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Smith and Dale

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Smith and Dale were a famous American vaudeville comedy duo. They consisted of Joe Smith (born Joseph Sultzer on February 17, 1884 – February 22, 1981) and Charlie Dale (born Charles Marks on September 6, 1881 – November 16, 1971), who both grew up in the Lower East Side of New York City at the end of the 19th century. Beginning in their adolescence, their career spanned the majority of their lives, with the two performing together continuously for more than seventy years.

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226-532: The duo were one of several famous comic performers of vaudeville , radio and movies that collectively originated from the same place and era. Other entertainers included Gallagher and Shean , George Burns , Eddie Cantor , George Jessel and the Marx Brothers . Sultzer and Marks met as teenagers in the fall of 1898, when they accidentally ran into each other while cycling. Joe was cycling north on Eldridge Street on Manhattan's Lower East Side, while Charlie

452-476: A MacArthur Fellow and Tony Award -winning actor, are frequently lauded as "New Vaudevillians". References to vaudeville and the use of its distinctive argot continue throughout North American popular culture. Words such as "flop" and "gag" were terms created from the vaudeville era and have entered the American idiom. Vaudevillian techniques can commonly be witnessed on television and in movies, remarkably in

678-506: A "security office" to oversee an ideological vetting system. "We are going to screen everyone in a creative or executive capacity", he declared. "The work of Communist sympathizers will not be used." As more credits were expunged, some in the industry began to question whether Hughes's hunt for subversives served primarily as a convenient rationale for further curtailing production and trimming expenses. In September, Hughes and his corporate president, Ned Depinet, sold their RKO studio stock to

904-584: A Broadway show. This is when she began experimenting with improvisational comedy and quickly found her unique success, even taking her performances global with acts in the U.K. Sophie Tucker , a Russian Jewish immigrant, was told by promoter Chris Brown that she was not attractive enough to succeed in show business without doing Blackface, so she performed that way for the first two years onstage, until one day she decided to go without it, and achieved much greater success being herself from that point on, especially with her song "Some of These Days." Moms Mabley

1130-473: A Chicago-based syndicate with no experience in the movie business; the syndicate's chaotic reign lasted until February 1953, when the stock and control were reacquired by Hughes. The studio's net loss in 1952 was over $ 10 million, and shooting had taken place for just a single in-house production over the last five months of the year. During the turmoil, Samuel Goldwyn ended his eleven-year-long distribution deal with RKO. Wald and Krasna escaped their contracts and

1356-510: A Reasonable Doubt , a remake of a 1956 RKO film directed by Fritz Lang, fared even worse critically, receiving a 7% rating on Rotten Tomatoes . A stage version of Top Hat toured Great Britain in the second half of 2011. The most recent RKO film coproductions are the well-received A Late Quartet (2012) and the 2015 flop Barely Lethal . Two months after Dina Merrill's May 2017 death, independent producer Keith Patterson sued RKO, Hartley, and his second-in-command, Mary Beth O'Connor, over

1582-527: A Wonderful Life and Notorious , and it distributed many celebrated films by animation pioneer Walt Disney and leading independent producer Samuel Goldwyn . Though it often could not compete financially for top star and director contracts, RKO's below-the-line personnel were among the finest, including composer Max Steiner , cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca , and designer Van Nest Polglase . Maverick industrialist Howard Hughes took over RKO in 1948. After years of disarray and decline under his control,

1808-425: A bad place to have rheumatism, on the back of my neck. DALE: No, no, where would you want a better place than on the back of your neck? SMITH: On the back of your neck. My neck hurts me, doctor; it's terrible. DALE: Oh, well, sit down and open your neck. Smith tries to object. DALE: Mister, please, I got no patience! SMITH: I shouldn't have been here either! The patient explains that he has already seen

2034-463: A commitment to entertainment equally inoffensive to men, women and children. Acts that violated this ethos (e.g., those that used words such as "hell") were admonished and threatened with expulsion from the week's remaining performances or were canceled altogether. In spite of such threats, performers routinely flouted this censorship , often to the delight of the very audience members whose sensibilities were supposedly endangered. He eventually instituted

2260-604: A consequence, they were fired by RKO per the terms of the Waldorf Statement , the major studios' pledge to "eliminate any subversives". Scott, Dmytryk, and eight others who also defied HUAC—dubbed the Hollywood Ten —were blacklisted across the industry. Ironically, the studio's major success of the year was Crossfire , a Scott–Dmytryk film. Odlum concluded it was time to exit the film business, and he put Atlas's remaining RKO shares—approximately 25 percent of

2486-401: A coproduction between RKO and Lupino's company, The Filmakers. Of more historic note, Lupino was Hollywood's only female director during the period; of the five pictures The Filmakers made with RKO, Lupino directed three, including her now celebrated The Hitch-Hiker (1953). Exposing many moviegoers to Asian cinema for the first time, RKO distributed Akira Kurosawa 's epochal Rashomon in

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2712-420: A deep, pessimistic voice and Dale in a high, wheedling tenor. During the 1920s, Smith and Dale became famous for their signature sketch "Doctor Kronkheit and His Only Living Patient," which like " Who's on First? " for Abbott and Costello , became one of the famous comedy sketches of the 20th century. The name of the doctor is an inside joke: Smith and Dale, both being Jewish, named the physician Kronkheit, which

2938-438: A designer's studio. It never had a stable of important actors, writers, or directors, but   ... it was rich in artists and special-effects technicians. As a result, its most distinctive pictures contained a strong element of fantasy—not so much the fantasy of horror, which during the thirties was the province of Universal , but the fantasy of the marvelous and adventurous." As a group, the studio's craft divisions were among

3164-591: A different name – Moran and Mack, unrelated to the later group of the same name . Joe Sultzer became Joe Smith, and Charlie Marks became Charlie Dale. Beginning in 1902, Smith and Dale partnered with singing comedians Will Lester and Jack Coleman to form a group called The Avon Comedy Four. Initially booked for a series of appearances in the Catskills region, the act was so successful that performances were continued in many other clubs for years after. Aside from Smith and Dale, membership of this group changed often over

3390-502: A doctor: SMITH: He told me I had snew in my blood. DALE: What did he told you? SMITH: He told me I had snew in my blood. DALE: Snew? What's snew? SMITH: Nothing. What's new with you? SMITH (reacting to Dale spitting on his stethoscope:) Doctor, what is that you're doing? DALE: Sterilization. DALE: Now inhale, please. SMITH: What? DALE: Inhale. SMITH: What? DALE: Inhale! I would like to see you. SMITH: Inhale I would like to see you! DALE: The whole trouble with you

3616-478: A dozen movies for the studio over two decades. From soon after its debut in early 1935 until July 1942, Louis de Rochemont 's innovative documentary series The March of Time was distributed by RKO; at its peak in the late 1930s and early 1940s, over twenty million filmgoers saw its two-reelers each month in eleven thousand US and foreign theaters. Lacking the financial resources of industry leaders MGM , Paramount , and Fox , RKO turned out many pictures during

3842-480: A form of entertainment. He incorporated them in his shows as early as 1902. Later, he entered into a partnership with the Famous Players–Lasky , a major Hollywood production company and an affiliate of Paramount Pictures . By the late 1920s, most vaudeville shows included a healthy selection of cinema. Earlier in the century, many vaudevillians, cognizant of the threat represented by cinema, held out hope that

4068-562: A half-decade, with a planned slate of seventeen features. RKO released Fritz Lang's final two American films, While the City Sleeps and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (both 1956), but years of mismanagement had driven away many directors, producers, and stars. The studio was also saddled with the last of the inflated B movies such as Pearl of the South Pacific (1955) and The Conqueror (1956) that enchanted Hughes. While

4294-539: 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 Thing from Another World (1951), a science-fiction drama coproduced with Howard Hawks's Winchester Pictures, is seen as a classic of the genre. In 1952, RKO put out two films directed by Fritz Lang , Rancho Notorious and Clash by Night . The latter

4520-495: A horse race) and Mutiny on the Body (they visit a shady sanitarium for a rest cure). Smith and Dale adapted surprisingly well to Columbia's fast-paced format, but they made no other movies for the studio; executive producer Jules White didn't care for their dialect shtick and didn't renew their contract. Smith and Dale also made three Soundies in 1941. These were three-minute films that played in coin-operated "movie jukeboxes". In

4746-622: A large payout in April and later in the year signed a three-picture deal with MGM. Sarnoff and Kennedy began talks about setting up a holding company funded by RCA cash and KAO securities, but plans stalled as Sarnoff grew frustrated with Kennedy's reluctance to pay for the Photophone work proceeding, if slowly, at FBO and Pathé. An attempt by Kennedy to reorganize yet another studio that had turned to him for help, now ERPI-aligned First National, further strained his relationship with Sarnoff and raised

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4972-415: A launching pad for later careers. They left live performance before achieving the national celebrity of earlier vaudeville stars, and found fame in new venues. The line between live and filmed performances was blurred by the number of vaudeville entrepreneurs who made more or less successful forays into the movie business. For example, Alexander Pantages quickly realized the importance of motion pictures as

5198-440: A legal battle with Wall Street Financial Associates (WSFA). Hartley and Merrill claimed that the owners of WSFA fraudulently induced them into signing an acquisition agreement by concealing their "cynical and rapacious" plans to purchase RKO, with the intention only of dismantling it. WSFA sought a preliminary injunction prohibiting RKO's majority owners from selling their interests in the company to any third parties. The WSFA motion

5424-486: A less tense merger, engineered by Murdock, was finalized, establishing the Keith-Albee-Orpheum (KAO) theater chain. With Pathé's finances in a ditch, Murdock, at Walker's prodding, turned to Kennedy for help in reorganizing the studio and consolidating it with PDC. The two men found that they had mutual interests, in particular, removing Edward Albee , the "Czar of Vaudeville" and Murdock's nominal boss, from

5650-535: A marketing strategy to attract many different audiences. As stated in Andrew Erdman 's book Blue Vaudeville , the Vaudeville stage was "a highly sexualized space ... where unclad bodies, provocative dancers, and singers of 'blue' lyrics all vied for attention." Such performances highlighted and objectified the female body as a "sexual delight", but more than that, historians think that Vaudeville marked

5876-518: A massive reorganization following an attempted hostile takeover. With RKO General dismantling its broadcast business, RKO Pictures Inc., along with the original RKO studio's trademarks , remake rights, and other remaining assets, was put up for sale. After a bid by RKO Pictures' own management team failed, the managers made a deal with Wesray Capital Corporation —under the control of former US treasury secretary William E. Simon and investor Ray Chambers —to buy RKO through Entertainment Acquisition Co.,

6102-525: A memo, Selznick wrote, "I feel, in spite of his enormous ears and bad chin line, that his charm is   ... tremendous". Selznick's tenure was widely considered masterful: In 1931, before he arrived, the studio had produced forty-two features for $ 16 million in total budgets. In 1932, under Selznick, forty-one features were made for $ 10.2 million, with clear improvement in quality and popularity. He backed several major successes, including A Bill of Divorcement (1932), with Cukor directing Hepburn's debut, and

