192-533: FilmStruck was a film streaming service from Turner Classic Movies which catered to cinephiles and focused on rare, classic, foreign, arthouse , and independent cinema. It launched in November 2016 and succeeded Hulu as the exclusive online streaming home of The Criterion Collection . It was discontinued on November 29, 2018. FilmStruck was launched on November 1, 2016, after being announced in April 2016. At
384-517: A Star of the Month throughout the year in which most, if not all, feature films from a film star are shown during that night's schedule. August is the only month to not have a Star of the Month due to Summer Under the Stars . Silent Sunday Nights is a weekend late-night programming block showcasing silent cinema broadcasting on Sunday midnights Eastern Time. In 2013, Ben Mankiewicz began hosting
576-506: 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
768-490: A 15-episode documentary about the development and advancement of the medium of motion pictures. Drawing on its exhaustive film library, Turner Classic Movies complemented each episode with short films and feature films from the familiar to the little-seen. The Peabody Award praised Turner Classic Movies's The Story of Film "for its inclusive, uniquely annotated survey of world cinema history". In April 2016, TCM announced it had partnered with The Criterion Collection to create
960-473: 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
1152-510: 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
1344-604: 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
1536-401: 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
1728-667: A cost of $ 30 million. In August 1996, TCM obtained an exclusive, three-year licensing deal to 36 films from Sony Pictures Entertainment (primarily film content from Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures ). In April 2004, near their 10th anniversary, TCM purchased the television licensing rights to 146 titles from Universal Pictures and Columbia Pictures. In August of the same year, 20th Century Fox agreed to license several classic film titles from their library. In 2014, Walt Disney Studios agreed to license titles from their library, including episodes from their anthology television series . These were aired during their Treasures From
1920-564: A customer for Photophone, then general manager of RCA David Sarnoff approached financier Joseph P. Kennedy in late 1927 about using 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
2112-438: 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
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#17327794864742304-478: 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
2496-423: A film of her choice on-air with Robert Osborne. In January 2018, Vasquez announced on Twitter she had taped her last introductions and her contract was not renewed. That same year, Dave Karger and Alicia Malone were jointly announced as full-time hosts for the network. In September 2019, Jacqueline Stewart was hired and became the network's first African-American host. Turner Classic Movies regularly airs
2688-619: A four-film marathon block titled "Night in Noir City". In June of the same year, he was invited back to host their "Friday Night Spotlight," showcasing 16 noir films with adapted stories by crime fiction writers, including Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain . He was invited back again for the Summer of Darkness retrospective in 2015, which proved popular with viewers. In October 2022, TCM announced their latest programming block titled Musical Matinee broadcasting musical films, primarily from
2880-562: 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
3072-539: 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
3264-570: 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
3456-440: 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
3648-486: 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
3840-518: 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.,
4032-675: A meeting with WBD CEO David Zaslav to discuss them. They later issued a joint statement, explaining that the channel has been a "precious resource of cinema, open 24 hours a day seven days a week", and had "always been a profitable endeavor". On June 23, 2023, WBD appointed the Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group's CEOs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy as heads of the network, reporting to head of U.S. Networks Kathleen Finch. The pair stated that "We have each spent time talking to Zaslav, separately and together, and it's clear that TCM and classic cinema are very important to him. Our primary aim
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#17327794864744224-525: 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
4416-459: A montage of select shots of the deceased's work. Every December, a more inclusive TCM Remembers interstitial is produced, featuring a selection of clips interspersed with scenes from settings such as an abandoned drive-in (2012) or a theatre which is closing down (2013). Since 2001, most of the soundtracks for these have been introspective melodies by indie artists such as Badly Drawn Boy (2007) or Steve Earle (2009). 2015's song, "Quickly Now",
4608-479: 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;
4800-409: 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
4992-547: 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
5184-415: 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
5376-433: 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
5568-471: 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:
5760-538: 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,
