4.8 • 719 Ratings
🗓️ 1 December 2024
⏱️ 46 minutes
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RKO Radio Pictures had a reputation for producing second-rate films. Even so, this was the studio that signed Fred Astaire and Katharine Hepburn; it was the studio that released King Kong and Citizen Kane.
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0:00.0 | As for me, prizes are nothing. My prize is my work. |
0:26.3 | Four-time Academy Award winner, Catherine Hepburn. |
0:30.4 | Welcome to the history of the 20th century. |
0:34.2 | Music 20th century. Episode 388, Woman of the Year. |
1:12.5 | Last time, I began talking about the American motion picture industry, often known by the |
1:18.3 | metonym Hollywood. I gave you an overview of the studio system, which was the model for how |
1:24.7 | these studios operated back in the 30s and 40s, and named the eight |
1:29.6 | studios that qualified as major studios of the time. In descending order of commercial success and |
1:37.1 | influence, these eight would be the big five, MGM, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, and RKO, followed by the Little |
1:49.0 | Three, Universal, United Artists, and Columbia. |
1:54.7 | These studios were integrated businesses that controlled the industry every step of the way, |
1:59.9 | from writing the script to the |
2:01.7 | theaters in which the finished movie was shown. Each of them had certain types of pictures they were |
2:07.5 | noted for, and each of them had a CEO or head of production who controlled it all, running their |
2:13.8 | studios like medieval lords administering their domains. |
2:23.6 | Next, I began going over each of the studios to talk about what each of them was doing and some of their most important output of the period. |
2:27.1 | Of the eight, I managed to cover one. |
2:31.2 | That would be Columbia Pictures. |
2:34.0 | We're going to continue with this today, and who knows, I might be able to cover two or three. We'll see. |
2:41.5 | Actually, I kid, a little. I covered the first of the little three, Columbia, but as for the other two, well, I've already discussed each of them a bit on the podcast, |
2:52.5 | so this will be more like review. |
2:55.4 | First, United Artists, which was founded in 1919 by some of the biggest names in film at the time |
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