Predecessors:

• Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation

• Film Booking Offices of America

Founded: January 25, 1929 (as RKO Productions Inc.)
Founder: David Sarnoff
Defunct: 1959

RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures, was an American film production and distribution company and one of the "Big Five" studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The company was formed in October 1928 when the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chain merged with Joseph P. Kennedy's Film Booking Offices of America studio, under the control of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). RCA executive David Sarnoff engineered the merger to promote RCA's sound-on-film technology, RCA Photophone, and production began under the RKO name (an initialism for Radio-Keith-Orpheum) in early 1929. In 1931, the Pathé studio, another Kennedy entity, was integrated into the company. By the mid-1940s, RKO was under the control of investor Floyd Odlum.

RKO became known for its musicals featuring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the 1930s, as well as for launching the careers of actors like Katharine Hepburn and Robert Mitchum. Cary Grant starred in several of the studio's iconic screwball comedies. The work of producer Val Lewton's low-budget horror unit and RKO's ventures into film noir have been praised by critics and historians. The studio produced two of the most iconic films in cinema history: King Kong and Orson Welles's Citizen Kane. It also coproduced classics like It's a Wonderful Life and Notorious and distributed acclaimed films by Walt Disney and Samuel Goldwyn. Although it struggled to compete for top stars and directors, RKO boasted talented below-the-line personnel, including composer Max Steiner, cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, and designer Van Nest Polglase.

Howard Hughes took control of RKO in 1948, leading to years of turmoil and decline until the studio was acquired by the General Tire and Rubber Company in 1955. RKO then became the first major studio to sell the majority of its film library's television rights. The original RKO Pictures ceased production in 1957 and effectively dissolved by 1959. In 1978, RKO General, its corporate successor, launched RKO Pictures Inc., reviving the brand with new releases beginning in 1981. In 1989, this entity, along with the studio's trademarks and remake rights to many classic films, was sold to new owners, who established the independent company RKO Pictures LLC. Today, the original studio's film library is largely controlled by Warner Bros. Discovery.

Origin

In October 1927, Warner Bros. released The Jazz Singer, the first feature-length talking picture, which sparked a rapid shift in Hollywood from silent films to sound productions. The Radio Corporation of America (RCA), under its parent company General Electric, had developed an advanced optical sound-on-film system known as Photophone. However, RCA faced a significant obstacle in its efforts to capitalize on the anticipated sound movie boom: Warner Bros. and Fox, the two studios at the forefront of sound film innovation, were already financially and technologically aligned with ERPI, a subsidiary of AT&T's Western Electric division. Meanwhile, the industry's two largest companies, Paramount and Loew's/MGM, along with First National Pictures—one of the "Big Three" major studios from the silent era, although in decline—and Universal Pictures, were also set to contract with ERPI and its Vitaphone and Movietone systems for their own sound conversions.

Seeking a customer for Photophone, RCA's general manager David Sarnoff approached financier Joseph P. Kennedy in late 1927 about using the sound system for his Film Booking Offices of America (FBO). Kennedy had led an investment group that acquired the modest, low-budget studio the previous year, turning it into a steady profit-maker. Negotiations resulted in RCA acquiring a significant stake in FBO, and Sarnoff seemed to have already envisioned a plan for the studio to become a central player in the film industry, thereby maximizing Photophone revenue. The next step involved securing a chain of exhibition venues like those owned by the leading Hollywood production companies. Kennedy began exploring such opportunities.

At the same time, the allied Keith-Albee and Orpheum theater circuits, originally built around live vaudeville, were shifting towards the movie business. In 1926, the exhibitors had acquired a 50 percent stake in the holding company of Producers Distributing Corporation (PDC), a smaller but more prestigious studio than FBO. However, famed director Cecil B. DeMille, the studio chief and owner of PDC's Culver City production facility, had been draining the company’s resources on lavish productions, and the studio struggled to secure first-run theater placements, which were largely controlled by the major studios. In early 1927, despite DeMille's objections, an agreement was reached to merge PDC into Pathé, a lower-tier studio known for its newsreels and inexpensive shorts. Elisha Walker, an investment banker whose firm Blair & Co. held the controlling interest in Pathé, brought in Keith-Albee's general manager John J. Murdock as studio president. In January 1928, Murdock engineered a smoother merger to establish the Keith-Albee-Orpheum (KAO) theater chain. With Pathé's finances in dire straits, Murdock, prompted by Walker, sought Kennedy's assistance to reorganize the studio and consolidate it with PDC. Kennedy and Walker found they shared common goals, including the removal of Edward Albee, the "Czar of Vaudeville" and Murdock's nominal superior. Sarnoff's vision of a new major studio was taking shape, with Kennedy and Walker sharing similar ambitions.

With the backing of Murdock and Blair & Co., Kennedy quickly moved to interlock KAO and FBO by selling the theater chain a substantial stake in his studio while buying large amounts of KAO stock. Within months, he became chairman of KAO's new board of directors. In a famous incident, when KAO's president, Edward Albee, visited Kennedy's office, Kennedy reportedly told him, "Didn't you know, Ed? You're washed up. You're through." Cecil B. DeMille left KAO with a substantial payout in April and later signed a three-picture deal with MGM. Meanwhile, Sarnoff and Kennedy began discussions to create a holding company funded by RCA cash and KAO securities. However, these plans stalled as Sarnoff grew frustrated with Kennedy's reluctance to pay for the ongoing Photophone work at FBO and Pathé. Kennedy's attempts to reorganize First National, another studio that had sought his help and was aligned with ERPI, further strained his relationship with Sarnoff and threatened to lock Photophone out of the industry altogether. When Kennedy's deal with First National collapsed within weeks, Sarnoff saw the need to act quickly.