5952-423: A plan for the studio to attain a central position in the film industry, maximizing Photophone revenue. Next 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
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6144-623: 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
6336-486: 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
6528-428: 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
6720-473: A special month of film marathons. 31 Days of Oscar is a programming block airing each Oscar season on the network during the month of the Academy Awards . Each feature that TCM airs in this block can be either an Oscar winner or nominee. Each August, TCM airs Summer Under the Stars , featuring an entire daily schedule devoted to the filmographies of a particular actor, with programming pertaining to
6912-678: 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
7104-469: A subscription streaming service called FilmStruck . The service included a curated selection of more than 1,000 classic Hollywood, international, arthouse and independent films, including those from the Janus Films and Kino libraries. FilmStruck was launched on November 1, 2016, and included exclusive bonus content such as hosted introductions, interviews and rare media. In November 2018, FilmStruck
7296-707: 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
7488-508: A transition into the movie business. In 1926 the exhibitors had acquired a 50 percent stake in 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
7680-415: A tribute to recently deceased film personalities (including actors, producers, composers, directors, writers, and cinematographers) which occasionally airs during promotional breaks between films. The segments appear in two forms: individual tributes and a longer end-of-year compilation. Following the recent death of an especially famous film personality (usually an actor or filmmaker), the segment will feature
7872-462: 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
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8064-506: 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
8256-628: 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
8448-666: Is an American movie-oriented pay-TV network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery . Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcasting campus in the Midtown business district of Atlanta, Georgia . The channel's programming consists mainly of classic theatrically released feature films from the Turner Entertainment Co. film library – which comprises films from Warner Bros. (covering films released before 1950), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (covering films released before May 1986), and
8640-422: Is to ensure that TCM's programming is untouched and protected." On June 28, it was announced that Scorsese, Spielberg, and Anderson would actively collaborate with De Luca and Abdy on the network's direction; a spokesperson stated that "TCM is not immune to the very real pressure on the entire linear ecosystem, but we have taken steps to ensure that we stay true to the mission of the network — bringing more titles to
8832-536: 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
9024-751: The Golden Age of Hollywood . The program is hosted by Dave Karger and broadcasts on Saturday afternoons Eastern Time. Singin' in the Rain (1952) was the block's first film broadcast on November 5, 2022. TCM features a monthly programming block called the TCM Guest Programmer , in which one of the hosts is joined by a celebrity guest responsible for choosing that evening's films (examples of such programmers during 2012 include Jules Feiffer , Anthony Bourdain , Debra Winger , Ellen Barkin , Spike Lee , Regis Philbin and Jim Lehrer ). Since 2023,
9216-580: The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) film studio for $ 1.5 billion. On March 25, 1986, the deal was finalized, with Turner renaming the studio MGM Entertainment Co. Furthermore, Turner's purchase of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer separated the studio from United Artists , which remained with Kirk Kerkorian , after they had merged in 1981. However, concerns over MGM and Turner Broadcasting 's corporate debt load (totaling $ 2 billion) resulted in Turner selling
9408-653: 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
9600-741: The TCM Guest Programmer block has appeared sporadically, with appearances from Martin Scorsese (during his promotional tour of his 2023 film Killers of the Flower Moon ), Noah Baumbach , George Miller (during his promotional tour of his 2024 film Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga ), Kevin Costner (during his promotional tour of his 2024 film Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 ), and Ryan Reynolds (during his promotional tour of his 2024 film Deadpool & Wolverine ). Turner Classic Movies suspends its regular schedule twice each year for
9792-659: 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
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#17327794864749984-756: The Watch TCM app for iOS, Android, and Blackberry had some TCM Movie Database information. Leonard Maltin's reviews appear in the TCM Movie Database. On March 4, 2019, Time Warner's new owner AT&T (who renamed the company WarnerMedia ) announced a planned reorganization to effectively dissolve the Turner Broadcasting System division, which involved Cartoon Network , Adult Swim , Turner Classic Movies, and digital media company Otter Media being transferred directly under Warner Bros. Entertainment. Aside from Otter, which
10176-866: 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