6328-530: A method of understanding different groups and their societal positions within their cities. The use of the greenhorn immigrant for comedic effect showcased how immigrants were viewed as new arrivals, but also what they could aspire to be. In addition to interpreting visual ethnic caricatures, the Irish American ideal of transitioning from the shanty to the lace curtain became a model of economic upward mobility for immigrant groups. The continued growth of

6554-479: A new subsidiary, General Teleradio. Thomas F. O'Neil , son of General Tire's founder William O'Neil and chairman of the broadcasting group, saw that the company's new television stations, indeed all TV outlets, were in need of programming. In September 1954, WOR-TV had launched the Million Dollar Movie program, running a single film for a week, twice every night plus Saturday and Sunday matinees;

6780-409: A newly created purchasing entity. The sale was completed in late 1987, and Wesray linked RKO with its Six Flags amusement parks to form RKO/Six Flags Entertainment Inc. In 1989, RKO Pictures, which had produced no films while under Wesray control, was sold off yet again. Actress and Post Cereals heiress Dina Merrill and her husband, producer Ted Hartley , acquired a majority interest and merged

7006-547: A nominal profit of a bit more than $ 500,000 in 1941. Many of RKO's other artistically ambitious pictures were also dying at the box office and it was losing its last exclusive deal with a major star as well. Rogers, after winning an Oscar in 1941 for her performance in the previous year's Kitty Foyle , held out for a freelance contract like Lombard's or Grant's. No star appeared in more RKO films than Rogers: thirty between 1931 and 1943, then one-offs in 1946 and 1956. On June 17, 1942, Schaefer tendered his resignation. He departed

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7232-415: A now fabled performance as Quasimodo in the latter, returned periodically to the studio, headlining six more RKO features. For Maureen O'Hara , who made her American screen debut in the film, it was the first of ten pictures she made for RKO through 1952. Carole Lombard signed freelance deals for headlining roles in four films between 1939 and 1941—the last of her pictures to come out before her death in

7458-433: A number of unpleasant harbingers for all of Hollywood. The British government imposed a 75 percent tax on films produced abroad; along with similarly confiscatory taxes and quota laws enacted by other countries, this led to a sharp decline in foreign revenues. The postwar attendance boom peaked sooner than expected and television emerged as a competitor for audience interest. Across the board, profits fell—a 27 percent drop for

7684-471: A number of well-received films he made for RKO. RKO, and the movie industry as a whole, had its most profitable year ever in 1946. A Goldwyn production released by RKO, The Best Years of Our Lives , was the most successful Hollywood film of the decade and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. But the legal status of the industry's reigning business model was increasingly being called into doubt:

7910-538: A pair of four-film series, the comedic Great Gildersleeve (1943–44) and noirish Dick Tracy (1945–47). Film noir , to which lower budgets lent themselves, became something of a house style at the studio; indeed, the RKO B Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) is widely seen as initiating noir's classic period. Its cinematographer , Nicholas Musuraca , who began at FBO in the 1920s and stayed with RKO through 1954,

8136-468: A pair of professional matchmakers, constantly bickering back and forth. They also ran through some of their sketches in Paramount Pictures and Vitaphone short subjects. Their "firemen" sketch, in which Joe and Charlie are lazy firemen who hardly pay attention when someone reports a fire, was filmed as The False Alarm Fire Co. !1929) and again as Fun in a Fire House (1936). Another routine

8362-623: A plane crash. After costarring with Ginger Rogers for the eighth time in The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939), Fred Astaire departed the studio. The studio's B Western star of the period was George O'Brien , who made eighteen RKO pictures, sixteen between 1938 and 1940. The Saint in New York (1938) successfully launched a B detective series featuring the character Simon Templar that ran through 1943. The Wheeler and Woolsey comedy series ended in 1937 when Woolsey became ill (he died

8588-523: A rare exception to Soundies' all-musical policy, Smith and Dale did spoken-comedy routines. Laurel and Hardy , another venerable comedy team, were scheduled to appear in the Technicolor musical Two Tickets to Broadway (1951), but scheduling problems forced them to withdraw. They were replaced by Smith and Dale, appearing as Leo and Harry, the proprietors of the Palace Deli. In a throwback to

8814-486: A remake of a 1949 RKO movie that was itself a King Kong knockoff; the Disney coproduction was distributed by Buena Vista. In the early 2000s, the company was involved as a coproducer of TV movies and modestly budgeted features, about one a year. In 2003, it coproduced a Broadway stage version of the 1936 Astaire–Rogers vehicle Swing Time , under the title Never Gonna Dance . That same year, RKO Pictures entered into

9040-528: A serious actress but was advised to remain in comedy. She went on to star in a few films but again returned to vaudeville, her original career. Another famous vaudevillian actress was Trixie Friganza , originally born Delia O'Callaghan. She had a famous catchphrase: "You know Trixie with her bag of tricks." She began her career in opera, performing to help provide for her family. The oldest of three daughters, she wanted to help her family financially but had to do it secretly, as female performers were frowned on at

9266-572: A set of guidelines to be an audience member at his show, and these were reinforced by the ushers working in the theatre. This "polite entertainment" also extended to Keith's company members. He went to extreme measures to maintain this level of modesty. Keith even went as far as posting warnings backstage such as this: "Don't say 'slob' or 'son of a gun' or 'hully gee' on the stage unless you want to be canceled peremptorily... if you are guilty of uttering anything sacrilegious or even suggestive you will be immediately closed and will never again be allowed in

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9492-428: A seven-year contract and cast her in the big-budget musical Flying Down to Rio (1933). Rogers was paired with Fred Astaire , making his second film. Billed fourth and fifth respectively, the picture turned them into stars. Hermes Pan , assistant to the film's dance director, became one of Hollywood's leading choreographers through his subsequent work with Astaire. Along with Columbia Pictures , RKO became one of

9718-459: A single (an individual male or female performer); next would be an alley-oop (an acrobatic act); then another single, followed by yet another sketch such as a blackface comedy. The acts that followed these for the rest of the show would vary from musicals to jugglers to song-and-dance singles and end with a final extravaganza – either musical or drama – with the full company. These shows would feature such stars as ragtime and jazz pianist Eubie Blake ,

9944-402: A single host introducing a series of acts became a popular television style and can be seen consistently in the development of television, from The Milton Berle Show in 1948 to Late Night with David Letterman in the 1980s. The multi-act format had renewed success in shows such as Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar and The Ed Sullivan Show . Today, performers such as Bill Irwin ,

10170-678: A spending spree, buying up theater after theater to add to its exhibition chain. In October 1930, the company purchased a 50 percent stake in the New York Van Beuren studio, which specialized in cartoons and live shorts. Looking to get out of the film business, Kennedy arranged for RKO to purchase Pathé, in a deal that protected his associates' bond investments while it crushed many small stockholders who had bought in at artificially high prices. (Indeed, Kennedy, who had previously sold all of his Pathé holdings, started buying back bonds, which he turned around for substantial gains.) The deal

10396-707: A subsidiary created three years earlier, RKO Pictures Inc. In collaboration with Universal Studios, RKO put out five films over the next three years. Although the studio frequently worked with major names—including Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas , Jack Nicholson in The Border , and Nastassja Kinski in Cat People (all 1982)—it met with little success. Corporate restructuring brought RKO General under

10622-529: A subsidiary of AT&T 's Western Electric division. The industry's two largest companies, Paramount and Loew's / MGM , along with First National Pictures —third of the silent era "Big Three" major studios , but by then in marked decline—and Universal Pictures , were poised to contract with ERPI and its Vitaphone and Movietone systems for sound conversion as well. Seeking a customer for Photophone, then general manager of RCA David Sarnoff approached financier Joseph P. Kennedy in late 1927 about using

10848-659: A surprise to audience members when such beautiful women actually possessed talent in addition to their appealing looks. This element of surprise colored much of the reaction to the female entertainment of this time. In the 1920s, announcements seeking all-girl bands for vaudeville performances appeared in industry publications like Billboard , Variety and in newspapers. Bands like The Ingenues and The Dixie Sweethearts were well-publicized, while other groups were simply described as "all-girl Revue". According to Feminist Theory, similar trends in theater and film objectified women, an example of male gaze , as women's role in public life

11074-411: A taste for the risqué . In the 1840s, the minstrel show , another type of variety performance, and "the first emanation of a pervasive and purely American mass culture", grew to enormous popularity and formed what Nick Tosches called "the heart of 19th-century show business". A significant influence also came from "Dutch" (i.e., German or faux-German) minstrels and comedians. Medicine shows traveled

11300-496: A theatre where Mr. Keith is in authority." Along these same lines of discipline, Keith's theatre managers would occasionally send out blue envelopes with orders to omit certain suggestive lines of songs and possible substitutions for those words. If actors chose to ignore these orders or quit, they would get "a black mark" on their name and would never again be allowed to work on the Keith Circuit. Thus, actors learned to follow

11526-628: A time in which the female body became its own "sexual spectacle". This sexual image began sprouting everywhere an American went: the shops, a restaurant, the grocery store, etc. The more this image brought in the highest revenue, the more Vaudeville focused on acts involving women. Even acts that were as innocent as a sister act were higher sellers than a good brother act. Consequently, Erdman adds that female Vaudeville performers such as Julie Mackey and Gibson's Bathing Girls began to focus less on talent and more on physical appeal through their figure, tight gowns, and other revealing attire. It eventually came as

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11752-584: A trained mule) shared a stage with acts more usually regarded as "highbrow" or classical entertainment (opera vocalists, classical musicians). B. F. Keith took the next step, starting in Boston , where he built an empire of theatres and brought vaudeville to the United States and Canada. Later, E. F. Albee , adoptive grandfather of the Pulitzer Prize -winning playwright Edward Albee , managed

11978-485: A typical North American vaudeville performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. Types of acts have included popular and classical musicians, singers, dancers, comedians, trained animals , magicians, ventriloquists , strongmen , female and male impersonators , acrobats, clowns, illustrated songs , jugglers, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels , and films. A vaudeville performer

12204-401: A unique ethnic interplay between Irish American use of self-deprecation as humor and their diverse inner city surroundings. The interactions between newly arrived immigrants and settled immigrants within the backdrop of the unknown American urban landscape allowed vaudeville to be utilized as an avenue for expression and understanding. The often hostile immigrant experience in their new country

12430-462: A weakened and troubled studio, but RKO was about to turn the corner. Propelled by the box-office boom of World War II and guided by new management, RKO made a strong comeback over the next half-decade. By the end of June 1942, Floyd Odlum had taken over a controlling interest in the company via his Atlas Corporation , edging aside the Rockefellers and Sarnoff. Charles Koerner , former head of

