In February, Ned Depinet wrote B. B. Kahane about the film's pathetic performance.13 Kahane replied: “It [Sylvia Scarlett] is just a bad picture, and it has undoubtedly hurt Hepburn. No one, of course, could have foreseen that a combination like Berman, Cukor, Hepburn, Cary Grant and Brian Ahearne [sic] could produce such a ‘flop.’ Our only hope is that ‘Mary of Scotland’…will turn out to be an outstanding production and enable Hepburn to retrieve some prestige.”14
Without question, Sylvia Scarlett was one of the most offbeat, atypical, uncommercial motion pictures ever produced during the studio system era. Its picaresque story about a group of incompetent con artists in Victorian England required Hepburn to masquerade as a boy throughout much of the narrative, even though the reason for her disguise disappeared near the beginning. It is difficult to imagine this picture being made by MGM, Twentieth Century-Fox, or any of the other companies. Only at RKO, where hits were few and far between and production philosophies in constant flux, would a gamble like this have been taken. In this instance, the company was badly burned: the film lost $363,000 and quickly eradicated the good will Katharine Hepburn had earned from Alice Adams. The press took considerable delight in the Sylvia Scarlett wreckage because, unlike most stars, Hepburn had not been accommodating to its membership for years.
The studio executives responded by starring Hepburn in Mary of Scotland and by pleading with her to grant more interviews and be more gracious to her interviewers. B. B. Kahane described the situation in a letter to Ned Depinet:
Here we are about to spend around $800,000. to $900,000. on “Mary of Scotland” in the hope of bringing Hepburn back—giving her Frederick [sic] March to support her, John Ford to direct, and not stinting in any way on the production. We certainly ought to be entitled to her cooperation in combating the ill effects of “Sylvia Scarlett” and the bad publicity resulting from her attitude towards the Press. Any one but Hepburn would see readily that she has reached a point in her career when she needs all the help possible to stay up where she is, but Katharine is just one of those peculiar girls who is not logical or normal in her viewpoints and attitude.15
Hepburn did open up somewhat with reporters, but otherwise, she continued to be stubborn and less than rational. At least, this was the opinion held by the men running the studio. While Mary of Scotland was in production, she began to make new demands through Leland Hayward. She asked for more money, a larger profit participation in her pictures, and the right to approve her scripts. The last request struck special terror in the hearts of her employers. Hepburn had had unofficial script approval on all her pictures. As Sam Briskin informed Leo Spitz in a telegram, the only film she had been forced to make against her will was Break of Hearts. 16 In fact, she had insisted on the production of the two pictures that damaged her most: Spitfire and Sylvia Scarlett. This fact alone indicated to Briskin that “her judgment [is] of no value.” He further suggested the ruinous position in which the studio might find itself if Hepburn's request were accepted: “Know of no one in business who has script approval and you can obviously see that this would result in huge cost in preparing script plus commitments to director, actors, etc. that might be wasted if, at last minute, she refused approve script.”
Part of Katharine Hepburn's disgruntlement related to RKO's decision not to bid on Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind, then on the auction block, and star her as Scarlett O'Hara. In the same telegram to Spitz, Briskin conveyed the studio's position regarding this popular novel: “This very dangerous picture to make from commercial viewpoint as great similarity to So Red the Rose and subject matter has always proven unsuccessful. Berman advances additional reason which very good, namely Hepburn must have extremely sympathetic role as she basically unsympathetic on screen and, if make Gone With the Wind with her which is very unsympathetic role, picture will be unsuccessful and, in addition, do great damage to Hepburn's career.”
In retrospect, it may seem that RKO blundered outrageously by passing up the property that redefined the meaning of the term “blockbuster.” But Briskin and Berman were correct in their reservations. Had RKO made Gone With the Wind, it would not have been the lavish spectacular fashioned by David Selznick and would not have had Clark Gable as Rhett Butler (imagine Richard Dix in the part), and Hepburn might very well have overpowered the role of Scarlett to the point of audience antipathy. This is, admittedly, meaningless conjecture; perhaps we should simply say that RKO was not in a position—either financially or in terms of available talent—to make Gone With the Wind properly. Katharine Hepburn, however, found this difficult to accept.