10368-420: The blind and visually impaired , which is accessible through the second audio program option through most television sets, or a cable or satellite receiver. During the prime time hours, an ident for the "Watch TCM" app is shown after every movie. Certain titles on Turner Classic Movies are not available to streaming services , due to restrictions through this service platform. During these scheduled times,
10560-556: 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
10752-526: The 1960s onward – sometimes featuring nudity , sexual content, violence and/or strong profanity ; the network also features rating bumpers prior to the start of a program (most programs on Turner Classic Movies, especially films, are rated for content using the TV Parental Guidelines , in lieu of the MPAA's rating system). The network's programming season runs from March of one year until
10944-518: The 2000s and 2010s) with the August 2017 issue, moving it to an electronic format available via email free of charge. Turner Classic Movies' library of films spans several decades of cinema and includes thousands of film titles. Before its launch in April 1994, Turner's film library had included pre-1986 MGM and RKO films, as well as all pre-1948 Warner Bros. films. In August 1993, TCM obtained exclusive rights to 300 films from Paramount Pictures , for
11136-458: 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
11328-518: 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
11520-535: The Bounty , and The Man Who Knew Too Much . In 2014, the channel debuted Treasures from the Disney Vault , hosted by Leonard Maltin . This block showcased a compilation of vintage Disney feature films, cartoons, documentaries, episodes of Disney's anthology television series , and episodes of The Mickey Mouse Club . The last scheduled Treasures from the Disney Vault aired on September 2, 2019 due to
11712-659: The Criterion Channel had original content such as their "Meet the Filmmaker" and "Adventures in Moviegoing" series, five-minute micro-lectures, as well as thematic programming like Friday double features and Tuesday short and feature film pairings. Some films featured hosted introductions. In early 2018, FilmStruck announced it had acquired hundreds of classic film titles from the Warner Bros. library, including Casablanca , Citizen Kane , and Singin' in
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#173277948647411904-565: 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
12096-462: The Disney Vault programming block, hosted by film historian Leonard Maltin . Turner Classic Movies includes movies in the public domain, mostly from the 1900s to 1920s. Although most movies shown are from the 1930s through the 1970s, the channel sometimes shows newer movies. Most feature movies shown during the prime time and early overnight hours (8:00 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. Eastern Time) were presented by film historian Robert Osborne . He
12288-576: 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
12480-477: 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
12672-760: The FilmStruck website. On October 26, 2018, it was announced FilmStruck would shut down on November 29, 2018, due to WarnerMedia 's restructuring. In response, a group of film directors and actors signed a letter dated November 12, 2018, appealing directly to Warner Bros. Pictures Group chairman Toby Emmerich in an attempt to save the service. The letter was signed by Paul Thomas Anderson , Damien Chazelle , Alfonso Cuarón , Guillermo del Toro , Leonardo DiCaprio , James Gray , Alejandro González Iñárritu , Barry Jenkins , Rian Johnson , Christopher Nolan , Barbra Streisand , and others. Previously, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese had urged Warner Bros. to continue
12864-591: 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
13056-567: 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
13248-708: The North American distribution rights to films from RKO Radio Pictures . However, Turner Classic Movies also licenses films from other studios and occasionally shows more recent films. The channel is available in the United States, Canada, Malta (as Turner Classic Movies), Latin America, France, Greece, Cyprus, Spain, the Middle East and Africa (as TNT). In 1985, nine years before the launch of Turner Classic Movies, Ted Turner announced plans to acquire
13440-572: 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
13632-589: 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
13824-635: The Rain . The Verge praised the availability of "best films ever made", while criticizing the catalog search functionality in July 2017. Geek.com praised the delivery on home theater streaming media devices and the mobile app, but criticized the desktop delivery dependency on Flash . FilmStruck Curzon was announced in January 2018. The service became available in the United Kingdom in February 2018, with launches in other markets to have come over
14016-459: 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
14208-634: 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
14400-735: The Sea ) aimed at introducing these movies to new generations of children, and their families. In 2008, Funday Night at the Movies was replaced by Essentials Jr. , a youth-oriented version of its weekly series, The Essentials (originally hosted by actors Abigail Breslin , and Chris O'Donnell , then by John Lithgow from 2009 to 2011, and then by Bill Hader , starting with the 2011 season), which included such family-themed films as National Velvet , Captains Courageous , and Yours, Mine and Ours , as well as more eclectic selections, such as Sherlock Jr. , The Music Box , Harvey , Mutiny on
14592-502: 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