12656-505: A wide range of clientele. Many small towns had purpose-built theatres. A small yet interesting example might include what is called Grange Halls in northern New England, still being used. These are old-fashioned, wooden buildings with creaky, dimly-lit, wooden stages, which were meant to offset the isolation of a farming lifestyle. These stages could offer anything from child performers to contra-dances to visits by Santa to local, musical talent, to homemade foods such as whoopee pies. Some of

12882-506: A young actress who would quickly become one of the studio's big stars, Katharine Hepburn . John Barrymore was also enlisted for a few memorable performances. In November 1931, just as Selznick was assuming his new post, the separate Pathé distribution network was folded into RKO's. After less than a year of largely independent operation out of Culver City, the Pathé feature film division soon followed (due to exhibition contracts, features from

13108-494: Is Yiddish and German for "sickness". Thus we have a doctor named Dr. Sickness. Indeed, a hospital in German is called a Krankenhaus, or literally "sick house". Dr. Kronkheit (played by Dale, not Smith as is sometimes reported) is greeted by skeptical patient Smith: SMITH: Are you a doctor? DALE: I'm a doctor. SMITH: I'm dubious. DALE: I'm glad to know you, Mr. Dubious. Most of the sketch has Dr. Kronkheit trying to determine

13334-628: Is a central figure in creating the look of classic noir. Design chief Albert D'Agostino —another long-termer, who succeeded Van Nest Polglase in 1941—and art director Walter Keller, along with others in the department, such as art directors Carroll Clark and Jack Okey and set decorator Darrell Silvera , are similarly credited. The studio's 1940s list of contract players was filled with noir regulars: Robert Mitchum (who graduated to major star status) and Robert Ryan each made no fewer than ten film noirs for RKO. Gloria Grahame , Jane Greer , and Lawrence Tierney were also notable studio players in

13560-494: Is often considered to have been the death knell of vaudeville. Though talk of its resurrection was heard during the 1930s and later, the demise of the supporting apparatus of the circuits and the higher cost of live performance made any large-scale renewal of vaudeville unrealistic. The most striking examples of Gilded Age theatre architecture were commissioned by the big time vaudeville magnates and stood as monuments of their wealth and ambition. Examples of such architecture are

13786-484: Is often referred to as a "vaudevillian". Vaudeville developed from many sources, including the concert saloon , minstrelsy , freak shows , dime museums , and literary American burlesque . Called "the heart of American show business", vaudeville was one of the most popular types of entertainment in North America for several decades. The origin of the term is obscure but often explained as being derived from

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14012-612: Is you need eyeglasses. SMITH: Eyeglasses?! I suppose if I had a headache I'd need an umbrella. Dr. Kronkheit's fee is $ 10: SMITH: For what? DALE: For my advice. SMITH: Ten dollars for your advice? DALE: That's right. SMITH: Well, Doctor, here is two dollars; take it. That's my advice! In 1951, the Dr. Kronkheit routine was filmed for posterity (in color) for the RKO Radio Pictures musical Two Tickets to Broadway . Smith and Dale made several short comedy movies in

14238-518: The vau de vire origin, a truncated form of chanson du Vau de Vire ' song of the Valley of the Vire ' . Around 1610, Jean le Houx collected these works as Le Livre des Chants nouveaux de Vaudevire , which is probably the direct origin of the word. With its first subtle appearances within the early 1860s, vaudeville was not initially a common form of entertainment. The form gradually evolved from

14464-536: The Academy Award for Best Picture ; it cost a profligate $ 1.4 million, however, and lost nearly half that on its first release. Cimmaron' s female principal, Irene Dunne , was the studio's one major homegrown star of this early pre-Code era; having made her screen debut as the lead in the 1930 musical Leathernecking , she would headline at the studio for the entire decade, under contracts that gave her an unusual amount of power. Other significant actors of

14690-672: The Marx Brothers , Jimmy Durante , Bill "Bojangles" Robinson , Edgar Bergen , Fanny Brice , Burns and Allen , and Eddie Cantor , used the prominence gained in live variety performance to vault into the new medium of cinema. In doing so, such performers often exhausted in a few moments of screen time the novelty of an act that might have kept them on tour for several years. Other performers who entered in vaudeville's later years, including Jack Benny , Abbott and Costello , Kate Smith , Cary Grant , Bob Hope , Milton Berle , Judy Garland , Rose Marie , Sammy Davis Jr. , Red Skelton , Larry Storch and The Three Stooges , used vaudeville only as

14916-653: The San Fernando Valley as a movie ranch for exteriors and large-scale standing sets. With RKO Productions' films handled by sibling subsidiary RKO Distributing Corp., the studio released a limited slate of twelve features in its first year; in 1930, the figure more than doubled to twenty-nine. That July, RKO Productions Inc. was renamed RKO Radio Pictures Inc. RKO Pictures Ltd. was set up to handle British distribution. Encouraged by Rio Rita ' s success, RKO produced several costly musicals incorporating Technicolor sequences, among them Dixiana and Hit

15142-671: The Tivoli Theatre are housed at the State Library of Victoria , Melbourne , Australia , with additional personal papers of vaudevillian performers from the Tivoli Theatre, including extensive costume and set design holdings, held by the Performing Arts Collection , Arts Centre Melbourne . The American Vaudeville Museum, one of the largest collections of vaudeville memorabilia, is located at

15368-659: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bigelow v. RKO that the company was liable for damages under antitrust statutes for having denied an independent movie house access to first-run films —a common practice among all of the Big Five. With profits at a high point, Floyd Odlum cashed in by selling off about 40 percent of his shares in the company to a group of investment firms. After Koerner's death, Radio-Keith-Orpheum president N. Peter Rathvon and RKO Radio Pictures president Ned E. Depinet had exchanged positions, with Depinet moving to

15594-866: The Yankee Network , a New England regional radio network, in 1943. In 1950, it purchased the West Coast regional Don Lee Broadcasting System , and two years later, the Bamberger Broadcasting Service , owner of the WOR radio and television stations in New York City. The latter acquisition gave General Tire majority control of the Mutual Broadcasting System , one of America's leading radio networks. General Tire then merged its broadcasting interests into

15820-659: The concert saloon and variety hall into its mature form throughout the 1870s and 1880s. This more gentle form was known as "Polite Vaudeville". In the years before the American Civil War , entertainment existed on a different scale. Similar variety theatre existed before 1860 in Europe and elsewhere. In the US, as early as the first decades of the 19th century, theatergoers could enjoy a performance consisting of Shakespeare plays, acrobatics, singing, dancing, and comedy. As

16046-556: The optical printer and lifelike matte work, an art that reached its apex with 1941's Citizen Kane . Pan Berman had received his first screen credit in 1925 as a nineteen-year-old assistant director on FBO's Midnight Molly . He departed RKO in December 1939 after policy clashes with studio president George J. Schaefer , handpicked the previous year by the Rockefellers and backed by Sarnoff. With Berman gone, Schaefer became in effect production chief, though other men—including

16272-457: The "Irwin Sisters". Many years later, their act had taken off and with performances in both vaudeville and burlesque at famous music halls, until Irwin decided to continue her career on her own. She then changed her approach to vaudeville, performing African-American-influenced songs, even later writing her songs. She introduced her signature in vaudeville, "The Bully Song", which was performed in

16498-425: The "big time" (possible remuneration of several thousand dollars per week in large, urban theatres largely patronized by the middle and upper-middle classes). As performers rose in renown and established regional and national followings, they worked their way into the less arduous working conditions and better pay of the big time. The capital of the big time was New York City's Palace Theatre (or just "The Palace" in

16724-599: The "firemen" sketch on live television, with Art Carney as the frantic fire victim) and " The Steve Allen Show " of September 2, 1956, with Louis Nye as the fire victim. They also played The Ed Sullivan Show . Smith and Dale still performed in the 1960s, including an appearance at New York's Donnell Library Center . The partnership, known among entertainers as the longest in show-business history, endured until Charlie Dale's death at age 89, on November 16, 1971. Smith continued to perform, mainly in guest appearances on television sitcoms, until his death on February 22, 1981, at

16950-598: The Avon Comedy Four's restaurant sketch, Smith and Dale rib each other continuously as they serve their patrons. The dialogue is so out of character with the script, and so long in comparison to other exchanges in the movie, that there can be no doubt that Smith and Dale were allowed to insert their own material into the script. Smith and Dale continued working as a team in stage, radio, nightclub, film, and television productions. They were frequent guests on New York-based variety shows like Cavalcade of Stars (doing

17176-458: The Beach (1947). RKO and Orson Welles had an arm's-length reunion via The Stranger (1946), an independent production he starred in as well as directed. Welles later called it his worst film, but it was the only one he ever made that turned a profit in its first run. In December 1946, the studio released Frank Capra 's It's a Wonderful Life ; while it would eventually be recognized as one of

17402-518: The Big Five saw their profits dwindle in 1948—from Fox, down 11 percent, to Loew's/MGM, down 62 percent—but at RKO they virtually vanished: from $ 5.1 million in 1947 to $ 0.5 million, a drop of 90 percent. The production-distribution end of the RKO business, now deep in the red, would never make a profit again. Offscreen, Robert Mitchum's arrest and conviction for marijuana possession—he served two months in jail—was widely assumed to mean career death for RKO's most promising young star, but Hughes surprised

17628-639: The Chinese, Italians, Germans and Jews utilized ethnic caricatures to understand themselves as well as the Irish. The urban diversity within the vaudeville stage and audience also reflected their societal status, with the working class constituting two-thirds of the typical vaudeville audience. The ethnic caricatures that now comprised American humor reflected the positive and negative interactions between ethnic groups in America's cities. The caricatures served as

17854-565: The Deck , both scripted and directed, like Rio Rita , by Luther Reed . Following the example of the other major studios, RKO had planned to create its own musical revue , Radio Revels . Promoted as the studio's most extravagant production to date, it was to be photographed entirely in Technicolor. The project was abandoned, as the public's taste for musicals temporarily subsided. From more than sixty Hollywood musicals in 1929 and over eighty

18080-576: The Disney association was beneficial, RKO's own product was widely seen as declining in quality and Briskin was gone by the end of the year. Pandro Berman—who had filled in on three previous occasions—accepted the position of production chief on a noninterim basis. He left the job before the decade's turn, but his brief tenure resulted in some of the most notable films in studio history, including Gunga Din , with Grant and McLaglen; Love Affair , starring Dunne and Charles Boyer ; and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (all 1939). Charles Laughton , who gave

18306-477: The Fight and Flying Padre . In early 1952, Hughes fought off a lawsuit by screenwriter Paul Jarrico , who had been caught up in the latest round of HUAC hearings; Hughes had fired him and removed his name from the credits of a recent release, The Las Vegas Story , a money-losing melodrama starring Jane Russell. The studio owner subsequently ordered 100 RKO employees on "leave of absence" while he established