In September, while Kennedy was in Europe, Sarnoff initiated negotiations with Elisha Walker, whose firm was heavily invested in KAO, to merge the theater circuit with Film Booking Offices under RCA's control. Soon after Kennedy returned at the end of the month, he finalized the sale of his FBO and KAO shares, options, and convertibles, earning an enormous profit. On October 23, 1928, RCA announced the creation of the Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corp. holding company, with Sarnoff as board chairman. The new administration made it clear that Kennedy's services were no longer needed, leading to his resignation from his board and executive roles in the merged companies. He retained co-ownership and management of Pathé and the PDC assets that it had absorbed. RCA held the controlling stock interest in RKO, initially at 22 percent, and by the early 1930s, this stake rose to as much as 60 percent. On January 25, 1929, the new company's production arm, headed by former FBO vice president Joseph I. Schnitzer, was officially named RKO Productions Inc. A week later, it filed for the trademark "Radio Pictures."

Golden Age studio

Early years

While the main FBO studio in Hollywood was being converted for sound production, RKO began producing shorts at the newly opened RKO Gramercy studio in New York. RCA's radio network, NBC, launched a weekly variety show, The RKO Hour, to promote the studio's films. The first two features released by the new company were musicals: Syncopation, which had finished shooting before FBO was reincorporated as RKO, premiered on March 29, 1929. Street Girl, billed as RKO's first official production and the first shot in Hollywood, debuted on July 30. Both films were produced by studio chief William LeBaron, who had previously held the same role at FBO. A few non-musical films followed, but RKO's first major hit was another musical, Rio Rita, which featured several Technicolor sequences. Released in September to rave reviews, it was named one of the year's ten best pictures by Film Daily. Historian Richard Barrios credits Rio Rita with initiating the "first age of the filmed Broadway musical." By the end of 1929, RKO had acquired a 500-acre movie ranch near Encino for exteriors and large-scale sets.

With films handled by the RKO Distributing Corp., the studio released twelve features in its first year, and this number more than doubled to twenty-nine in 1930. In July 1930, the studio was renamed RKO Radio Pictures Inc., and RKO Pictures Ltd. was established to manage British distribution. Encouraged by the success of Rio Rita, RKO produced several costly musicals, including Dixiana and Hit the Deck, both directed by Luther Reed, who had also helmed Rio Rita. RKO planned to create its own musical revue, Radio Revels, to be filmed entirely in Technicolor, but the project was abandoned as the public's interest in musicals waned. The number of Hollywood musicals plummeted from over sixty in 1929 to just eleven by 1931.

Bebe Daniels, the star of Rio Rita, suffered from the shifting market. Her follow-up musical, Dixiana, was a financial failure, leading to the sale of her contract to Warner Bros. in January 1931. RKO, meanwhile, was contractually obligated to produce two more films using Technicolor's system, despite the decline in audience interest. The two resulting films, The Runaround and Fanny Foley Herself, released in 1931, were not successful.

Despite these setbacks and the struggling U.S. economy, RKO continued to expand, acquiring theater chains and purchasing a 50 percent stake in the New York Van Beuren studio, which specialized in cartoons and shorts, in October 1930. Looking to exit the film business, Kennedy orchestrated RKO's purchase of Pathé, which protected his associates' bond investments while causing losses for small shareholders. Finalized on January 29, 1931, the deal made Pathé a semiautonomous subsidiary, RKO Pathé Pictures Inc., despite its financial troubles.

The merger had its advantages: Constance Bennett, Ann Harding, and Helen Twelvetrees, major stars from Pathé, joined RKO in early 1931, boosting its box office appeal. The studio's production schedule grew to over forty features per year, released under "Radio Pictures" and "RKO Pathé" until late 1932. Cimarron (1931), the only RKO production to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, was a costly endeavor, with a budget of $1.4 million that resulted in a significant financial loss. Irene Dunne, the female lead in Cimarron, emerged as RKO's major star of the pre-Code era, enjoying a decade-long tenure with contracts granting her substantial power. Other notable actors included Joel McCrea, Ricardo Cortez, Dolores del Río, and Mary Astor. Richard Dix, who earned an Oscar nomination for his role in Cimarron, remained a B-movie leading man at RKO until the early 1940s, while Tom Keene starred in twelve low-budget Westerns between 1931 and 1933. The comedy duo Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, frequently paired with ingenue Dorothy Lee, were a consistent draw for nearly a decade.

Success under Selznick

Despite exceptions like Cimarron and Rio Rita, most of RKO's output was considered mediocre, prompting Sarnoff to hire twenty-nine-year-old David O. Selznick in October 1931 to replace William LeBaron as production chief. Selznick introduced rigorous cost-control measures and promoted the unit production system, which granted greater independence to individual producers than the central producer system allowed. Selznick argued that the factory-style system stifled the creative individuality of directors, harming the quality of films, and he predicted that the new unit production system would reduce costs by 30–40 percent. To implement his vision, Selznick brought in talented personnel such as director George Cukor and producer/director Merian C. Cooper, while entrusting increasingly important projects to the young producer Pandro S. Berman. He also discovered and signed Katharine Hepburn, who soon became a major star for the studio, and enlisted John Barrymore for several memorable roles.

In November 1931, as Selznick was taking on his new role, RKO folded the separate Pathé distribution network into its operations. After less than a year of semi-independent operation from Culver City, Pathé's feature film division also merged with RKO. Although features from this division continued to be released under the combined brand until November 1932 due to existing exhibition contracts, RKO Pathé essentially became a newsreel-and-shorts subsidiary. In January 1932, Variety named Constance Bennett one of the industry's top six female "money stars." Starting in September, the company began branding its films as "RKO Radio Pictures" in print advertising. Around the same time, RKO's corporate headquarters moved into the newly completed RKO Building, an Art Deco skyscraper in Rockefeller Center. RKO also produced Hollywood on the Air, a radio program for NBC that promoted films from various studios. However, the show angered independent exhibitors by giving listeners free access to cinema stars during peak moviegoing times. By the end of 1932, most studios except RKO restricted their contract actors' radio appearances, but the ban was short-lived.