14784-494: 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
14976-543: 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
15168-631: The air, driving content investment, and preserving and protecting the culture of cinema." Turner Classic Movies essentially operates as a commercial -free service, with breaks between films usually consisting of promos for its programming, advertising for the network's events and merchandising, and interstitial segments profiling classic film actors and actresses. In addition to this, extended breaks between features are filled with theatrically released movie trailers and classic short subjects – from series such as The Passing Parade , Crime Does Not Pay , Pete Smith Specialties , and Robert Benchley – under
15360-578: 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, 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
15552-551: The banner name TCM Extras (formerly One Reel Wonders ). In 2007, some of the short films featured on Turner Classic Movies were made available for streaming on Turner Classic Movies's website. Partly to allow these interstitials, Turner Classic Movies schedules its feature films either at the top of the hour or at :15, :30 or :45 minutes past the hour, instead of in timeslots of varying five-minute increments. Turner Classic Movies' film content has remained mostly uncut and uncolorized (with films natively filmed or post-produced in
15744-474: The block. In March 2019, Alicia Malone became the current host. The first bumper intro was designed by the animation studio Cuppa Coffee Studios , which featured several stop-motion animated men rolling a giant globe brandishing the programming logo. During the 2010s, the logo design studio Hool & Co. designed a new bumper featuring a customary countdown meant to highlight several international film movements. In September 2021, Sibling Rivalry designed
15936-520: The block. In September 2019, Jacqueline Stewart became the current host. In September 2021, Sibling Rivalry, a New York City -based independent creative agency, designed the latest bumper intro for the block. TCM Imports is a weekend late-night programming block showcasing international cinema . Originally broadcast on Friday nights at 2 a.m. Eastern Time, the block was moved to late Saturday nights. It currently airs on Sunday nights at 2 a.m. Eastern Time. In 2013, Mankiewicz began hosting
16128-479: 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
16320-482: The channel at a ceremony in New York City 's Times Square district. The date and time were chosen to mark the exact centennial anniversary of the first commercial exhibition of a motion picture in the United States. Gone with the Wind (1939) was the first film broadcast on TCM; it was also the same film that served as the debut broadcast of its sister channel TNT six years earlier on October 3, 1988. At
16512-486: The channel's current owner, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), as part of layoffs affecting its U.S. Networks division. The network was to be moved under the oversight of Cartoon Network head Michael Ouweleen , and it was reported that there were plans for more synergies and cross-promotion of TCM with the rest of the networks group. The layoffs led to concerns over the future of the channel, with filmmakers Martin Scorsese , Steven Spielberg , and Paul Thomas Anderson holding
16704-423: 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
16896-473: 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 ,
17088-459: 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
17280-400: 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
17472-482: The cover, and featured essays about the "guest programmer" as well as a movie-and-actor themed crossword puzzle. The May 2017 issue, following the death in March 2017 of host Robert Osborne , contained "Remembering Robert Osborne" by Ben Mankiewicz . Turner Classic Movies ceased print publication of Now Playing (which had been one of the few channel-specific program guides that remained in print circulation for most of
17664-470: 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
17856-399: 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
18048-491: 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
18240-429: 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
18432-482: 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
18624-446: 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
18816-675: The exchange, Turner rebranded his organization Turner Entertainment Company . The film library of Turner Entertainment Co. would serve as the base form of programming for Turner Classic Movies upon the network's launch. Before the creation of Turner Classic Movies, films from Turner's library of movies aired on the Turner Broadcasting System 's advertiser-supported cable network TNT along with colorized versions of black-and-white classics such as The Maltese Falcon . Turner Classic Movies debuted on April 14, 1994, at 6 p.m. Eastern Time , with Ted Turner launching
19008-496: 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"
19200-551: 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 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
19392-518: 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
19584-409: The film libraries that Turner Classic Movies owns, and it includes links by which a user can request that Turner Classic Movies schedule any title for viewing. TCM Movie Database has lost some functionality. The portal page is now unavailable, yet database entries are still available and function. Richard B. Steiner was the creator, architect, and supervisor of TCM Movie Database . By 2013,