18532-584: The French expression voix de ville ' voice of the city ' . A second hypothesis is that it comes from the 15th-century songs on satire by poet Olivier Basselin , "Vau de Vire". In his Connections television series, science historian James Burke argues that the term is a corruption of the French Vau de Vire ' Vire River Valley ' , an area known for its bawdy drinking songs and where Basselin lived. The Oxford English Dictionary also endorses

18758-591: The Hollywood studios except for RKO seemingly bowed to the theater owners and prohibited radio appearances by their contract actors. The ban soon crumbled. Selznick spent a mere fifteen months as RKO production chief, resigning over a dispute with new corporate president Merlin Aylesworth concerning creative control. One of his last acts at RKO was to approve a screen test for a thirty-three-year-old, balding Broadway song-and-dance man named Fred Astaire . In

18984-567: The Hollywood studios from 1946 to 1947. In July, RKO Pathé's signature newsreel was sold to Warner Bros. for a reported $ 4 million. The phenomenon later called McCarthyism was building strength, and in October, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began hearings into Communism in the motion picture industry. Two of RKO's top talents, Dmytryk and producer Adrian Scott , refused to cooperate. As

19210-423: The Irish becoming subject to discrimination due to their ethnic physical and cultural characteristics. The ethnic stereotypes of Irish through their greenhorn depiction alluded to their newly arrived status as immigrant Americans, with the stereotype portrayed in avenues of entertainment. Following the Irish immigration wave were several waves in which new immigrants from different backgrounds came in contact with

19436-453: The Irish in America's urban centers. Already settled and being native English speakers, Irish Americans took hold of these advantages and began to assert their positions in the immigrant racial hierarchy based on skin tone and assimilation status, cementing job positions that were previously unavailable to them as recently arrived immigrants. As a result, Irish Americans became prominent in vaudeville entertainment as curators and actors, creating

19662-572: The RKO Pathé line of newsreels and shorts, was likewise changed from "Radio Pictures" to "RKO Radio Pictures". In February 1937, Selznick, now a leading independent producer, took over RKO's Culver City studio and Forty Acres , as the backlot was known, under a long-term lease. Gone with the Wind , his coproduction with MGM , was largely shot there. In addition to its central Hollywood studio, RKO production now revolved around its Encino ranch . While

19888-589: The RKO theater chain and allied with Odlum, had assumed the title of production chief some time prior to Schaefer's departure. With Schaefer gone, Koerner could actually do the job. Announcing a new corporate motto, "Showmanship in Place of Genius: A New Deal at RKO", a snipe at Schaefer's artistic ambitions in general and his sponsorship of Welles in particular, Koerner brought the studio much-needed stability until his death in February 1946. The change in RKO's fortunes

20114-459: The Rising Sun , released a few months later, was similarly profitable. Much more than the other Big Five studios, RKO relied on B pictures to fill up its schedule. Of the thirty-one features released by RKO in 1944, for instance, ten were budgeted below $ 200,000, twelve were in the $ 200,000 to $ 500,000 range, and only nine cost more. In contrast, a clear majority of the features put out by

20340-634: The Saint and the Falcon were so similar that Saint creator Leslie Charteris sued RKO. The Falcon was first played by George Sanders , who had appeared five times as the Saint. He bowed out after four Falcon films and was replaced by his brother, Tom Conway . Conway had a nine-film run in the part before the series ended in 1946. Johnny Weissmuller starred in six RKO Tarzan pictures for producer Sol Lesser between 1943 and 1948 before being replaced by Lex Barker for five more. Producer Herman Schlom oversaw

20566-502: The Seven Dwarfs (1937) was the highest-grossing movie in the period between The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Gone with the Wind (1939). The theater operation excepted, on December 31, 1936, most of the domestic RKO subsidiaries, including RKO Distributing Corp. and its exchanges, were folded into RKO Radio Pictures Inc. Following the shift in print advertising a few years earlier, the screen brand on RKO's output, aside from

20792-423: The United States and Canada and a large interest in two vaudeville circuits. Another major circuit was that of Alexander Pantages . In his heyday, Pantages owned more than 30 vaudeville theatres and controlled, through management contracts, perhaps 60 more in both the United States and Canada. At its height, vaudeville played across multiple strata of economic class and auditorium size. On the vaudeville circuit, it

21018-466: The United States and Canada, first for about three months in Emil Boreo’s Mirage de Paris followed by nine months in their own Ballet Caprice . After Jack quit the act near the end of 1927, Betty continued to manage the troupe and, with a new dance partner, toured throughout the northeastern United States for the next six months as Betty Felsen and Company. The final performance of Ballet Caprice

21244-494: The United States, sixteen months after its original 1950 Japanese release. The only smash hits released by RKO in the 1950s came out during this period, but neither was an in-house production: Goldwyn's Hans Christian Andersen (1952) was followed by Disney's Peter Pan (1953). The first two shorts directed by a twenty-two-year-old photographer from the Bronx were both released in 1951 by RKO Pathé— Stanley Kubrick 's Day of

21470-489: The University of Arizona. RKO Radio Pictures RKO Radio Pictures Inc. , commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO , was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood 's Golden Age . The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chain and Joseph P. Kennedy's Film Booking Offices of America studio were brought together under

21696-543: The aegis of the new holding company GenCorp , and starting with the Meryl Streep vehicle Plenty (1985), RKO Pictures took on more projects as sole studio backer. In January 1986, Paramount signed a two-year distribution agreement with the company. Films such as the erotic thriller Half Moon Street (1986) and the Vietnam War drama Hamburger Hill (1987) followed, but production ended as GenCorp underwent

21922-581: The age of 97. Late in their lives, both men wound up in the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, New Jersey, an assisted living and nursing care facility available to those who have dedicated the major portion of their professional lives to the theatrical industry. Smith and Dale are buried in the same cemetery plot, with a common headstone. The gravestone notes the name of the three people buried there, Dale and his wife Mollie and

22148-479: The business and renamed it List Industries. Hughes soon found himself the target of no fewer than five separate lawsuits filed by minority shareholders in RKO, accusing him of malfeasance in his dealings with the Chicago group and a wide array of acts of mismanagement. "RKO's contract list is down to three actors and 127 lawyers", quipped Dick Powell . Leery of the studio's mounting problems and sparring with it over

22374-1027: The business side of Vaudeville, like Amanda Thorpe, a white woman who founded a black theater in Virginia, and the Griffin Sisters , who managed several theaters in their efforts to create a Black Vaudeville circuit. Black performers and patrons participated in a racially segregated vaudeville circuit. Though many popular acts like Lewis and Walker, Ernest Hogan , Irving Jones , and the Hyers Sisters played to both white and black audiences, early Vaudeville performances for white audiences were limited to one Black act per show, and performers faced discrimination in restaurants and lodging. Entertainers and entrepreneurs like The Whitman Sisters , Pat Chapelle and John Isham created and managed their own touring companies; others took on theater ownership and management and created Black vaudeville circuits, as

22600-500: The chain to its greatest success. Circuits such as those managed by Keith-Albee provided vaudeville's greatest economic innovation and the principal source of its industrial strength. They enabled a chain of allied vaudeville houses that remedied the chaos of the single-theatre booking system by contracting acts for regional and national tours. These could easily be lengthened from a few weeks to two years. Albee also gave national prominence to vaudeville's trumpeting "polite" entertainment,

22826-420: The circuit's central office weekly, follow each act's description. The bill illustrates the typical pattern of opening the show with a "dumb" act to allow patrons to find their seats, placing strong acts in second and penultimate positions, and leaving the weakest act for the end, to clear the house. In this bill, as in many vaudeville shows, acts often associated with "lowbrow" or popular entertainment (acrobats,

23052-423: The collapse of plans to create multiple TV series based on RKO properties, starting with Citizen Kane . According to Patterson's suit, O'Connor controls access to Hartley and holds both his healthcare proxy and an option to acquire RKO and its intellectual property at a deep markdown after his death. As of November 2022, Hartley, then 98 years old, was still making public appearances connected with his avocation as

23278-473: The company with their Pavilion Communications. After a brief period as RKO/Pavilion, the business was reorganized as RKO Pictures LLC. With the inaugural RKO production under Hartley and Merrill's ownership, False Identity (1990), the company also stepped into the distribution business. In 1992, it handled the well-regarded independent production Laws of Gravity , directed by Nick Gomez . RKO's next significant film came in 1998 with Mighty Joe Young ,

23504-510: The company's losses against his earnings elsewhere. Hughes had reneged on his promise to give Odlum first option on buying the RKO theater chain when he divested it, and was now paying the price. With negotiations between the two at a stalemate, in July 1955, Hughes turned around and sold RKO Radio Pictures Inc. to the General Tire and Rubber Company for $ 25 million, leaving himself and Odlum

23730-516: The control of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in October 1928. RCA executive David Sarnoff engineered the merger to create a market for the company's sound-on-film technology, RCA Photophone , and in early 1929 production began under the RKO name (an initialism of Radio-Keith-Orpheum ). Two years later, another Kennedy concern, the Pathé studio, was folded into the operation. By

23956-400: The corporate offices in New York and Rathvon relocating to Hollywood and doubling as production chief while a permanent replacement was sought for Koerner. On the first day of 1947, producer and Oscar-winning screenwriter Dore Schary , who had been working at the studio on loan from Selznick, took over the role. RKO appeared in good shape to build on its recent successes, but the year brought

24182-416: The countryside offering programs of comedy, music, jugglers , and other novelties along with displays of tonics, salves, and miracle elixirs, while " Wild West " shows provided romantic vistas of the disappearing frontier, complete with trick riding, music and drama. Vaudeville incorporated these various itinerant amusements into a stable, institutionalized form centered in America's growing urban hubs. From

24408-409: The daughter of a musician, she moved to the United States of America in her childhood. At just fourteen years old, she left home to begin her career, lying about her age and sending her mother half of her paycheck. Dressler found great success and was known for her comedic timing and physical comedy, like carrying her male co-stars. She eventually worked on Broadway, where she had a great desire to become

24634-505: The death of vaudeville. After all, when "small time" theatres could offer "big time" performers on screen at a nickel a seat, who could ask audiences to pay higher amounts for less impressive live talent? The newly-formed RKO studios took over the famed Orpheum vaudeville circuit and swiftly turned it into a chain of full-time movie theatres. The half-century tradition of vaudeville was effectively wiped out within less than four years. Inevitably, managers further trimmed costs by eliminating

24860-470: The decade. Cooper sought to more tightly align costs and prospective grosses, impacting the budgets for " programmers " such as the Wheeler and Woolsey comedies: under Selznick, Hold 'Em Jail and Girl Crazy (both 1932) had cost an average of $ 470,000; under Cooper, Diplomaniacs (1933) was shot for just $ 242,000. Ginger Rogers had already made several minor films for RKO when Cooper signed her to