Selznick's tenure as production chief lasted only fifteen months, ending after a dispute with new corporate president Merlin Aylesworth over creative control. One of Selznick's final acts was to approve a screen test for thirty-three-year-old Broadway performer Fred Astaire, despite reservations about his appearance, noting, "I feel, in spite of his enormous ears and bad chin line, that his charm is ... tremendous." Selznick's leadership was widely praised: in 1931, before he arrived, RKO had produced forty-two films with a combined budget of $16 million. In 1932, under his direction, the studio made forty-one films for $10.2 million, with a noticeable improvement in quality and popularity. Selznick supported several major hits, including A Bill of Divorcement (1932), directed by Cukor and featuring Hepburn's debut, and King Kong (1933), a project largely spearheaded by Merian Cooper and brought to life through Willis O'Brien's groundbreaking special effects work. However, RKO's precarious financial situation, exacerbated by the excesses before Selznick's arrival, left the studio vulnerable during the Great Depression. Like many other major studios, RKO struggled; in January 1933, both RKO and Paramount were forced into receivership. While Paramount emerged in mid-1935, RKO would not recover until 1940.

Cooper at the helm

After Selznick's departure, Merian C. Cooper took over as production head at RKO and oversaw two successful films starring Katharine Hepburn: Morning Glory (1933), for which Hepburn won her first Oscar, and Little Women (1933), which marked director George Cukor's second collaboration with the actress. Little Women became the studio's biggest in-house box-office hit of the decade. Cooper sought to better align production costs with potential grosses, which led to reduced budgets for "programmers" like the Wheeler and Woolsey comedies. For example, under Selznick, Hold 'Em Jail and Girl Crazy (both 1932) cost around $470,000 each, while under Cooper, Diplomaniacs (1933) was made for just $242,000. Cooper signed Ginger Rogers to a seven-year contract and cast her in the high-budget musical Flying Down to Rio (1933), pairing her with Fred Astaire in his second film. Though billed fourth and fifth respectively, the picture made them stars, while Hermes Pan, assistant to the film’s dance director, became a leading choreographer through his subsequent work with Astaire.

RKO, along with Columbia Pictures, became a primary studio for screwball comedies. As film historian James Harvey noted, these studios were more open to experimentation and chaos on set compared to their wealthier competitors. This openness attracted premier screwball comedy directors like Howard Hawks, Gregory La Cava, Leo McCarey, and George Stevens. RKO's first significant screwball comedy was The Richest Girl in the World (1934), directed by the relatively unknown William A. Seiter. The studio also achieved dramatic success with John Cromwell's Of Human Bondage (1934), which marked Bette Davis's first major triumph. Stevens's Alice Adams and John Ford's The Informer were both nominated for the 1935 Best Picture Oscar, with Ford winning the only Best Director statuette ever awarded for an RKO production. Victor McLaglen, who starred in The Informer, won an Academy Award and would go on to appear in a dozen films for the studio over the next two decades. RKO also distributed Louis de Rochemont's innovative documentary series The March of Time from early 1935 until July 1942, which reached over twenty million viewers each month at its peak.

Despite lacking the financial resources of industry giants like MGM, Paramount, and Fox, RKO produced many films that showcased high style in an Art Deco mode, particularly evident in the Astaire–Rogers musicals such as The Gay Divorcee (1934) and Top Hat (1935). Van Nest Polglase, a Selznick recruit and the supervisor of RKO's design department, was instrumental in crafting this distinctive style. Film historian James Naremore described RKO as "chiefly a designer's studio," noted for its rich pool of artists and special-effects technicians, even though it lacked a stable of major actors, writers, or directors. Its most distinctive films contained elements of fantasy—focused more on the marvelous and adventurous than the horror films produced by Universal during the same period.

RKO's craft divisions were among the strongest in the industry. Costumer Walter Plunkett, who worked with the studio from the end of the FBO era until 1939, was regarded as the top period wardrobist in Hollywood. Sidney Saunders, head of the paint department, achieved significant advancements in rear projection quality. On June 13, 1935, RKO premiered Becky Sharp, the first feature film shot entirely in advanced three-strip Technicolor, co-produced with Pioneer Pictures, founded by Cooper. Though critics considered the film a failure as a drama, it was widely praised for its visual brilliance and technical innovation. The studio also employed top-tier artists whose work was less visible, such as Max Steiner, who composed music for over 100 RKO films from its early days until late 1935. Steiner's score for The Informer earned him his first Oscar win after three nominations. Murray Spivack, head of the audio special effects department, made notable advancements in re-recording technology, first showcased in King Kong.

Briskin and Berman

In October 1935, RKO's ownership team expanded when financier Floyd Odlum led a syndicate that acquired 50 percent of RCA's stake in the company. The Rockefeller brothers, already significant stockholders, also became increasingly involved in the business. While RKO struggled to build Katharine Hepburn's career, other actors became regular headliners for the studio. Ann Sothern starred in seven RKO films between 1935 and 1937, five of which paired her with Gene Raymond. Barbara Stanwyck and Cary Grant also signed on for several RKO pictures. Both were pioneers in the sound era, working as freelancers under nonexclusive studio deals. Stanwyck, for instance, had appeared in major studio films since 1929 without a long-term contract, a path later followed by other leading actresses like Irene Dunne, Constance Bennett, and Ann Harding. When Grant went freelance after ending his Paramount contract in late 1936, it was still uncommon for a male star on the rise to do so. Nonetheless, he went on to appear in fourteen RKO films between 1937 and 1948.