19776-473: The film series Screened Out (which explored the history and depiction of homosexuality in film) in 2007 and Religion on Film (focusing on the role of religion in cinematic works) in 2005. In 2011, TCM debuted a new series entitled AFI's Master Class: The Art of Collaboration . Many films shown on Turner Classic Movies were made during the Golden Age of Hollywood , an era with few survivors. In December 1994, Turner Classic Movies debuted "TCM Remembers",
19968-416: The films that were made during their careers, from beginning to end. Turner Classic Movies presents many of its features in their original aspect ratio ( widescreen or full screen) whenever possible – widescreen films broadcast on Turner Classic Movies are letterboxed on the network's standard definition feed. Turner Classic Movies also regularly presents widescreen presentations of films not available in
20160-435: 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
20352-475: 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, 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
20544-401: 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
20736-410: The following February of the next when a retrospective of Oscar -winning and Oscar-nominated movies is shown, called 31 Days of Oscar . As a result of its devoted format to classic feature films , viewers who are interested in tracing the career development of actresses such as Barbara Stanwyck or Greta Garbo or actors like Cary Grant or Humphrey Bogart have the unique opportunity to see most of
20928-785: 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
21120-450: 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
21312-600: The format being those only ones presented in color), depending upon the original content of movies, particularly movies released after the 1968 implementation of the Motion Picture Association of America 's ratings system and the concurrent disestablishment of the Motion Picture Production Code . Because of this, Turner Classic Movies is formatted similarly to a premium channel with certain films – particularly those made from
21504-478: The format on any home video release. Occasionally, Turner Classic Movies shows restored versions of films, particularly old silent films with newly commissioned musical soundtracks. Turner Classic Movies is also a major backer of the Descriptive Video Service (created by Boston PBS member station WGBH-TV ), with many of the films aired on the network offering visual description for
21696-409: 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
21888-585: 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
22080-459: 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
22272-434: 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
22464-469: 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
22656-458: 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
22848-425: The latest bumper. During its early years, TCM devoted a programming block to the film noir genre titled Darkness After Dawn . In March 2017, the program was rebranded as Noir Alley , hosted by Eddie Muller . The Maltese Falcon (1941) was its first broadcast. It broadcasts on Saturday nights and repeats on Sunday mornings at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time. In January 2013, Muller had previously hosted
23040-406: 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
23232-418: 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
23424-443: The launch of Disney+ in November of that year. TCM Underground debuted in October 2006 as a Saturday late night block which focused on cult film . The block was originally hosted by rocker/filmmaker Rob Zombie until December 2006; as of 2014 , it was the only regular film presentation block on the channel that did not have a host. TCM Underground was discontinued in February 2023 after its programmer, Millie De Chirico ,
23616-631: The launch of the channel. In the early 2000s, AMC abandoned its commercial-free format, which led to Turner Classic Movies being the only movie-oriented basic cable channel to devote its programming entirely to classic films without commercial interruption or content editing. By 2002, AMC had broadened its film content to feature colorized and more recent films. Launched in 2006, Turner Classic Movies maintains its own comprehensive database of actors, actresses, and film crew (listing more than 1.25 million people, with 15,000 written biographies), and motion picture titles (more than 130,000 titles), not limited to
23808-481: 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
24000-403: 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,
24192-472: 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
24384-498: 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 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
24576-421: 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 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
24768-490: 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
24960-475: 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
25152-401: The movie title is blocked from airing and a visual notice is provided to the viewer. Turner Classic Movies formerly published Now Playing , a monthly program guide, originally available through a standalone subscription, which provided daily listings and descriptions for films scheduled to air on Turner Classic Movies in the coming month. The digest-size magazine highlighted a featured actor on
25344-449: 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
25536-651: The next two years. Plans to launch in France and Spain were announced in May 2018. In France, the SVOD service features films from Carlotta Films, MK2, RKO , and StudioCanal and was launched in June 2018. In Spain, the service serves up films from Wanda, Caramel, and A Contracorriente Films. It offers a combination of the local content as well as European and global films. Turner Classic Movies Turner Classic Movies ( TCM )
