girdles to the women of the wild west. There were hits, there were misses, but even those misses have a charm to them that many movies do not have today.

One heck of a mini-series!

[SHADO57 · 31 March 2004]

I do not think there have been any other mini-series such as "Hollywood: The Golden Years" that have gone to such depths to explore the life and death of a major studio. The archival footage is in pristine condition, and the live interviews are all so reflective (and a tad bit sad) of the inner workings of RKO.

I thought Edward Asner -- as host and narrator -- did a bang-up job handling the enormous chores required to properly do this six-parter. I felt the music -- some original, I guess, and some archival -- filled the bill beautifully. Also, each episode had a theme that worked well, with plenty of examples of the subject. I only wish that each episode had been longer. I guess that's the hallmark of a good show: always leave 'em wantin' more!!

My only hope is that this will be released on DVD -- and soon!!

version differences

[joeytino · 3 January 2010]

I had much of this recorded on VHS way back when, but I caught part of the It's All True segment in 1992. I do not recall what station, but it might have been PBS as I do not remember seeing any commercials during the time I was watching. What was important was there were snippets I had not seen due to the commercials on the original US airing. I hope that if it ever does see the light of day, it's sourced from the original BBC material instead of the A&E version. Although that might also involve that the narrator may no longer be Ed Asner (Similar to the Planet Earth that had Sir Richard Attenborough replaced by Sigourney Weaver for the US run.)

I don't understand why they need to mess with these programs when they are fine as they were. Maybe I am wrong thinking that most people do not notice who narrates when choosing to watch a documentary.