Refused script approval by the studio, Hepburn tested her bosses by calling her next project, A Woman Rebels, “mediocre” and remaining in New York as the start date drew closer and closer. Finally, Pandro Berman was forced to send her a strongly worded wire in which he surveyed the actress's career, reminded her of her own considerable errors in story selection, and emphasized his own perceptivity: “I think you are making big mistake in this whole matter.…If you will recall, there has never been a picture you have made about which I have been honestly enthusiastic from my own opinion that has turned out badly. I have strongly advocated production of Morning Glory, Little Minister, Alice Adams and Mary of Scotland from wholehearted enthusiasm for these subjects.” Arguing from the position that his instincts had, so far, proved unerring (Mary of Scotland was not yet in release), Berman proceeded to lavish praise on A Woman Rebels. He called it “box office,” “sympathetic in character,” and “different from anything you have done.”17 In closing, the producer urged his star to leave immediately and set to work on the picture as soon as she arrived. He expressed confidence that she would thank him within six months. His arguments were convincing; Hepburn reevaluated her position and headed for Hollywood.
Lost amid the turbulence created by Fred Astaire and Katharine Hepburn was the departure of a highly talented studio employee: Max Steiner. Steiner was one of the pioneers of motion picture music, a genius whose scores for King Kong, The Informer, Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, The Searchers, and other films are now considered classics. If his creations sometimes sounded repetitious and occasionally tended to overwhelm a movie's narrative elements, it should be remembered that he was among the studio's hardest workers. He had written music for an astounding sixty-seven RKO pictures released in 1933 and 1934. The wonder is that so much of his scoring sounded fresh and inventive. One of Steiner's gifts was an ability to interweave well-known songs and classic material with his own original compositions.
But Max Steiner felt underpaid and underappreciated at RKO. He had signed a contract in 1934 in order to secure enough money to help his mother out of a difficult political situation involving the Nazis in Vienna.18 Now he revealed to B. B. Kahane that he was “very unhappy” with the contract and would never have signed it if he had not been faced with his “mother's financial troubles.”19 The unhappiness festered, manifesting itself in emotional outbursts and unpredictable behavior. Although he signed another agreement with the studio late in 1935, Steiner began to seem more trouble than he was worth. In May 1936 the RKO executives agreed to cancel the contract, thereby freeing Steiner to take a job with Warner Bros. Another of Hollywood's creative geniuses slipped away.
B. B. Kahane also cleaned out his office during the year. Now that Odlum's lieutenants had taken over, Kahane knew he was expendable. When Columbia Pictures offered him a newly created vice-presidency in August, Kahane quickly accepted the job.20 It must have been an emotional decision for the former president of RKO Pictures who had worked for the corporation since its inception. Kahane was not a dynamic leader, but he was well liked and a good company man. Indeed, his record compares favorably with those of RKO's other executives. After moving to Hollywood from New York, he had acted in several different capacities for the studio and handled them efficiently and sensibly. Perhaps Kahane's greatest achievement was the superior 1935 production year—the only full year he functioned as head of t
he studio's filmmaking operations. But the time had come to get out and Ben Kahane knew it; he would remain with Columbia for more than twenty years.
Kahane's stalwart partner in 1934 and 1935, J. R. McDonough, receded into the background, accepting a vague studio position and lying low. In April, Briskin wrote Spitz that Mac was ducking him: “If he wants to sit in a room and mope there is nothing I can do or intend to do about it but let him sit and mope to his heart's satisfaction. It all seems so mysterious to me that I can't quite figure it out. Perhaps he is studying for a part in the Invisible Man.”21
Other personnel matters of note included the end of Ann Harding's RKO employment and the signing of George and Ira Gershwin, Edward Small, Jesse Lasky, and Howard Hawks. Harding had been with RKO since the Pathe merger, but her drawing power had declined considerably. Prior regimes had considered the actress overpaid; in 1936, when her contract ran out, she was simply let go.
