Richard B. Jewell’s Slow Fade to Black: The Decline of RKO Radio Pictures, focuses on the production studio during the last years of World War II through its dissolution. He draws extensively upon the studio archives to paint a picture of the drama and conflict that plagued RKO for most of its history. This book serves as a follow-up to Jewell’s earlier volume, RKO Radio Pictures: A Titan Is Born.
Jewell writes, “Most people in the United States, and in many other countries as well, were spending a significant portion of their days reading about the war [WWII] in the newspapers, listening to the latest updates on the radio, and talking about it with their friends. Given that the hostilities did not go well for the Allies throughout much of 1942, one might have expected spectators to prefer films that avoided the subject, as they generally had during the equally disheartening Depression. But just the opposite was true. Theater patrons sought out movies that reflected the precise moment they were living through, no matter how unrealistic and fanciful those movies happened to be” (pg. 11). After the war, however, RKO and others struggled. Jewell writes, “Box office attendance had started to decline, thanks to the onset of the baby boom era. Young couples celebrated the end of the war by marrying, moving to the suburbs, and starting families. With budgets stretched as they carved out their own small piece of the American dream, these young Americans cut back on moviegoing. If they did decide to catch a picture, they most likely watched it at a neighborhood theater or a drive-in – venues that were more convenient and featured lower admission prices than the picture palaces in urban downtown areas” (pg. 60).
Of the Red Scare, Jewell writes, “Since Howard Hughes vehemently opposed communism and intended to use his power to stifle the spread of the doctrine, it came as no surprise that one of his initial RKO pictures would deal with the subject. And he was not alone – Warner Bros., Twentieth Century-Fox, Paramount, and other companies were also making anticommunist features at this historical moment. Hughes, however, allegedly had an additional agenda; he had decided to use the project [the film I Married a Communist] as a litmus test of his employees’ political sympathies” (pg. 95). Of Howard Hughes and the company’s downfall, Jewell writes, “There is one aspect of RKO’s history that everyone – company employees, journalists, Hollywood historians, film scholars, Hughes biographers – seems to agree about: Howard Hughes was primarily responsible for the ruination of the company. As should be clear by this stage, his erratic, incomprehensible approach to management brought RKO tumbling down to the brink of extinction” (pg. 180). Jewell concludes, “With the exception of the war years, RKO had never been a stable company, particularly at the executive level, but a surprising number of loyal employees did spend most of their lives working for the organization” (pg. 210). ( )