25086-399: The directors under long-term contract to RKO in the 1940s, the best known was Edward Dmytryk , who first came to notice with the remarkably profitable Hitler's Children (1943). Shot on a $ 205,000 budget, placing it in the bottom quartile of Big Five studio productions, it was one of the ten biggest Hollywood hits of the year. Another low-cost war-themed film directed by Dmytryk, Behind

25312-491: The division continued to come out under the combined brand until the following November). RKO Pathé was now effectively the studio's newsreel-and-shorts subsidiary. In January 1932, Variety named Constance Bennett as one of the industry's top six female "money stars". From September, the start of the industry's exhibition season, print advertising for the company's features displayed the revised name "RKO Radio Pictures". The New York City–based corporate headquarters moved into

25538-429: The early 1930s, as his capricious management style took a heavy toll. Production chief Schary quit almost immediately due to his new boss's interference and Rathvon soon followed. Within weeks of taking over, Hughes had dismissed three-fourths of the work force; production was virtually shut down for six months as the conservative Hughes shelved or canceled several of the " message pictures " that Schary had backed. All of

25764-401: The end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs or ballets. It became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, while changing over time. In some ways analogous to music hall from Victorian Britain ,

25990-482: The end of the month, he closed the deal, arranging to sell off his FBO and KAO shares, options, and convertibles at 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 clear that Kennedy's services were no longer needed and he stepped down from his board and executive positions in

26216-446: The era that belied their economies with high style in an Art Deco mode, exemplified by such Astaire–Rogers musicals as The Gay Divorcee (1934), their first pairing as leads, and Top Hat (1935). One of the figures most responsible for that style was another Selznick recruit: Van Nest Polglase , supervisor of RKO's highly regarded design department for almost a decade. Film historian James Naremore has described RKO as "chiefly

26442-548: The exhibition circuit from Glen Alden in 1971. Now little more than a name and beneficiary of General Tire's doubtful largesse, RKO announced in early 1958 that it would continue as a financial backer, coproducing independently made pictures. Fewer than half a dozen resulted. The final RKO film, Verboten! , a coproduction with director Samuel Fuller 's Globe Enterprises, was released, fitfully, beginning in March 1959, first by Rank and then Columbia . That same year, "Pictures"

26668-487: The famous and magical Harry Houdini , and child star Baby Rose Marie . In the New-York Tribune ' s article about Vaudeville, it is said that at any given time, Vaudeville was employing over twelve thousand different people throughout its entire industry. Each entertainer would be on the road 42 weeks at a time while working a particular "Circuit" – or an individual theatre chain of a major company. While

26894-518: The field. Freelancer George Raft starred in two noir hits: Johnny Angel (1945) and Nocturne (1946). Tourneur, Musuraca, Mitchum, and Greer, along with D'Agostino's design group, joined to make the A-budgeted Out of the Past (1947), now considered one of the greatest of all film noirs. Nicholas Ray began his directing career with the noir They Live by Night (1948), the first of

27120-435: The final release of Carole Lombard's lifetime, was a modest success and Suspicion a substantial one, with an Oscar-winning turn by Joan Fontaine . That May, having granted twenty-five-year-old star and director Orson Welles virtually complete creative control over the film, RKO released Citizen Kane . While it opened to strong reviews and went on to be hailed as one of the greatest movies ever made, it lost money at

27346-514: The first feature-length talking picture. Its success prompted Hollywood to convert from silent to sound film production en masse. The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) controlled an advanced optical sound-on-film system, Photophone , recently developed by General Electric , RCA's parent company. Its path to joining the anticipated boom in sound movies had a major hurdle: Warner Bros. and Fox , Hollywood's other vanguard sound studio, were already financially and technologically aligned with ERPI,

27572-401: The first time. The $ 15.2 million RKO made on the deal convinced the other major studios that their libraries held profit potential—a turning point in the way Hollywood did business. The new owners of RKO made an initial effort to revive the studio, hiring veteran producer William Dozier to head production. In the first half of 1956, the production facilities were as busy as they had been in

27798-785: The following year). RKO filled the void by releasing independently produced features such as the Dr. Christian series and the Laurel and Hardy comedy The Flying Deuces (1939). The studio soon had its own new B comedy stars in Lupe Vélez and Leon Errol : The Girl from Mexico (1939) was followed by seven frantic installments of the Mexican Spitfire series between 1940 and 1943. The studio's technical departments maintained their reputation as industry leaders; Vernon Walker's special effects unit became famous for its sophisticated use of

28024-505: The following year, the number dropped to eleven in 1931. Rio Rita star Bebe Daniels , who had joined the new studio as its top female name after the final months of her contract at Paramount were bought out, fell victim to the shifting market. Her big musical follow-up, Dixiana , had been a big money loser, and in January 1931 her contract was sold to Warner Bros. RKO, meanwhile, was in a contractual bind that it could not get out of: it

28250-409: The format proved hugely successful and non- network -affiliated stations around the country were eager to emulate it. With the purchase of RKO, the studio's library was under O'Neil's control and he quickly put the rights to the 742 films to which RKO retained clear title up for sale. C&C Television Corp., a subsidiary of beverage maker Cantrell & Cochrane , won the bidding in December 1955 and

28476-585: The former RKO Hollywood studio, FBO's old home, is now part of the Paramount lot. The renovated Culver City studio, where DeMille once reigned, is now owned and operated as an independent production facility. Forty Acres, the Culver City backlot, was razed in the mid-1970s. List Industries, the former RKO Theatres Corp., was bought by Glen Alden Corp. in 1959. Glen Alden acquired another chain in 1967, creating RKO–Stanley Warner Theatres. Cinerama purchased

28702-459: The former head of the industry censorship board , Joseph I. Breen—nominally filled the role. Schaefer, announcing his philosophy with a new studio slogan, "Quality Pictures at a Premium Price", was keen on signing up independent producers whose films RKO would distribute. In 1941, the studio landed one of the most prestigious independents in Hollywood when it arranged to handle Samuel Goldwyn 's productions. The first two Goldwyn pictures released by

28928-434: The greatest films of Hollywood's Golden Age, at the time it lost more than half a million dollars for RKO. John Ford's The Fugitive (1947) and Fort Apache (1948), which appeared right before studio ownership changed hands again, were followed by She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Wagon Master (1950); all four were coproductions between RKO and Argosy, the company run by Ford and RKO alumnus Merian C. Cooper. Of

29154-412: The holding company of Producers Distributing Corporation (PDC), a smaller studio than FBO but more prestigious. Famed director Cecil B. De Mille —PDC studio chief and owner of its Culver City production facility—had been draining the company's resources for his well-appointed productions, and it had been finding little success in getting its films into first-run theaters , which were largely tied up by

29380-469: The industry by announcing that his contract was not endangered. Of much broader significance, Hughes decided to get the jump on his Big Five competitors by being the first to settle the federal government's antitrust suit against the major studios, which had won a crucial Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. Under the consent decree he signed, Hughes agreed to dissolve

29606-458: The industry's leading artists and craftsmen whose work was never seen. From the studio's earliest days through late 1935, Max Steiner , regarded by many historians as the most influential composer of the early years of sound cinema, made music for over 100 RKO films. His score for The Informer brought Steiner his third Oscar nomination and first win. Murray Spivack , head of the studio's audio special effects department, made important advances in

29832-495: The instructions given to them by B. F. Keith for fear of losing their careers forever. By the late 1890s, vaudeville had large circuits, houses (small and large) in almost every sizable location, standardized booking, broad pools of skilled acts, and a loyal national following. One of the biggest circuits was Martin Beck's Orpheum Circuit . It incorporated in 1919 and brought together 45 vaudeville theatres in 36 cities throughout

30058-427: The last of the live performances. Vaudeville also suffered due to the rise of broadcast radio following the greater availability of inexpensive receiver sets later in the decade. Even the hardiest in the vaudeville industry realized the form was in decline; the perceptive understood the condition to be terminal. The standardized film distribution and talking pictures of the 1930s confirmed the end of vaudeville. By 1930,

30284-447: The late 1920s when sound movies came in. Their comedy relied on verbal interplay and timing, and they typically made changes to their act slowly. As a consequence, their material quickly was exhausted by the medium of the short film , and they never became big movie stars. Their act can be seen (to excellent advantage) in the feature movie The Heart of New York (1932). Based on David Freedman 's stage success Mendel, Inc. , they play

30510-406: The latter would emerge in mid-1935; RKO would not until 1940. Cooper took over as production head after Selznick's departure and oversaw two hits starring Hepburn: Morning Glory (1933), for which she won her first Oscar , and Little Women (1933), director Cukor's second collaboration with the actress. Among the studio's in-house productions, the latter was the biggest box-office success of

30736-482: The latter, starring John Wayne, was the biggest hit produced at the studio during the decade, that bar was low—it placed only eleventh among the year's top earners. A major money loser in standard terms, its $ 4.5 million in North American rentals not coming close to covering its $ 6 million production cost, Hughes had paid RKO Teleradio millions to buy back the rights. In March 1956 came the news that RKO Pathé

30962-481: The lavish Rio Rita , including a number of Technicolor sequences. Opening in September to rave reviews, it was named one of the ten best pictures of the year by Film Daily . Cinema historian Richard Barrios credits it with initiating the "first age of the filmed Broadway musical". By the end of the year, RKO was making use of an additional production facility—five hundred acres had been acquired near Encino in

31188-563: The lower-priced cinema in the early 1910s dealt the heaviest blow to vaudeville. This was similar to the advent of free broadcast television 's diminishing the cultural and economic strength of the cinema. Cinema was first regularly commercially presented in the US in vaudeville halls. The first public showing of movies projected on a screen took place at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in 1896. Lured by greater salaries and less arduous working conditions, many performers and personalities, such as Al Jolson , W. C. Fields , Mae West , Buster Keaton ,

31414-403: The majors. In early 1927, despite months of DeMille's strenuous objections, an agreement was reached to merge PDC into Pathé , a lower-level studio known for its newsreel and churn out of cheap shorts . Investment banker Elisha Walker , whose Blair & Co. firm owned the controlling interest in Pathé, brought on Keith-Albee general manager John J. Murdock as studio president. In January 1928,

31640-432: The manager? DALE: He's not here. He went across the street to a good restaurant. However, this would prove to be the group's peak. While they continued to perform throughout the 1920s, this only resulted in a single record being published during this decade, and they proved unable to secure many lucrative contracts or gigs. This was contrasted by Smith and Dale's popularity as a duo, which had continued to rise throughout

31866-472: The merged businesses, leaving him with co-ownership and management of Pathé and the PDC assets that it had absorbed. RCA owned the governing stock interest in RKO, 22 percent (in the early 1930s, its stake rose as high as 60 percent). On January 25, 1929, the new company's production arm, presided over by former FBO vice-president Joseph I. Schnitzer, was unveiled as RKO Productions Inc. A week later, it filed for

32092-535: The mid-1860s, impresario Tony Pastor , a former singing circus clown who had become a prominent variety theater performer and manager, capitalized on middle class sensibilities and spending power when he began to feature "polite" variety programs in his New York City theatres. Pastor opened his first "Opera House" on the Bowery in 1865, later moving his variety theater operation to Broadway and, finally, to Fourteenth Street near Union Square . He only began to use