Soon after Samuel Briskin was appointed as the new production chief in late 1936, RKO entered into a significant distribution agreement with animator Walt Disney, leading to the closure of Van Beuren's cartoon operations. For nearly two decades, RKO would release Disney's features and shorts, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), which became the highest-grossing film between The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Gone with the Wind (1939). On December 31, 1936, RKO consolidated most of its domestic subsidiaries, including RKO Distributing Corp. and its exchanges, into RKO Radio Pictures Inc. The company's screen branding, previously known as "Radio Pictures," was also changed to "RKO Radio Pictures," except for the RKO Pathé newsreels and shorts. In February 1937, David O. Selznick, now an independent producer, took over RKO's Culver City studio and the backlot known as Forty Acres under a long-term lease. His production of Gone with the Wind, co-produced with MGM, was largely filmed there. In addition to its central Hollywood studio, RKO's production also centered around its Encino ranch. While the Disney partnership was advantageous, the quality of RKO's own productions was perceived as declining, leading to Briskin's departure by the end of the year.

Pandro Berman, who had previously stepped in three times, accepted the role of production chief on a permanent basis. Though his tenure was brief, it resulted in some of the most notable films in RKO's history, including Gunga Din (1939), starring Cary Grant and Victor McLaglen; Love Affair (1939), featuring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer; and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939). Charles Laughton, who delivered a legendary performance as Quasimodo in the latter, returned to RKO for six more features. For Maureen O'Hara, who made her American screen debut in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, it marked the beginning of a prolific collaboration with RKO, leading to ten more films through 1952. Carole Lombard signed freelance deals for four leading roles between 1939 and 1941, including her final films before her tragic death in a plane crash. After starring with Ginger Rogers for the eighth time in The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939), Fred Astaire left the studio.

During this period, RKO's B Western star was George O'Brien, who appeared in eighteen films, sixteen of which were made between 1938 and 1940. The Saint in New York (1938) successfully launched a B detective series featuring Simon Templar, which ran through 1943. The comedy duo Wheeler and Woolsey ended their series in 1937 due to Woolsey's illness, which led to his death the following year. RKO filled the void by releasing independently produced films, including the Dr. Christian series and the Laurel and Hardy comedy The Flying Deuces (1939). The studio soon developed its own B comedy stars with Lupe Vélez and Leon Errol in the Mexican Spitfire series, which began with The Girl from Mexico (1939) and continued with seven more installments between 1940 and 1943. RKO's technical departments maintained their industry-leading reputation, with Vernon Walker's special effects unit becoming renowned for its sophisticated use of the optical printer and lifelike matte work, an art that reached its peak with the 1941 classic Citizen Kane.

Kane and Schaefer's troubles

Pan Berman, who had received his first screen credit in 1925 as a nineteen-year-old assistant director on FBO's Midnight Molly, left RKO in December 1939 following policy clashes with studio president George J. Schaefer, who had been chosen the previous year by the Rockefellers and backed by David Sarnoff. After Berman's departure, Schaefer effectively took on the role of production chief, although other men, including former industry censorship board head Joseph I. Breen, nominally filled the position. Schaefer introduced a new studio slogan, "Quality Pictures at a Premium Price," and focused on signing independent producers whose films RKO would distribute. In 1941, the studio secured a major coup by arranging to handle the productions of one of Hollywood's most prestigious independents, Samuel Goldwyn. The first two Goldwyn films released by RKO, The Little Foxes, directed by William Wyler and starring Bette Davis, and Ball of Fire, directed by Howard Hawks and featuring Barbara Stanwyck, both performed well at the box office and earned four Oscar nominations each. However, the terms agreed upon were so favorable to Goldwyn that it was nearly impossible for RKO to profit from his films. In the same year, David O. Selznick loaned his top director, Alfred Hitchcock, to RKO for two pictures: Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Carole Lombard's final film before her death, was a modest success, while Suspicion, featuring an Oscar-winning performance by Joan Fontaine, was a substantial hit.

In May 1941, RKO released Citizen Kane, granting its twenty-five-year-old star and director, Orson Welles, virtually complete creative control over the project. Though the film opened to strong reviews and would later be hailed as one of the greatest movies ever made, it was a financial failure at the time and provoked the wrath of the Hearst newspaper chain. The following year, Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons—like Kane, critically acclaimed but overbudget—also failed commercially, and his unfinished documentary It's All True became an expensive fiasco. Together, these three Welles productions drained $2 million from RKO's finances, a significant loss for a studio that had reported an overall deficit of $1 million in 1940 and a modest profit of just over $500,000 in 1941. Many of RKO's other ambitious films were also struggling at the box office, and the studio was losing its last exclusive contract with a major star. Ginger Rogers, who had won an Oscar in 1941 for her performance in Kitty Foyle, held out for a freelance contract similar to those of Carole Lombard and Cary Grant. Rogers, who appeared in more RKO films than any other star—thirty between 1931 and 1943, with additional appearances in 1946 and 1956—would no longer be exclusively tied to the studio. On June 17, 1942, Schaefer resigned, leaving a weakened and troubled RKO. However, the studio was on the verge of a turnaround. With the box-office boom driven by World War II and under new management, RKO would stage a strong comeback over the next five years.