Regarding the Gershwins, it came down to a choice between them and Vincent Youmans, who had written the score for Flying Down to Rio. Since Youmans's music had helped to launch the Astaire-Rogers team, the studio owed him a great deal. But he had become undependable, with health problems compounded by a fondness for the bottle. In a letter to Leo Spitz, Pandro Berman argued persuasively that the Gershwins were “definitely responsible, high-class people” who would probably do a better job than Youmans, even if he worked at peak efficiency.22 Thus, one of the great names of twentieth-century American music—Gershwin—became associated with RKO in 1936.23
To shore up its producing ranks, Briskin recruited Small, Lasky, and Hawks. Edward Small, whose Reliance Pictures had previously been distributed by United Artists, brought a number of properties with him, including the rights to Rudyard Kipling's famous poem “Gunga Din.” Jesse Lasky was a respected name in the motion picture industry, having played a significant role in the development of Paramount. But he was now entering the twilight of his career, and the announcement of his new “long-term contract” with RKO would soon be cause for regret.24 Producer-director Howard Hawks had made The Criminal Code (1931) and Twentieth Century (1934) for Columbia while Briskin was employed by that company. He would be expected to complete two or three pictures a year for RKO.
The one important executive who joined RKO in 1936 was Sid Rogell. Rogell had been studio manager of RKO Pathe before that organization was completely absorbed by RKO in 1933. He had also worked as a production manager on a number of pictures, had produced a series of John Wayne Westerns for Warner Bros. release, and was working as an associate producer at Columbia when he accepted the RKO job. Rogell became RKO's studio manager, meaning he would take charge of scheduling, budgeting, coordinating the work of the technical departments, and handling other logistical details. His tenure with the company would last (except for a brief period in 1942) until 1950.
Figure 14. Shall We Dance (1937). Director Mark Sandrich and composer George Gershwin on the set. Gershwin, one of the giants of American music, died not long after this photograph was taken. (Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences)
Without question, Sam Briskin's most lasting contribution to RKO was his signing of Walt Disney to a distribution contract in 1936. Disney's foresight regarding television proved a prime factor in his decision to link up with RKO. For the previous five years, his award-winning c artoons had been distributed by United Artists. His contract was up for renewal, and negotiations were proceeding agreeably when they suddenly came to a halt over one small detail. Disney indicated he might wish to retain the television rights during the distribution period for his pictures, and the United Artists board of directors, particularly Sam Gold-wyn and Mary Pickford, refused to give in on the matter. As Tino Balio reported in his history of UA, this “foolish quibble over a minor detail” gave RKO an opportunity to propose an even better deal to Disney which he accepted.25
Figure 15. Samuel Briskin in his office during the period when he was head of production at RKO. (Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences)
Sam Briskin had worked with Walt and Roy Disney around 1930 when the brothers were using Columbia as a distribution outlet. Briskin made the initial contact and wooed them with an arrangement wherein RKO would advance $43,500 for the production of each cartoon and split the profits fifty-fifty with Disney after the production cost was recouped.26 A separate arrangement was made for distribution of Disney's first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, then in production. For once, RKO's close ties with radio and RCA's sponsorship of television development proved helpful. Although the specific contract provisions regarding video rights were vague, television was definitely on Walt Disney's mind. He issued the following statement when the deal was announced: “In looking to the future, and that includes television, we believe our association with RKO offers greater opportunities for the broader and more expansive fields of development.”27 An ecstatic Merlin Aylesworth praised Disney for his vision: “Disney, as others, is looking forward to future television and is wondering what is going to happen. That is the extent of his interest right now. Being primarily an artist, he is considering the possibilities of a new medium for his art. He is not alone among film producers who have shown interest. Irving Thalberg likes to talk about television for hours.”28
It is fascinating to reflect on Disney's prescience. In 1936, he was already thinking about the possibilities of an unknown medium which he would eventually mobilize more completely and successfully than any other “film person.”