32318-410: The mid-1940s, RKO was controlled by investor Floyd Odlum . RKO has long been renowned for its cycle of musicals starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the mid- to late 1930s. Actors Katharine Hepburn and, later, Robert Mitchum had their first major successes at the studio. Cary Grant was a mainstay for years, with credits including touchstones of the screwball comedy genre with which RKO

32544-490: The monumental King Kong (1933)—largely Merian Cooper's brainchild, brought to life by the astonishing special effects work of Willis O'Brien . Still, the shaky finances and excesses that marked the company's pre-Selznick days had not left RKO in shape to withstand the Depression . Most of the other major studios were in similar straits. In January 1933, both RKO and Paramount were forced into receivership , from which

32770-475: The more experienced director Jacques Tourneur . The Lewton unit's moody, atmospheric work—represented by films such as Cat People (1942), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), and The Body Snatcher (1945)—is now highly regarded. Richard Dix concluded his lengthy RKO career with the 1943 Lewton production The Ghost Ship . Tim Holt , who succeeded George O'Brien as RKO's cowboy star, appeared in forty-six B Westerns and more than fifty movies altogether for

32996-485: The most prominent vaudevillians successfully made the transition to cinema, though others were not as successful. Some performers such as Bert Lahr fashioned careers out of combining live performance with radio and film roles. Many others later appeared in the Catskill resorts that constituted the " Borscht Belt ". Vaudeville was instrumental in the success of the newer media of film, radio, and television. Comedies of

33222-636: The neighborhood character of vaudeville attendance had always promoted a tendency to tailor fare to specific audiences, mature vaudeville grew to feature houses and circuits specifically aimed at certain demographic groups. Black patrons, often segregated into the rear of the second gallery in white-oriented theatres, had their own smaller circuits, as did speakers of Italian and Yiddish (see below). This foreign addition combined with comedy produced such acts as "minstrel shows of antebellum America" and Yiddish theatre. Many ethnic families joined in on this entertainment business, and for them, this traveling lifestyle

33448-449: The new RKO Building , an Art Deco skyscraper that was one of the first Rockefeller Center structures to open. Hollywood on the Air , an RKO-produced program for NBC radio that promoted films from multiple studios, sparked independent exhibitors' ire at the free access to cinema stars it gave listeners—especially in the middle of prime moviegoing Friday night. Toward the end of 1932, all of

33674-490: The new era adopted many of the dramatic and musical tropes of classic vaudeville acts. Film comedies of the 1920s through the 1940s used talent from the vaudeville stage and followed a vaudeville aesthetic of variety entertainment, both in Hollywood and in Asia, including China. The rich repertoire of the vaudeville tradition was mined for prominent prime-time radio variety shows such as The Rudy Vallée Show . The structure of

33900-442: The old parent company, Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corp., and split RKO's production-distribution business and its exhibition chain into two entirely separate corporations—RKO Pictures Corp. and RKO Theatres Corp.—with the obligation to promptly sell off one or the other. While Hughes delayed the divorcement procedure until December 1950 and did not actually sell his stock in the theater company for another three years, his decision to acquiesce

34126-410: The other studios to loan out their biggest names or signed one of the growing number of freelance performers to short-term, " pay or play " deals. Thus RKO pictures of the mid- and late forties offered Bing Crosby , Henry Fonda , and others who were out of the studio's price range for extended contracts. John Wayne appeared in 1943's A Lady Takes a Chance while on loan from Republic Pictures ; he

34352-630: The other top four studios were budgeted at over half a million dollars. A focus on B pictures limited the studio's financial risk; while it also limited the potential for reward (Dmytryk's extraordinary coups aside), RKO had a history of making better profits with its run-of-the-mill and low-cost product than with its A movies. The studio's low-budget films offered training opportunities for new directors, as well, among them Mark Robson , Robert Wise , and Anthony Mann . Film editors Robson and Wise received their first directing assignments with producer Val Lewton , whose specialized B horror unit also included

34578-656: The outstanding stock—on the market. For her performance in The Farmer's Daughter (1947), a coproduction with Selznick's Vanguard Films, Loretta Young won the Best Actress Oscar the following March. It was the last major Academy Award for an RKO picture. In May 1948, eccentric aviation tycoon and occasional movie producer Howard Hughes spent $ 8.8 million to gain control of the company, beating out British film magnate J. Arthur Rank for Odlum's stake. During Hughes's tenure, RKO suffered its worst years since

34804-423: The patient's problem: SMITH: Doctor, it hurts when I do this. DALE: Don't do that. SMITH: Look at this, doctor. DALE: Look at --- oh, that there? Did you ever have that before? SMITH: Yes, I did. DALE: Well, you got it again! SMITH: I can't sleep at night. I walk around all night. DALE: Ah! You're a somnambulist! SMITH: No, I'm a night watchman. SMITH: I got rheumatism on the back of my neck. It's

35030-474: The period included Joel McCrea , Ricardo Cortez , Dolores del Río , and Mary Astor . Richard Dix , Oscar-nominated for his performance in Cimarron , would serve as RKO's standby B-movie leading man until the early 1940s, while Tom Keene was top-billed in twelve low-budget Westerns between 1931 and 1933. The comedy team of Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey , often wrangling over ingenue Dorothy Lee ,

35256-600: The picture. Sarnoff's vision of a new big-league studio was coming into focus—and both Kennedy and Walker had similar notions. Assisted by Murdock and with Blair & Co.'s backing, Kennedy quickly maneuvered to interlock KAO and FBO, selling the exhibitor a substantial stake in his studio while buying up copious amounts of KAO stock. Within months, he had installed himself as chairman of the theater chain's new board of directors. When Albee, still KAO president, visited his office, Kennedy reportedly asked, "Didn't you know, Ed? You're washed up. You're through." DeMille departed with

35482-610: The prevailing central producer system. "Under the factory system of production you rob the director of his individualism", said Selznick, "and this being a creative industry that is harmful to the quality of the product made." Instituting unit production, he predicted, would also result in cost savings of 30–40 percent. To make films under the new system, Selznick recruited prize behind-the-camera personnel, such as director George Cukor and producer/director Merian C. Cooper , and gave producer Pandro S. Berman , aged twenty-six, increasingly important projects. Selznick discovered and signed

35708-553: The previous October to take the place of The March of Time after Time Inc. switched its distribution to Twentieth Century-Fox. In June 1944, a subsidiary, RKO Television Corporation, was established to produce content for the fledgling medium. Talk Fast, Mister , an hour-long drama shot at the RKO Pathé studio in Manhattan and broadcast by the DuMont Laboratories –owned New York station WABD on December 18, 1944,

35934-477: The primary homes of the screwball comedy . As film historian James Harvey describes, compared to their richer competition, the two studios were "more receptive to experiment, more tolerant of chaos on the set. It was at these two lesser 'majors'   ... that nearly all the preeminent screwball directors did their important films— [Howard] Hawks and [Gregory] La Cava and [Leo] McCarey and [George] Stevens ." The relatively unheralded William A. Seiter directed

36160-404: The promotion of black-face minstrelsy on the stage, purposefully used to place African Americans beneath the Irish in the racial and social urban hierarchy. Although the Irish had a strong Celtic presence in vaudeville and in the promotion of ethnic stereotypes, the ethnic groups that they were characterizing also utilized the same humor. As the Irish donned their ethnic costumes, groups such as

36386-540: The recent, worldwide phenomenon of TV shows such as America's Got Talent . In professional wrestling , there was a noted tag team, based in WWE , called The Vaudevillains . In 2018, noted film director Christopher Annino, maker of a new silent feature film, Silent Times , founded Vaudeville Con, a gathering to celebrate the history of vaudeville. The first meeting was held in Pawcatuck, Connecticut . The records of

36612-412: The release of the forthcoming nature documentary The Living Desert , the Disney company exited its long-standing arrangement with RKO and set up its own distribution firm, Buena Vista . Contractual obligations meant that one last Disney feature would be released by RKO in 1954, and it continued to handle Disney shorts into 1956. Looking to forestall the impending legal imbroglio, by early 1954 Hughes

36838-503: The same period. By 1930, Smith and Dale had grown tired of the act, and so, after 28 years of performing, dissolved the Avon Comedy Four to focus exclusively on their career as a duo. Smith and Dale took up where the foursome left off, playing Broadway and vaudeville (including the Palace Theatre , considered the pinnacle of stage venues) while also beginning their movie career. Both used a heavy Jewish dialect, with Smith speaking in

37064-438: The shell of RKO Pictures Corp. and what were now, according to Fortune , its "sole assets   ... $ 18 million in cash." For Hughes, this was the effective end of a quarter-century's involvement in the movie business. Historian Betty Lasky describes Hughes's relationship with RKO as a "systematic seven-year rape." In taking control of the studio, General Tire restored RKO's close ties to broadcasting. General Tire had bought

37290-451: The silent nature of the "flickering shadow sweethearts" would preclude their usurpation of the paramount place in the public's affection. With the introduction of talking pictures in 1926, the burgeoning film studios removed what had remained the chief difference in favor of live theatrical performance: spoken dialogue. Historian John Kenrick wrote: Top vaudeville stars filmed their acts for one-time pay-offs, inadvertently helping to speed

37516-468: The slang of vaudevillians), built by Martin Beck in 1913 and operated by Keith. Featuring a bill stocked with inventive novelty acts, national celebrities, and acknowledged masters of vaudeville performance (such as comedian and trick roper Will Rogers ), the Palace provided what many vaudevillians considered the apotheosis of remarkable careers. A standard show bill would begin with a sketch, follow with

37742-448: The songs that were popularized onstage by white singers, and paved the way for African-American musical theater . In addition to vaudeville's prominence as a form of American entertainment, it reflected the newly evolving urban inner-city culture and interaction of its operators and audience. Making up a large portion of immigration to the United States in the mid-19th century, Irish Americans interacted with established Americans, with

37968-527: The strongest in the industry. Costumer Walter Plunkett , who worked with the company from the close of the FBO era through the end of 1939, was known as the top period wardrobist in the business. Sidney Saunders, innovative head of the studio's paint department, was responsible for significant progress in rear projection quality. On June 13, 1935, RKO premiered the first feature film shot entirely in advanced three-strip Technicolor , Becky Sharp . The movie

38194-424: The studio as well. The deal that brought the team to RKO had called for them to produce sixty features over five years; in just shy of half that time, they succeeded in making four. The Encino ranch shut down permanently in 1953 and the property was sold off. In November, Hughes finally fulfilled his obligations under the 1948 consent decree, divesting RKO Theatres; Albert A. List purchased the controlling interest in