Rebound under Koerner

By the end of June 1942, Floyd Odlum, through his Atlas Corporation, had gained a controlling interest in RKO, pushing aside the Rockefellers and David Sarnoff. Charles Koerner, who had been the head of the RKO theater chain and aligned with Odlum, assumed the role of production chief shortly before Schaefer's departure. With Schaefer gone, Koerner was able to fully take on the role. He introduced a new corporate motto, "Showmanship in Place of Genius: A New Deal at RKO," a jab at Schaefer's artistic ambitions and his support of Orson Welles. Koerner brought much-needed stability to the studio until his death in February 1946. RKO's fortunes began to change almost immediately under his leadership; corporate profits rose dramatically from $736,241 in 1942 (with the theater division compensating for the studio's $2.34 million deficit) to $6.96 million in 1943. The Rockefellers sold off their stock, and by early 1943, RCA also divested itself of its remaining holdings in the company, severing David Sarnoff's ties to the studio he had largely helped conceive. In October 1942, RKO launched a new "news magazine" series called This Is America to replace The March of Time after Time Inc. switched its distribution to Twentieth Century-Fox. In June 1944, RKO formed a subsidiary, RKO Television Corporation, to produce content for the emerging television medium. On December 18, 1944, Talk Fast, Mister, an hour-long drama filmed at the RKO Pathé studio in Manhattan, became the first made-for-TV movie, broadcast by the DuMont Laboratories–owned New York station WABD. In 1945, RKO collaborated with Mexican businessman Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta to establish Estudios Churubusco in Mexico City.

With RKO on increasingly solid footing, Charles Koerner aimed to boost the studio's output of well-funded, star-driven films. However, the studio's major stars were limited to Cary Grant, whose services were shared with Columbia Pictures, and Maureen O'Hara, who was also contracted with Fox. To compensate for the lack of in-house stars, Koerner and his successors under Floyd Odlum arranged for other studios to loan out their top talent or signed a growing number of freelance performers to short-term "pay or play" deals. As a result, mid- and late-1940s RKO films featured stars like Bing Crosby and Henry Fonda, who were otherwise out of the studio's financial reach for long-term contracts. John Wayne appeared in A Lady Takes a Chance (1943) while on loan from Republic Pictures and subsequently made nine more films with RKO. Gary Cooper featured in RKO releases produced by Samuel Goldwyn and later by International Pictures, while Claudette Colbert starred in several RKO co-productions. Ingrid Bergman, on loan from David O. Selznick, appeared opposite Bing Crosby in The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), which became the top box-office film of the year and earned RKO a record profit of $3.7 million. Bergman later returned for co-productions such as Notorious (1946) and Stromboli (1950), as well as the independent film Joan of Arc (1948). Freelance star Randolph Scott featured in one major RKO release annually from 1943 to 1948.

Many leading directors also worked with RKO during this period, including Alfred Hitchcock with Notorious, and Jean Renoir, who directed This Land Is Mine (1943) and The Woman on the Beach (1947), reuniting with actors Charles Laughton and Maureen O'Hara. Orson Welles made a partial return with The Stranger (1946), which he directed and starred in. Despite Welles's criticism of the film, it was the only one he made that turned a profit upon its initial release. In December 1946, RKO released Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, which, despite later acclaim as one of Hollywood's greatest films, lost over half a million dollars at the time. John Ford's The Fugitive (1947) and Fort Apache (1948) were released before another ownership change at RKO, followed by She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Wagon Master (1950), all co-productions with Argosy, the company run by Ford and RKO alumnus Merian C. Cooper. Among the directors under long-term contract in the 1940s, Edward Dmytryk was particularly notable, first gaining recognition with the highly profitable Hitler's Children (1943). Shot on a modest budget of $205,000, it was one of the top ten Hollywood hits of the year. Another low-budget war-themed film by Dmytryk, Behind the Rising Sun, released a few months later, was similarly successful.

Focus on B movies

RKO relied heavily on B pictures to fill its schedule, more so than the other major studios. For instance, in 1944, of the thirty-one features released by RKO, ten were budgeted under $200,000, twelve ranged from $200,000 to $500,000, and only nine cost more. In contrast, the majority of films released by the top four studios were budgeted above $500,000. This focus on B pictures helped RKO mitigate financial risks but also limited its potential for high rewards. Despite this, the studio often found greater profitability in its low-cost and run-of-the-mill products compared to its A movies. The studio's budget films also provided valuable training opportunities for emerging directors, such as Mark Robson, Robert Wise, and Anthony Mann. Robson and Wise, along with the more experienced Jacques Tourneur, worked with producer Val Lewton, whose B horror unit produced critically acclaimed films like Cat People (1942), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), and The Body Snatcher (1945). Richard Dix, a veteran of RKO, ended his long association with the studio in Lewton's The Ghost Ship (1943).

Tim Holt, who took over from George O'Brien as RKO's cowboy star, appeared in forty-six B Westerns and more than fifty films for the studio starting in 1940. That same year, Chester Lauck and Norris Goff brought their popular radio characters Lum and Abner to the screen for the first of six independently produced RKO releases. Between 1943 and 1946, the studio paired Wally Brown and Alan Carney in comedies that attempted to emulate Abbott and Costello but did not achieve similar success. The Falcon detective series began in 1941, though its similarities to the Saint series led to a lawsuit from Saint creator Leslie Charteris. George Sanders, who had played the Saint five times, initially portrayed the Falcon but was succeeded by his brother, Tom Conway, who continued in the role for nine films until the series ended in 1946. Johnny Weissmuller starred in six RKO Tarzan films between 1943 and 1948 before being replaced by Lex Barker for five more. Producer Herman Schlom also oversaw the Great Gildersleeve series (1943–44) and the Dick Tracy series (1945–47).