25728-701: The next year. Osborne nevertheless continued hosting the Private Screenings and The Essentials series. In January 2014, during his "Noir City" film festival in San Francisco , Eddie Muller announced he had been hired as an on-air host for the network. In May 2016, Tiffany Vasquez, a graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts , became the network's first female host, introducing films on Saturday afternoons. She had previously won TCM's 20th Anniversary Ultimate Fan Contest, flying to Atlanta to introduce
25920-442: 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
26112-410: 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
26304-630: 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
26496-656: 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
26688-474: 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 ,
26880-600: 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
27072-610: 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
27264-553: 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,
27456-477: 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
27648-412: 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
27840-467: The same corporate umbrella, also gave Turner Classic Movies access to Warner Bros.' library of films released after 1950 (which itself includes other acquired entities such as the Lorimar , Saul Zaentz and National General Pictures libraries); incidentally, Turner Classic Movies had already been running select Warner Bros. film titles through a licensing agreement with the studio that was signed prior to
28032-755: The service. Four days after the letter was released, WarnerMedia and Criterion announced that The Criterion Channel would launch as a standalone service in Spring 2019, with a smaller version of the service also being available via HBO Max, then WarnerMedia's upcoming streaming platform when it launched on May 27, 2020 until it slightly rebranded as Max in May 23, 2023. Films available on FilmStruck came from studios and distributors such as Film Movement , First Run Features , Global Lens , Flicker Alley , Icarus Films, Janus Films , Kino , MGM , Milestone , Oscilloscope Laboratories , Shout! Factory , and Warner Bros. FilmStruck organized films in themed collections, while
28224-438: 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
28416-532: 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 , 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
28608-473: The star of the day. In the summer of 2007, the channel debuted Funday Night at the Movies , a block hosted by actor Tom Kenny (best known as the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants ). This summer block featured classic feature films (such as The Wizard of Oz , Sounder , Bringing Up Baby , Singin' in the Rain , Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , The Adventures of Robin Hood , and 20,000 Leagues Under
28800-478: 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
28992-485: The studio back to Kerkorian, from whom Turner had purchased the studio less than a year before. On August 26, 1986, Turner sold MGM's production and distribution assets for $ 300 million to United Artists, while MGM's production and film laboratories were sold for $ 190 million to Lorimar-Telepictures . However, Turner Broadcasting still retained the MGM film library, primarily for its cable "superstation" WTBS . Following
29184-424: 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
29376-610: 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 ,
29568-634: 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
29760-522: 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;
29952-563: 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
30144-545: 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
30336-509: 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
30528-489: The time of its launch, FilmStruck had 500 movies available to stream, 200 of them from the Criterion Collection library. As of February 2018, the combined channels on the service provided access to over 1,600 films, including more than 1,200 films licensed from the Criterion Collection. On April 26, 2018, FilmStruck absorbed sister stand-alone service Warner Archive Instant , with current and new subscribers to
30720-588: The time of its launch, Turner Classic Movies was available to approximately 1 million cable television subscribers. The network originally served as a competitor to AMC , which at the time was known as "American Movie Classics" and maintained a virtually identical format to Turner Classic Movies, as both networks largely focused on films released prior to 1970 and aired them in an uncut, uncolorized , and commercial-free format. In 1996, Turner Broadcasting System merged with Time Warner which, besides placing Turner Classic Movies and Warner Bros. Entertainment under
30912-548: 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
31104-532: 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
31296-580: 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
31488-461: 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
31680-403: 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),
31872-473: 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 the control of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in October 1928. RCA executive David Sarnoff engineered
32064-474: 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
32256-409: 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.