38420-610: The studio did excellent box office: The Little Foxes , directed by William Wyler and starring Bette Davis, and the Howard Hawks–directed Ball of Fire also garnered four Oscar nominations apiece; the latter was Barbara Stanwyck's biggest hit under the RKO banner. However, Schaefer agreed to terms so favorable to Goldwyn that it was next to impossible for the studio to make money with his films. David O. Selznick loaned out his leading contracted director for two RKO pictures in 1941: Alfred Hitchcock's Mr. and Mrs. Smith ,

38646-407: The studio was acquired by the General Tire and Rubber Company in 1955. It soon broke new business ground as the first major studio to sell the bulk of its film library's TV rights. The original RKO Pictures ceased production in 1957 and was effectively dissolved two years later. In 1978, broadcaster RKO General , the corporate heir, launched a production subsidiary, RKO Pictures Inc. , which revived

38872-634: The studio's first significant contribution to the genre, The Richest Girl in the World (1934). The drama Of Human Bondage (1934), directed by John Cromwell , was Bette Davis 's first great success. Stevens's Alice Adams and director John Ford 's The Informer were each nominated for the 1935 Best Picture Oscar—the Best Director statuette won by Ford was the only one ever given for an RKO production. The Informer' s star, Victor McLaglen , also took home an Academy Award; he would appear in

39098-522: The studio, beginning in 1940. That same year, Chester Lauck and Norris Goff brought their famous comic characters Lum and Abner from radio to the screen for the first of six independently produced RKO releases. Between 1943 and 1946, the studio teamed contract actors Wally Brown and Alan Carney for comedies that openly mimicked the work of the wildly popular Abbott and Costello ; Brown and Carney 's eight pairings did not approach their prototypes' success. The Falcon detective series began in 1941;

39324-563: The studio. Ann Sothern played the lead in seven RKO films between 1935 and 1937, paired five times with Gene Raymond . Stars Barbara Stanwyck and Cary Grant each signed on for several pictures. Both were sound-era trendsetters, working as freelancers under nonexclusive studio deals. Stanwyck had appeared in major studio films since 1929 without a binding long-term contract, as subsequently would several other top-billed women, including Dunne, Bennett, and Harding. When Grant went freelance after wrapping up his Paramount contract in late 1936, it

39550-487: The system for his Film Booking Offices of America (FBO). A Kennedy-led investment group had acquired the modest-sized, low-budget-focused studio the previous year, and he had turned it into a steady profit maker. Negotiations resulted in RCA acquiring a substantial interest in FBO; Sarnoff had apparently already conceived of a plan for the studio to attain a central position in the film industry, maximizing Photophone revenue. Next

39776-466: The team was said to be inspired by the vaudeville comics Gallagher and Shean . Gordon Lish 's Extravaganza: A Joke Book (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1989) is an avant-garde novel inspired by Smith and Dale's act. Vaudeville Vaudeville ( / ˈ v ɔː d ( ə ) v ɪ l , ˈ v oʊ -/ ; French: [vodvil] ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France at

40002-410: The term "vaudeville" in place of "variety" in early 1876. Hoping to draw a potential audience from female and family-based shopping traffic uptown , Pastor barred the sale of liquor in his theatres, eliminated bawdy material from his shows, and offered gifts of coal and hams to attendees. Pastor's experiment proved successful, and other managers soon followed suit. The manager's comments, sent back to

40228-627: The theatres built by impresario Alexander Pantages . Pantages often used architect B. Marcus Priteca (1881–1971), who in turn regularly worked with muralist Anthony Heinsbergen . Priteca devised an exotic, neo-classical style that his employer called "Pantages Greek". Though classic vaudeville reached a zenith of capitalization and sophistication in urban areas dominated by national chains and commodious theatres, small-time vaudeville included countless more intimate and locally controlled houses. Small-time houses were often converted saloons, rough-hewn theatres, or multi-purpose halls, together catering to

40454-443: The theatrical brand with its first releases three years later. In 1989, this business, with its remaining assets, including the studio trademarks and the remake rights to many classic RKO films, was sold to new owners, who established the small independent company RKO Pictures LLC . The original studio's film library is now largely controlled by Warner Bros. Discovery . In October 1927, Warner Bros. released The Jazz Singer ,

40680-492: The threat that Photophone would be locked out of the industry entirely. Though Kennedy's deal with First National collapsed within weeks, the RCA executive saw that it was time to make his move. In September, while Kennedy was traveling in Europe, Sarnoff began negotiations with Walker, whose firm was now heavily invested in KAO, to merge the exhibition circuit with Film Booking Offices under RCA control. Soon after Kennedy's return at

40906-509: The time and brought down the wrath of the Hearst newspaper chain on RKO. The next year saw the commercial failure of Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons —like Kane , critically lauded and overbudget—and the expensive embarrassment of his aborted documentary It's All True . The three Welles productions combined to drain $ 2 million from the RKO coffers, major money for a corporation that had reported an overall deficit of $ 1 million in 1940 and

41132-690: The time. She worked largely in comedy and gained acclaim and success due to her willingness to step into other's roles who had fallen ill, and were otherwise unable to perform. In her acts, she often emphasized her plus-size figure, calling herself the "perfect forty-six". Friganza was also a poet and writer. She used many of her performances as ways to raise money to support the poor or disenfranchised and went on record publicly numerous times to support these social causes. Friganza also spent much of her life fighting for women's equality and pushing for self-acceptance for women, both publicly and within themselves, as well as their rights in comparison to men. Betty Felsen

41358-548: The trademark "Radio Pictures". While the main FBO studio in Hollywood was refitted for sound, production of shorts began in New York at the RKO Gramercy studio Sarnoff had just opened. RCA's radio network, NBC , began broadcasting a weekly variety show , The RKO Hour , that became a prime promotional vehicle for the studio's films. The first two features released by the new company were musicals: The melodramatic Syncopation , which actually completed shooting before FBO

41584-532: The use of rerecording technology first heard in King Kong . In October 1935 the ownership team expanded, with financier Floyd Odlum leading a syndicate that bought 50 percent of RCA's stake in the company; the Rockefeller brothers , also major stockholders, increasingly became involved in the business. While RKO kept missing the mark in building Hepburn's career, other actors became regular headliners for

41810-600: The vast majority of formerly live theatres had been wired for sound, and none of the major studios were producing silent pictures. For a time, the most luxurious theatres continued to offer live entertainment, but most theatres were forced by the Great Depression to economize. Some in the industry blamed cinema's drain of talent from the vaudeville circuits for the medium's demise. Others argued that vaudeville had allowed its performances to become too familiar to its famously loyal, now seemingly fickle audiences. There

42036-478: The vaudeville stage, Irish Americans became interpreters of immigrant cultural images in American popular culture. New arrivals found their ethnic group status defined within the immigrant population and in their new country as a whole by the Irish on stage. Unfortunately, the same interactions between ethnic groups within the close living conditions of cities also created racial tensions which were reflected in vaudeville. Conflict between Irish and African Americans saw

42262-507: The widowed Smith. Smith is identified only by his show business name of Joe Smith, and his partner is listed as Charles Dale Marks, and Dale's wife is listed as Mollie Dale Marks. The larger printing higher on the stone states "Smith & Dale", to which Smith added the words "Booked Solid". The longevity of the comedy team in Neil Simon 's play and film The Sunshine Boys is said to be inspired by Smith and Dale. The bickering nature of

42488-529: The winter of 1923 Betty began a partnership with Jack Broderick. From then until the end of 927 Broderick & Felsen performed on the B.F. Keith and Pantages vaudeville circuits throughout the U.S. and Canada. Their act evolved from a simple dance act to one with over twenty dancers, an orchestra, and elaborate costumes and sets. From 1925 to 1926 they played for 20 straight weeks at the huge Colony Theater on Broadway in New York City. In 1926 and 1927, they starred in two spectacular musical productions, touring across

42714-580: The year, it turned a $ 3.7 million profit for RKO, the most in the company's history. Bergman returned in the coproductions Notorious (1946) and Stromboli (1950), and in the independently produced Joan of Arc (1948). Freelancing Randolph Scott appeared in one major RKO release annually from 1943 through 1948. In similar fashion, many leading directors made one or more films for RKO during this era, including Alfred Hitchcock once more, with Notorious , and Jean Renoir , with This Land Is Mine (1943), reuniting Laughton and O'Hara, and The Woman on

42940-486: The years progressed, people seeking diversified amusement found an increasing number of ways to be entertained. Vaudeville was characterized by traveling companies touring through cities and towns. A handful of circuses regularly toured the country; dime museums appealed to the curious; amusement parks, riverboats, and town halls often featured "cleaner" presentations of variety entertainment; compared to saloons, music halls, and burlesque houses, which catered to those with

43166-505: The years. Known performers included Irving Kaufman , Harry Goodwin, E. Rash, and Charles Adams. The act became one of the more successful comedy turns in vaudeville. For over 15 years, the group were top-of-the-bill performers on Broadway and appeared in the 1916 show Why Worry? The foursome made commercial recordings replicating their stage act, as in a 1917 restaurant sketch: SMITH: One cheese sandwich! The cheese should be neutral. DALE: One sandwich, with American cheese. SMITH: Where's

43392-454: Was "The Gypsy National Bank," in which fly-by-night banker Joe is questioned by prospective depositor Charlie; this was included in the vaudeville-revue short Vitaphone Diversions (1937). In 1938, Smith and Dale starred in a pair of two-reel comedies for Columbia Pictures , both produced and directed by comedian Charley Chase : A Nag in the Bag (they operate a drive-in restaurant and gamble on

43618-461: Was a bankable constant for almost a decade. Exceptions like Cimarron and Rio Rita aside, RKO's product was largely regarded as mediocre, so in October 1931 Sarnoff hired twenty-nine-year-old David O. Selznick to replace LeBaron as production chief. In addition to implementing rigorous cost-control measures, Selznick championed the unit production system, which gave the producers of individual movies much greater independence than they had under

43844-603: Was a comedienne who got her start in Vaudeville and the Chitlin circuits in the 1920s, and ended up with mainstream success in the 20th century. Other 20th century women performers who started in Vaudeville included blues singers Ma Rainey , Ida Cox and Bessie Smith . Women-led touring companies like Black Patti's Troubadours , the Whitman Sisters and the Hyers Sisters were popular acts. Other women worked

44070-456: Was a project of the renowned Jerry Wald – Norman Krasna production team, lured by Hughes from Warner Bros. with great fanfare in August 1950. The company also began a close working relationship with Ida Lupino . She starred in two suspense films with Robert Ryan—Nicholas Ray's On Dangerous Ground (1952, though shooting had been completed two years earlier) and Beware, My Lovely (1952),

44296-623: Was accepted to be a member of the Chicago Opera’s Pavley-Oukrainsky Ballet corps de ballet. From December 1920 until the fall of 1922 Betty was a ballerina soloist and performed with them throughout North America. Under the name Buddye Felsen, Betty landed a starring dancing role in a new show at Fred Mann’s Million Dollar Rainbo Room in the Rainbo Gardens . The show, Rainbo Trail , directed by Frank Westphal , opened on 15 December 1922, and ran until 1 March 1923. In

44522-609: Was an American ballerina, vaudeville star, and teacher. She was born on 9 June 1905, in Chicago, IL Betty began taking lessons at a local Chicago ballet school when she was eight years old, and often performed solo dances in shows presented by that school. Just before her tenth birthday in 1916, her parents enrolled her as a ballet student with the Pavley-Oukrainsky Ballet School within the Chicago Opera Association. Then, in 1919 Betty

44748-474: Was an undeniable plus side to the merger: when Pathé's Constance Bennett , Ann Harding , and Helen Twelvetrees joined the Radio family in early 1931, they were bigger box office draws than anyone on the RKO roster. The studio's production schedule surpassed forty features a year, released under the names "Radio Pictures" and, until late 1932, "RKO Pathé". Cimarron (1931) became the only RKO production to win

44974-409: Was being dissolved. On January 22, 1957, after a year and a half without a notable success, RKO announced that it was closing its domestic distribution offices— Universal would take over most future releases—and that a reduced production wing would move to the Culver City lot. In fact, General Tire shut down RKO production for good. Overseas distribution exchanges were dispensed with: RKO Japan Ltd.

