Hollywood the Golden Years: The RKO Story

Ed Asner tells the story of RKO Pictures through the eyes of the people who worked there from its creation at the start of the talkies in the late 1920s.

He examines the musicals made in the mid 1930s with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Includes interviews with both stars, the producer Pando Berman and choreographer Hermes Pan.

The story of RKO Pictures, told through the eyes of the people who worked there, traces the films made at RKO for and by women, concentrating on the careers of Ginger Rogers and Katharine Hepburn.

Orson Welles spent a hectic few years at RKO, making Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons and the abandoned It's All True.

The 1950s were a time of mounting paranoia, reflected by the studio's ventures into film noir. Robert Mitchum makes his first screen appearance, Val Lewton creates Zombies and Cat People, and the House Un-American Activities Committee stalks its prey.

Series concludes as Howard Hughes' purchase of RKO has a devastating effect on the studio.