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RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum) Pictures (also known as RKO Productions, Radio Pictures, RKO Radio Pictures, RKO Teleradio Pictures and, for a short time, RKO Pathé) is an American film production and distribution company. It was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum (KAO) vaudeville theater circuit and Joseph P. Kennedy's Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) studio were brought together under the control of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in October 1928. RCA chief David Sarnoff engineered the merger to create a market for the company's sound-on-film technology, RCA Photophone. By the mid-1940s, the studio was under the control of investor Floyd Odlum. RKO has long been celebrated for its series 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. 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 ''Citizen Kane''. Maverick industrialist Howard Hughes took over RKO in 1948. After years of decline under his control, the studio was acquired by the General Tire and Rubber Company in 1955. The original RKO Pictures ceased production in 1957 and was effectively dissolved two years later. In 1981, broadcaster RKO General, the corporate heir, revived it as a production subsidiary, RKO Pictures Inc. In 1989, this business with its few remaining assets, the trademarks and remake rights to many classic RKO films, was sold to new owners, who now operate the small independent company RKO Pictures LLC. ==Origin of company== 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, RCA Photophone, recently developed by General Electric. However, its hopes of joining in the anticipated boom in sound movies faced 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, with two other major studios, Universal and First National, were poised to contract with ERPI for sound conversion as well.〔Jewell (1982), p. 9; Lasky (1989), pp. 22–24; Gomery (1985), p. 60; Crafton (1997), pp. 129–31.〕 Seeking a customer for Photophone, in late 1927 David Sarnoff, then general manager of RCA, approached Joseph P. Kennedy about using the system for Kennedy's modest-sized studio, Film Booking Offices of America (FBO). Negotiations resulted in General Electric acquiring a substantial interest in FBO—Sarnoff had apparently already conceived of a plan for the company to attain a central position in the film industry, maximizing Photophone revenue. Next on the agenda was securing a string of exhibition venues like those the leading Hollywood production companies owned. Kennedy began investigating the possibility of such a purchase. Around that time, the large Keith-Albee-Orpheum (KAO) circuit of theaters, built around the then-fading medium of live vaudeville, was attempting a transition to the movie business. In mid-1927, the filmmaking operations of Pathé Exchange and Cecil B. De Mille's Producers Distributing Corporation (PDC) had united under KAO's control. Early in 1928, KAO general manager John J. Murdock, who had assumed the presidency of Pathé, turned to Kennedy as an adviser in consolidating the studio with De Mille's company, PDC. This was the relationship Sarnoff and Kennedy sought.〔Goodwin (1987), pp. 375–79; Jewell (1982), pp. 9–10; Lasky (1989), pp. 25–27; Gomery (1985), pp. 63–65; Crafton (1997), pp. 136–39, 193–94.〕〔"Cinemerger", ''Time'', May 2, 1927 (available (online )).〕 After an aborted attempt by Kennedy to bring yet another studio that had turned to him for help, First National Pictures, into the Photophone fold, RCA was ready to step back in: the company acquired Kennedy's stock in both FBO and the KAO theater business. On October 23, 1928, RCA announced the creation of the Radio-Keith-Orpheum holding company, with Sarnoff as chairman of the board. Kennedy, who withdrew from his executive positions in the merged companies, kept Pathé separate from RKO and under his personal control.〔〔Lasky (1989), pp. 28–29.〕 RCA owned the governing stock interest in RKO, 22 percent; in the early 1930s, RCA's share of stock in the company rose as high as 60 percent.〔Crafton (1997), p. 210.〕 The company's production and distribution arm, presided over by former FBO vice-president Joseph I. Schnitzer, was incorporated early in 1929 as Radio Pictures.〔"New Incorporations", ''New York Times'', April 11, 1929.〕 Looking to get out of the film business the following year, Kennedy arranged in late 1930 for RKO to purchase Pathé from him. On January 29, 1931, Pathé, with its contract players, well-regarded newsreel operation, and Culver Studios along with its associated backlot, located more or less next door to the vastly larger MGM lot was merged into RKO proper as Kennedy sold off the last of his stock in the company he had been instrumental in creating.〔Goodwin (1987), pp. 422–23; Jewell (1982), p. 32; Crafton (1997), pp. 208, 210.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「RKO Pictures」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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