45200-422: Was committed to producing two more features with Technicolor's system, even as audiences had come to associate color with the momentarily out-of-favor musical genre. Fulfilling its obligations, RKO produced two all-Technicolor pictures, The Runaround and Fanny Foley Herself (both 1931), containing no musical sequences. Neither was a success. Despite these issues—and the foundering US economy—RKO had gone on

45426-603: Was coproduced with Pioneer Pictures, founded by Cooper—who departed RKO after two years helming production—and John Hay "Jock" Whitney , who brought in his cousin Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney ; Cooper had successfully encouraged the Whitneys to purchase a major share of the Technicolor business as well. Although judged by critics a failure as drama, Becky Sharp was widely lauded for its visual brilliance and technical expertise. RKO also employed some of

45652-417: Was cycling east on Delancey. As they argued over whose fault it was, the shopkeeper who rented the bikes said, "You two sound like Weber and Fields ." Initially performing under the name Sultzer and Marks, they later renamed their act to Smith and Dale because a local printer gave them a good deal on business cards that read "Smith & Dale". These were initially intended for a team that had since decided on

45878-427: Was denied in July 2003, freeing RKO to deal with another potential purchaser, InternetStudios.com. In 2004, that planned sale fell through when InternetStudios.com apparently folded. The company's minimal involvement in new film production continued to focus on its remake rights: Are We Done Yet? , based on Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948), was released in April 2007 to dismal reviews. In 2009, Beyond

46104-433: Was expanding. These expectations for women in the 19th century played a big role in the compelling aspects of vaudeville. Through vaudeville, many women were allowed to join their male counterparts on the stage and found success in their acts. Leila Marie Koerber, later Marie Dressler , was a Canadian actress who specialized in vaudeville comedy, and eventually won an Academy Award for Best Actress later in her career. Being

46330-433: Was identified. The work of producer Val Lewton 's low-budget horror unit and RKO's many ventures into the field now known as film noir have been acclaimed, largely after the fact, by film critics and historians. The studio produced two of the most famous films in motion picture history: King Kong and producer/director/star Orson Welles 's Citizen Kane . RKO was also responsible for notable coproductions such as It's

46556-412: Was marked by both diminished production and a slew of expensive flops, the studio continued to turn out some well-received films under production chiefs Sid Rogell and Sam Bischoff , though both became fed up with Hughes's interloping and each in turn quit after less than two years. Bischoff was the last man to hold the job under Hughes. There were B noirs such as The Window (1949), which turned into

46782-516: Was no abrupt end to vaudeville, though the form was clearly sagging by the late 1920s. Joseph Kennedy Sr. in a hostile buyout, acquired the Keith-Albee-Orpheum Theatres Corporation (KAO), which had more than 700 vaudeville theatres across the United States which had begun showing movies. The shift of New York City's Palace Theatre, vaudeville's center, to an exclusively cinema presentation on 16 November 1932,

47008-498: Was now used for comic relief on the vaudeville stage, where stereotypes of different ethnic groups were perpetuated. The crude stereotypes that emerged were easily identifiable not only by their distinct ethnic cultural attributes, but how those attributes differed from the mainstream established American culture and identity. Coupled with their historical presence on the English stage for comic relief, and as operators and actors of

47234-401: Was offering to buy out all of RKO's other stockholders. Before the end of the year, at a cost of $ 23.5 million, Hughes had gained near-total control of RKO Pictures Corp., becoming the first virtual sole owner of a studio since Hollywood's pioneer days—virtual, but not quite actual. Floyd Odlum reemerged to block Hughes's acquisition of the 95 percent ownership of RKO stock he needed to write off

47460-413: Was on 4 June 1928, at Broadway’s Palace Theater in New York City. Another famous comedienne, one who brought in thousands of audience members with her signature improvisational skills, was May Irwin . She worked from about 1875 to 1914. Originally born Ada Campbell, she began her life on the stage at thirteen years old following the death of her father. She and her older sister created a singing act called

47686-530: Was one of the crucial steps in the collapse of classical Hollywood's studio system . Shooting at RKO picked up again in early 1949, but from an average of around thirty films annually before Hughes's takeover, production fell to just twelve that year. Sporting the new title of managing director of production, Hughes quickly became notorious for meddling in minute filmmaking matters and promoting actresses he favored—including two under personal contract to him, Jane Russell and Faith Domergue . While his time at RKO

47912-426: Was reincorporated as RKO, premiered on March 29, 1929. The comedic Street Girl debuted July 30. This was billed as RKO's first "official" production and its first to be shot in Hollywood. As with many early RKO films, the producer was studio chief William LeBaron , who had held the same position at FBO. A few nonsinging pictures followed, but RKO's first major hit was again a musical. The studio spent heavily on

48138-440: Was rivaled only by churches and public schools among the nation's premiere public gathering places. Another slightly different aspect of Vaudeville was an increasing interest in the female figure. The previously mentioned ominous idea of "the blue envelopes" led to the phrase "blue" material, which described the provocative subject matter present in many Vaudeville acts of the time. Many managers even saw this scandalous material as

48364-565: Was said that if an act would succeed in Peoria, Illinois , it would work anywhere. The question "Will it play in Peoria?" has now become a metaphor for whether something appeals to the American mainstream public. The three most common levels were the "small time" (lower-paying contracts for more frequent performances in rougher, often converted theatres), the "medium time" (moderate wages for two performances each day in purpose-built theatres), and

48590-506: Was secured on January 29, 1931, and the studio, with its contract players, well-regarded newsreel operation, and DeMille's old Culver City studio and backlot , became the semiautonomous RKO Pathé Pictures Inc. The acquisition, though a defensible investment in the long term for Pathé's physical facilities, was yet another major expense borne by the fledgling RKO, particularly as the reliably avaricious Kennedy had masked Pathé's considerable financial woes, just as he had with FBO and KAO. There

48816-410: Was securing a string of exhibition venues like those the leading Hollywood production companies owned. Kennedy began investigating the possibility of such a purchase. At that same time, the allied Keith-Albee and Orpheum theater circuits, built around the then fading medium of live vaudeville , were pursuing a transition into the movie business. In 1926 the exhibitors had acquired a 50 percent stake in

49042-460: Was simply a continuation of the circumstances that brought them to America. Through these acts, they were able to assimilate themselves into their new home while also bringing bits of their own culture into this new world. White-oriented regional circuits, such as New England 's "Peanut Circuit", also provided essential training grounds for new artists while allowing established acts to experiment with and polish new material. At its height, vaudeville

49268-636: 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 acquired by Gulf and Western Industries in 1967 and merged into G+W's other production company, neighboring Paramount Pictures ;

49494-473: Was soon offering the films to independent stations in a package called "MovieTime USA". RKO Teleradio Pictures—the newly renamed General Teleradio, under which RKO Radio Pictures now operated as a business division—retained the broadcast rights for the cities where it owned TV stations. By 1956, RKO's classic movies were playing widely on television, often in the Million Dollar Movie format, allowing many to see such films as Citizen Kane and King Kong for

49720-438: Was soon working regularly with RKO, making nine more movies for the studio. Gary Cooper appeared in RKO releases produced by Goldwyn and, later, the startup International Pictures, and Claudette Colbert starred in a number of RKO coproductions. Ingrid Bergman , on loan out from Selznick, starred opposite Bing Crosby in The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), a coproduction with director Leo McCarey . The top box-office film of

49946-464: Was still rare for a leading man to do so while his star was on the rise. He ultimately appeared in fourteen RKO releases between 1937 and 1948. Soon after the appointment of a new production chief, Samuel Briskin, in late 1936, RKO entered into an important distribution deal with animator Walt Disney (Van Beuren consequently folded its cartoon operations). For nearly two decades, the studio released his company's features and shorts; Snow White and

50172-403: Was stripped from the corporate identity; the holding company for General Tire's broadcasting operation and the few remaining motion picture assets was renamed RKO General . In the words of scholar Richard B. Jewell, "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

50398-822: Was the case for Sherman H. Dudley and the Griffin Sisters Later, in the 1920s, many bookings were managed by the Theatre Owners Booking Association . African-Americans challenged the prevailing Blackface stereotypes played by white performers by bringing their own authenticity and style to the stage, composing music, comedy and dance routines and laying the groundwork for distinctly American cultural phenomena like blues , jazz , ragtime and tap dance . Notable Black entertainers in Vaudeville included comedians Bert Williams , and George Walker , dancer/choreographer Ada Overton Walker , and many others. Black songwriters and composers like Bob Cole , Ernest Hogan , Irving Jones , Rosamond Johnson , George Johnson , Tom Lemonier , Gussie L. Davis , and Chris Smith , wrote many of

50624-552: Was the first made-for-TV movie . In collaboration with Mexican businessman Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta , RKO established Estudios Churubusco in Mexico City in 1945. With RKO on increasingly secure ground, Koerner sought to increase its output of handsomely budgeted, star-driven features. However, the studio's only remaining major stars with anything like extended deals were Grant, whose services were shared with Columbia Pictures, and O'Hara, shared with Fox. Lacking in-house stars, Koerner and his successors under Odlum arranged with

50850-417: 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.... [I]t never became predictable and it never became a factory." Beginning with 1981's Carbon Copy , RKO General became involved in the coproduction of a number of feature films and TV projects through

51076-465: Was virtually immediate: corporate profits rose from $ 736,241 in 1942 (the theatrical division compensating for the studio's $ 2.34 million deficit) to $ 6.96 million the following year. The Rockefellers sold off their stock and, early in 1943, RCA dispensed with the last of its holdings in the company as well, cutting David Sarnoff's ties to the studio that was largely his conception. A new RKO Pathé "news magazine" series, This Is America , had been launched

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