Film noir, suited to lower budgets, became a hallmark of RKO during this period. The RKO B film Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) is often credited with initiating the classic noir period. Nicholas Musuraca, the cinematographer who worked with RKO through 1954, was crucial in defining the look of classic noir. Design chief Albert D'Agostino, art director Walter Keller, and others like Carroll Clark, Jack Okey, and Darrell Silvera also contributed to this distinctive style. RKO's roster of contract players included notable noir actors such as Robert Mitchum and Robert Ryan, each appearing in numerous noir films for the studio. Gloria Grahame, Jane Greer, and Lawrence Tierney were also significant figures in RKO’s noir productions. Freelance star George Raft featured in successful noir films like Johnny Angel (1945) and Nocturne (1946). The collaboration of Tourneur, Musuraca, Mitchum, Greer, and D'Agostino resulted in the critically acclaimed Out of the Past (1947), often regarded as one of the finest noirs. Nicholas Ray began his directing career with They Live by Night (1948), the first of several well-received films he made for RKO.

HUAC and Howard Hughes

In 1946, RKO and the movie industry experienced their most profitable year ever. The studio’s release of the Goldwyn production The Best Years of Our Lives was the decade's most successful Hollywood film and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. However, the industry's business model faced legal challenges as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bigelow v. RKO that the company was liable under antitrust statutes for denying an independent movie house access to first-run films—a common practice among the Big Five studios. Despite these legal troubles, Floyd Odlum capitalized on the studio's peak profitability by selling approximately 40 percent of his shares to investment firms. Following Charles Koerner’s death, Radio-Keith-Orpheum president N. Peter Rathvon and RKO Radio Pictures president Ned E. Depinet exchanged positions, with Depinet moving to New York and Rathvon taking over production duties in Hollywood while a permanent replacement for Koerner was sought. On January 1, 1947, producer and Oscar-winning screenwriter Dore Schary, who had been working at the studio on loan from Selznick, assumed the role of production chief.

Despite RKO's strong position, 1947 brought several ominous signs for Hollywood. The British government imposed a 75 percent tax on films produced abroad, and other countries enacted similar taxes and quota laws, leading to a sharp decline in foreign revenues. Additionally, the postwar attendance boom peaked sooner than expected, and television emerged as a competitor for audience interest. As a result, profits for Hollywood studios dropped by 27 percent from 1946 to 1947. In July, RKO Pathé’s signature newsreel was sold to Warner Bros. for $4 million. The rise of McCarthyism further impacted the industry; in October, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began hearings into Communist influence in Hollywood. RKO's top talents, including director Edward Dmytryk and producer Adrian Scott, refused to cooperate and were subsequently fired as part of the major studios' pledge to "eliminate any subversives," leading to their blacklisting along with eight others, known as the Hollywood Ten. Ironically, the studio’s biggest success of the year, Crossfire, was a Scott-Dmytryk film. Odlum decided it was time to exit the film business, placing Atlas's remaining 25 percent stake in RKO on the market. Loretta Young won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in The Farmer’s Daughter (1947), a coproduction with Selznick's Vanguard Films. It marked the last major Academy Award for an RKO picture.

In May 1948, Howard Hughes, the eccentric aviation tycoon and occasional movie producer, spent $8.8 million to gain control of RKO, outbidding British film magnate J. Arthur Rank for Floyd Odlum’s stake. Hughes's tenure marked the studio's worst period since the early 1930s, as his erratic management style had a devastating effect. Production chief Dore Schary resigned almost immediately due to Hughes's interference, and N. Peter Rathvon soon followed. Within weeks of taking over, Hughes dismissed three-fourths of the workforce, leading to a near six-month shutdown of production as Hughes canceled or shelved many of Schary's "message pictures." The profits of all the Big Five studios fell in 1948, with RKO experiencing a catastrophic decline from $5.1 million in 1947 to just $0.5 million, a 90 percent drop. The production-distribution arm of RKO, now deeply in the red, would never return to profitability.

Despite the turmoil, Hughes made headlines by supporting RKO’s most promising young star, Robert Mitchum, who had been arrested and convicted for marijuana possession. Contrary to industry expectations, Hughes announced that Mitchum’s contract would remain intact. More significantly, Hughes aimed to preempt his Big Five competitors by being the first to settle the federal government's antitrust suit against the major studios, following a crucial Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. Under the consent decree he signed, Hughes agreed to dissolve the old parent company, Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corp., and split RKO’s production-distribution business and its exhibition chain into two separate entities—RKO Pictures Corp. and RKO Theatres Corp.—with the obligation to sell off one of the two. While Hughes delayed the actual separation until December 1950 and did not sell his theater stock until three years later, his decision to comply marked a critical step in the downfall of the classical Hollywood studio system.

Turmoil under Hughes

Shooting at RKO resumed in early 1949, but production, which had averaged around thirty films annually before Howard Hughes's takeover, dropped significantly to just twelve that year. Hughes, now managing director of production, became infamous for his interference in minutiae of filmmaking and for promoting actresses he favored, including Jane Russell and Faith Domergue, who were under personal contract to him. Despite the reduced output and a series of costly flops during Hughes's tenure, RKO continued to produce some well-received films under production chiefs Sid Rogell and Sam Bischoff. However, both men grew frustrated with Hughes’s constant meddling and resigned within two years, with Bischoff being the last to hold the position under Hughes. Notable films from this period included B noirs such as The Window (1949), which became a hit, and The Set-Up (1949), directed by Robert Wise and starring Robert Ryan, which won the Critic's Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The science-fiction drama The Thing from Another World (1951), co-produced with Howard Hawks's Winchester Pictures, is regarded as a classic of the genre. In 1952, RKO released two films directed by Fritz Lang, Rancho Notorious and Clash by Night, the latter of which was a project of the renowned Jerry Wald–Norman Krasna production team, who had been lured from Warner Bros. with great fanfare in August 1950.