32448-422: 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
32640-603: 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
32832-427: 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
33024-407: Was effectively dissolved two years later. In 1978, broadcaster RKO General , the corporate heir, launched a production subsidiary, RKO Pictures Inc. , which revived 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
33216-417: Was intended to give Turner Classic Movies a more modern and energetic presentation while continuing to emphasize its commitment to showcasing classic cinema; new branding elements include Technicolor -inspired color schemes, and a new stylized "C" in its wordmark, which resembles a camera lens and symbolizes themes of "curation", "context", "culture" and "connection". In March 2023, it was announced that TCM
33408-708: Was laid off from the network. In addition to films, Turner Classic Movies also airs original content, mostly documentaries about classic movie personalities, the world of filmmaking and particularly notable films. An occasional month-long series, Race and Hollywood , showcases films by and about people of non-white races, featuring discussions of how these pictures influenced white people's image of said races, as well as how people of those races viewed themselves. Previous installments have included "Asian Images on Film" in 2008, "Native American Images on Film" in 2010, "Black Images on Film" in 2006 "Latino Images on Film" in 2009 and "Arab Images on Film" in 2011. The network aired
33600-412: 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
33792-545: Was marking the centennial of Warner Bros., in conjunction with The Film Foundation and the TCM Classic Film Festival . This included special airings of newly-restored Warner Bros. films: Rio Bravo (introduced by Martin Scorsese ), and East of Eden (introduced by Wes Anderson and Joanna Hogg ). On June 20, 2023, multiple TCM executives (including executive vice president Pola Changnon, who had been with Turner for over 25 years) were released by
33984-401: 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
34176-530: 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
34368-426: 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
34560-506: 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
34752-413: Was shut down by WarnerMedia, under the ownership of AT&T, to streamline business operations. Since its 2020 launch, TCM has been associated with its parent company Warner Bros. Discovery 's Max streaming service. TCM has its own category hub on the service with a curated selection of classic films. RKO Pictures RKO Radio Pictures Inc. , commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO ,
34944-636: 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 ;
35136-473: 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
35328-493: 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
35520-464: 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
35712-403: 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
35904-611: 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
36096-409: Was the network's first host since its 1994 launch until 2016, except for a five-month medical leave from July to December 2011, when guest hosts presented each night's films. In September 2003, Ben Mankiewicz was hired as the network's daytime weekend host. In October 2012, Osborne announced he was delegating his on-air appearances over to Mankiewicz, who assumed primetime hosting duties on Fridays by
36288-417: 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
36480-404: Was transferred to WarnerMedia Entertainment on May 31, 2019 to oversee development of HBO Max , the newly transferred properties came under a newly formed division, Warner Bros. Global Kids, Young Adults and Classics . On September 1, 2021, Turner Classic Movies introduced a new logo and slogan, "Where Then Meets Now", in the network's first major rebranding since its launch. The rebranding
36672-465: 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
36864-440: Was written especially for TCM Remembers by Chuck Moore and Reid Hall, and sung by Eryn McHugh. Turner Classic Movies received a 2008 Peabody Award for its dedication to film preservation and "a continuing, powerful commitment to a central concept—the place of film in social and cultural experience". Turner Classic Movies received a 2013 Peabody Award for its presentation of Mark Cousins ' The Story of Film: An Odyssey ,
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