Almost lost amid the tumult regarding RKO's Disney coup was the fact that the studio already had a deal with the Van Beuren Corporation to distribute its Rainbow Parade series of animated short subjects. This turned out not to be a problem. Disney still owed United Artists fifteen cartoons and could not begin delivering under the RKO contract until January 1937.29 Thus, there would be time to phase out the Van Beuren efforts.
Back in New York, the executives and lawyers continued trying to solve the receivership dilemma. During the initial months of the year, a series of postponements in the hearings were necessitated by the inability of N. Peter Rathvon and others to formulate a suitable plan. The chief impediment was Rockefeller Center's huge claim against the company, as the Motion Picture Herald explained:
The claim is based on a 20-year lease made by RKO with Rockefeller Center in 1931, which provides for an annual rental of $950,000. Under articles of the lease RKO was also held liable for the unamortized construction costs of the Music Hall and Center Theatre. The claim was filed for $12,185,000 and, after hearings last year, was reduced to approximately $9,150,000. As the claim now stands Rockefeller Center is the largest unsecured creditor of RKO and as such would be a power in the reorganization of the company. The status of the huge claim has been the principal obstacle to the development of a plan of reorganization for RKO and it is apparent that until the claim is disposed of little or no progress on a plan can be made.30
Nevertheless, Leo Spitz told RKO's June sales convention that the reorganization would be effected by January 1937.31
The process dragged on into the fall when, suddenly, significant pressure was brought to bear on the situation. RKO's earnings had improved, and its stock was rising: “The rapidly increasing earnings of RKO, which are being reflected in the market value of its stock, were said to be a factor in the current demand for an immediate presentation of a plan. A sharp rise in the market value of the stock would complicate the provisions for treatment of the stockholders.…The same consideration applies in lesser degree to any creditors who are designated to receive common stock of the new RKO company in settlement of their claims.”32
The news that RKO was doing better financially was indeed welcome. But a close look at the numbers disclosed reasons for concern. More than half of the profits from the 1936 releases were generated by two pictures: Follow the Fleet and Swing Time. The former brought in $945,000, and the latter $830,000. Both of these Astaire-Rogers pictures opened a
t the Radio City Music Hall, where they played to capacity crowds. They also did strong business throughout the country, but a decline in attendance for Swing Time came sooner than expected. Fred Astaire stated in his autobiography that he believed all along that Swing Time was not the best of the team's pictures and interpreted the slight diminution in profits as an indication that “the cycle was running out its course.”33 Despite the fact that Swing Time cost more than any previous Astaire-Rogers musical ($886,000) and made less than either Top Hat or Follow the Fleet, the RKO executives were still overjoyed. But Astaire was right: the numbers would continue to trend downward.
There was a giant falloff between the two musicals and the studio's other hits. The Ex-Mrs. Bradford, a comedy-mystery performed very nicely, earning a profit of $350,000, but it featured two performers under contract to other studios, William Powell from MGM and Jean Arthur from Columbia. Thus, it would be difficult to build upon its success. And the only other films that spawned six-figure results were The Bride Walks Out, starring Barbara Stanwyck ($164,000), and two films featuring Gene Raymond and Ann Sothern: Walking on Air ($106,000) and The Smartest Girl in Town ($101,000).
Among the losers, the most worrisome were the Hepburn pictures. Following the Sylvia Scarlett debacle, Pandro Berman put Academy Award-winners Dudley Nichols and John Ford to work on Maxwell Anderson's play Mary of Scotland. RKO was determined to shoot the works on the historical drama and spared no expense. The final budget amounted to $864,000; of the films produced in 1936, only Swing Time cost more.
When shooting was completed, word-of-mouth around the studio indicated RKO had a hit. A large advertising campaign was designed, and the preview reaction was totally encouraging, as Berman indicated to Spitz in the following wire: “Very happy report had wonderful preview Mary Santa Barbara last night.…Had spontaneous applause during picture and enormous round of applause at finish which did not expect account sadness of execution. Definitely a sock with audiences of all types. Not necessary have highbrow gang to appreciate it. Couldn't be more pleased.”34
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