In May 1948, Howard Hughes, the eccentric aviation tycoon and occasional movie producer, acquired control of RKO by purchasing $8.8 million worth of shares, outbidding British film magnate J. Arthur Rank. During Hughes's tenure, RKO endured some of its worst years since the early 1930s due to his erratic management style. Hughes’s interference led to the resignation of production chief Schary and his successor Rathvon, and within weeks, he had dismissed three-fourths of the workforce. Production virtually halted for six months as Hughes canceled or shelved several of the "message pictures" supported by Schary. While all the Big Five studios saw their profits decline in 1948, RKO's fell drastically from $5.1 million in 1947 to just $0.5 million, a 90 percent drop.

Despite the turmoil, RKO managed to maintain some cinematic quality under production chiefs Sid Rogell and Sam Bischoff, though both left due to Hughes’s ongoing interference. Notable films from this period included B noirs like The Window (1949), which became a hit, and The Set-Up (1949), which won the Critic's Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. RKO also co-produced the classic science-fiction drama The Thing from Another World (1951) with Howard Hawks's Winchester Pictures. In 1952, RKO released two Fritz Lang films, Rancho Notorious and Clash by Night, with the latter being part of the high-profile Jerry Wald–Norman Krasna team.

Hughes’s tenure was marked by controversies, including his handling of a lawsuit by screenwriter Paul Jarrico, whom Hughes had fired amid HUAC hearings. Hughes also established a "security office" to vet employees for ideological purity, which some industry insiders suspected was a pretext for further reducing production and expenses. In September 1952, Hughes and RKO's corporate president, Ned Depinet, sold their RKO stock to a Chicago-based syndicate, which had little experience in the film industry. The syndicate’s chaotic management lasted until February 1953, when Hughes reacquired control. By the end of 1952, RKO had a net loss exceeding $10 million and had only produced one in-house film in the last five months of the year. Samuel Goldwyn ended his distribution deal with RKO, and the Wald-Krasna team also left the studio after producing just four films out of a planned sixty. The Encino ranch was shut down and sold in 1953.

In November 1953, Hughes finally complied with the 1948 consent decree by divesting RKO Theatres, which was purchased by Albert A. List and renamed List Industries. Hughes faced multiple lawsuits from minority shareholders accusing him of mismanagement and malfeasance. By early 1954, Hughes attempted to buy out all remaining RKO stockholders, and by the end of the year, he had gained near-total control of RKO Pictures Corp. However, Floyd Odlum blocked Hughes from acquiring the 95 percent ownership necessary to write off the company's losses. In July 1955, Hughes sold RKO Radio Pictures Inc. to the General Tire and Rubber Company for $25 million, leaving himself and Odlum with only the remnants of RKO Pictures Corp., which Fortune described as having "sole assets" of $18 million in cash. This marked the effective end of Hughes’s involvement in the movie business, which historian Betty Lasky describes as a "systematic seven-year rape."

General Tire and demise

When General Tire took control of RKO, it reestablished the studio's close connections to broadcasting. General Tire had acquired the Yankee Network, a regional radio network in New England, in 1943. In 1950, it expanded its broadcasting interests by purchasing the West Coast regional Don Lee Broadcasting System and, two years later, the Bamberger Broadcasting Service, which owned the WOR radio and television stations in New York City. This latter acquisition gave General Tire majority control of the Mutual Broadcasting System, one of America's leading radio networks. General Tire subsequently merged its broadcasting interests into a new subsidiary, General Teleradio.

Thomas F. O'Neil, the son of General Tire’s founder and chairman of the broadcasting group, recognized the need for programming across its new television stations and all TV outlets. In September 1954, WOR-TV had introduced the Million Dollar Movie program, which featured a single film broadcast twice nightly and on weekends, and this format proved immensely successful. With RKO’s acquisition, O'Neil quickly took advantage of the studio's film library. In December 1955, C&C Television Corp., a subsidiary of beverage maker Cantrell & Cochrane, won the bidding for the rights to RKO's 742 films. C&C began offering these films to independent stations in a package called "MovieTime USA." RKO Teleradio Pictures, the newly renamed General Teleradio under which RKO Radio Pictures operated as a division, retained broadcast rights for cities where it owned TV stations. By 1956, RKO's classic movies were widely broadcast on television, often using the Million Dollar Movie format, introducing many viewers to films like Citizen Kane and King Kong for the first time. The $15.2 million earned from this deal demonstrated to other major studios the profit potential of their libraries, marking a significant shift in Hollywood’s business practices.

The new owners of RKO made an initial attempt to revitalize the studio by hiring veteran producer William Dozier to oversee production. During the first half of 1956, RKO's production facilities were as active as they had been in years, with plans for seventeen new features. The studio released Fritz Lang's final American films, While the City Sleeps and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (both 1956). However, years of mismanagement had led to the departure of many directors, producers, and stars. RKO was also burdened with a series of inflated B movies, such as Pearl of the South Pacific (1955) and The Conqueror (1956), which had captivated Hughes. Although The Conqueror, starring John Wayne, was the studio's biggest hit of the decade, it only ranked eleventh among the year's top earners and did not recoup its $6 million production cost with its $4.5 million in North American rentals. Hughes had paid millions to buy back the rights to this film. By March 1956, RKO Pathé was announced to be dissolved.

On January 22, 1957, after a year and a half without a significant success, RKO declared that it would close its domestic distribution offices, with Universal taking over future releases. The studio's production wing was to be relocated to the Culver City lot, but in reality, General Tire shut down RKO production permanently. RKO's overseas distribution exchanges were also discontinued: RKO Japan Ltd. was sold to Disney and the British Commonwealth Film Corporation in July 1957, and RKO Radio Pictures Ltd. in the UK was dissolved a year later. The Hollywood and Culver City facilities were sold in late 1957 for $6.15 million to Desilu Productions, owned by Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, who had been an RKO contract player from 1935 to 1942. Desilu was later acquired by Gulf and Western Industries in 1967 and merged into Paramount Pictures, with the former RKO Hollywood studio now part of the Paramount lot. The renovated Culver City studio became an independent production facility, while Forty Acres, the Culver City backlot, was demolished in the mid-1970s. List Industries, the former RKO Theatres Corp., was bought by Glen Alden Corp. in 1959 and rebranded as RKO–Stanley Warner Theatres after acquiring another chain in 1967. Cinerama purchased the exhibition circuit from Glen Alden in 1971.

