Comment Report abuse. c.1962 - At around this time Hilchey revisited the Miniature Department at what had become the Desilu lot (formerly RKO Studios). They live in a big old house, in a small southern studio back lot that doesn’t look like any southern town i’ve seen. Katharine Hepburn was a major acting talent, an icon of Hollywood’s Golden Age, and one of RKO’s biggest-ever discoveries. One person found this helpful. The collection consists of script files, production information files, music scores and arrangements, script synopses and reader's reports, story submission cards, payroll records, and books from what appears to be the story department library. This is the a partial view of a different version of the billboard artwork we can see in the far right of the 1935 image for Wheeler and Woolsey in The Rainmaker: And is this, of course, the iconic RKO logo: While some major studios have gone defunct (such as RKO) and others are no longer the powerhouses that they once were (such as MGM), there remain six major Hollywood studios that continue to release the vast majority of movies at your local multiplex. Greg Mason. Around the time of the Depression, its output included the classic King Kong (1933). As a staunch conservative, films he saw as insidiously Communist were pulled, rampant paranoia bled throughout the RKO lot, and Hughes suspended and investigated many staff members for party links, striking their credits if he felt it justified. In 1965, for the epic film, The Greatest Story Ever Told, several more sets were built among the many already there. A rail line ran through the property and was occasionally used for filming. ... As to RKO, it’s a tale of Hollywood power brokers, fierce competition, and cinema history wrapped up in a 3 letter abbreviation. The kind of trouble that could easily ruin stardom during these days, Mitchum spent a week in county jail. Very little is mentioned on the Sony studio tours of the MGM era. MCA started Revue Productions in 1943 for the purpose of broadcasting radio productions to the troupes over seas during the war. 1984 November 6, 1984 Davis transferred Fox Studios’ interests in Aspen … The Studio lot is now 62.7 acres. But studio back lots, like the ones at Paramount or MGM, were much more than just a collection of sets: They were the beating heart of the Old Hollywood system. When FBO was amalgamated into RKO in 1928, Plunkett became the de-facto … The ranch property was sold in 1954 to the Encino Park housing development. Read more.. A Late Quartet. 1933 marked an excellent year in terms of output for Hollywood studio RKO Pictures: Releases included iconic monster flick King Kong; Little Women and Morning Glory, starring new studio star Katharine Hepburn (the latter of which gave the actress her fist Oscar), and Flying Down to Rio, the musical that launched the celebrated partnership of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It might be a smaller list of hits than its rivals (many of which are still standing), but their quality is undeniable. Over the next few years, Desilu TV shows such as “The Untouchables,” “The Texan,” “Whirlybirds” and “Sheriff of Cochise” used the backlot settings. The ranch was located approximately between Louise Avenue on the west, Balboa Blvd. It sported a complete western town with intersecting streets and a New York street. The lot was acquired by the Sony Corporation as part of its Culver City expansion. Unfortunately, a corporate shake-up following Koerner’s death left Lewton unemployed and, in ill health himself, he was dead by 1951. Airy, an Andy Griffith Show call sheet from 1964, including references to "40A-CoaltownStr" for filming of "Mayberry" town exteriors at 40 Acres...revealing that this area of the backlot was named for its appearance as "Coaltown" in the 1948 film, "Miracle of the Bells." Today the lot is the home of Sony Pictures Studio Columbia Tri-Star. Looking at the photo below you will see "Lucy Park," which not only serves as a park area on the lot, but also, sometimes as a filming location. With rumbles of anti-Communist paranoia ahead of the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee hearings in 1947, and eccentric aviation and movie magnate Howard Hughes poised to disastrously take control of the studio in 1948, Koerner’s death marked the beginning of a decline from which RKO would never truly recover. The old RKO lot now belongs to Paramount. The studio continuously fought to stay in the black, spending seven years in receivership during the 1930s before clawing itself back into the clear in 1940. Alongside its bankable stars, the studio welcomed Irving Berlin and George and Ira Gershwin to Hollywood to work on the music for Astaire-Rogers vehicles, Willis O’Brien to wield his special-effects magic on King Kong, Walter Plunkett to furnish its stars with his lavish and iconic costumes, and Max Steiner to begin a musical output that still inspires composers for film today. explore movie studios and locations (beta – under construction until mid 2021), theStudioTour.com > Studios > RKO Encino Ranch. The studio also had a distribution deal with Walt Disney to release his studio’s feature-length animations, and nurtured the careers of stars like Cary Grant, Maureen O’Hara, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Mitchum and John Wayne. 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