By early 1958, RKO, now a mere shadow of its former self and largely a beneficiary of General Tire's dubious largesse, announced that it would continue as a financial backer and co-producer of independently made films. However, fewer than half a dozen films resulted from this arrangement. The final RKO film, Verboten!, a co-production with director Samuel Fuller's Globe Enterprises, was released beginning in March 1959 by Rank and then Columbia. That same year, the "Pictures" was dropped from the corporate name, and the holding company for General Tire's broadcasting operation and the remaining motion picture assets was renamed RKO General. As scholar Richard B. Jewell observed, "The supreme irony of RKO's existence is that the studio earned a position of lasting importance in cinema history largely because of its extraordinarily unstable history. Since it was the weakling of Hollywood's 'majors,' RKO welcomed a diverse group of individualistic creators and provided them ... with an extraordinary degree of freedom to express their artistic idiosyncrasies.... It never became predictable and it never became a factory."

Library

RKO Pictures LLC holds the rights to the RKO Radio Pictures Inc. film copyrights, trademarks, and story library, encompassing over 500 screenplays, which allows for the production of remakes, sequels, and prequels, as well as approximately 900 unproduced scripts. However, the actual films, along with their television, video, and theatrical distribution rights, are controlled by different entities.

In 1971, the US and Canadian TV and video rights to most of the RKO film library were sold at auction after TransBeacon, a corporate descendant of C&C Television, went bankrupt. The rights were divided between United Artists (UA) and Marian B. Inc. (MBI). In 1984, MBI formed a subsidiary, Marian Pictures Inc. (MBP), and transferred its share of the RKO rights to it. Two years later, GenCorp’s subsidiaries, RKO General and RKO Pictures, repurchased the rights from MBP. Meanwhile, United Artists was acquired by MGM. In 1986, Turner Broadcasting System, which was establishing its Turner Entertainment division, bought MGM/UA’s extensive library, including RKO film negatives and rights. Turner’s plans to colorize ten RKO films led to copyright infringement disputes with GenCorp, resulting in lawsuits from both parties. During RKO Pictures' brief Wesray period, Turner acquired many distribution rights that had reverted to RKO through MBP, including theatrical and TV rights for cities where RKO owned stations. The new owners of RKO allowed Turner to proceed with the colorization of the library. In early 1989, Turner announced plans to colorize Citizen Kane, but this was abandoned after a review of Orson Welles’s creative contract. In October 1996, Turner merged with Time Warner, and Warner Bros. Discovery now owns most of the RKO library and controls its distribution in North America. In 2007, Turner Classic Movies, part of Warner Bros., obtained rights to six "lost" RKO films that had been acquired by Merian Cooper in a 1946 legal settlement and later transferred as a tax shelter.

The Walt Disney Company fully owns and controls the films originally distributed by RKO, including the 1940 adaptation of Swiss Family Robinson, which Disney purchased before its 1960 remake. Rights to many other independent productions distributed by RKO, as well as some notable co-productions, are now held by different parties. Samuel Goldwyn's films are owned by his estate and administered by Warner Bros. in North America and Miramax internationally, with Paramount Global holding a 49 percent stake in Miramax. Paramount Global, through its predecessor Viacom's acquisition of Republic Pictures, also owns It’s a Wonderful Life, co-produced by Frank Capra's Liberty Films, and The Bells of St. Mary's, co-produced by Leo McCarey’s Rainbow Productions. Notorious, a co-production between RKO and David Selznick's Vanguard Films, is now owned by Disney and is licensed to the Criterion Collection. The Stranger, a production of William Goetz's International Pictures, has been in the public domain since 1973. Eighteen RKO films produced between 1930 and 1931, including Dixiana, and several later in-house productions, including The Animal Kingdom, Bird of Paradise, Of Human Bondage, Love Affair, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and They Knew What They Wanted, have also fallen into the public domain. In early 1956, Hughes repurchased Jet Pilot and The Conqueror, along with The Outlaw (1943), which he had produced independently and sold to RKO before acquiring the studio. Hughes did not renew the copyright for The Outlaw, and it is now in the public domain. Universal acquired the rights to The Conqueror in 1979, three years after Hughes's death.

Logos

Most of the films released by RKO Pictures between 1929 and 1957 feature the studio’s iconic opening logo, known as the "Transmitter," which displays a spinning globe and radio tower. This logo was inspired by a 200-foot tower built in Colorado for a Tesla coil created by inventor Nikola Tesla. For many years, the RKO tower beeped out the Morse code for "A Radio Picture," and during World War II, it was changed to "V for Victory." Orson Welles once praised the Transmitter as his "favorite among the old logos," noting that it was not only a reliable portent but also served as a reminder to listen. The RKO Pathé feature logo, on the other hand, replaced the radio tower with Pathé's rooster, who stood still as the world spun beneath him. RKO’s closing logo, an inverted triangle enclosing a thunderbolt, was also a well-known trademark. Many Disney and Goldwyn films released by RKO originally featured colorful versions of this closing logo in the main title sequence. Over the decades, re-releases of these films often included Disney/Buena Vista and MGM/Goldwyn logos in place of the RKO insignia, but the original RKO logos were restored in many DVD editions. In the 1990s, the Hartley–Merrill RKO Pictures commissioned a new CGI version of the Transmitter.