Slow Fade to Black The Decline of RKO Radio Pictures

Reviews

"Jewell’s scholarship is impeccable and his text is plain-spoken and highly readable. Every studio deserves a similar examination; thank goodness the right man tackled this particular task."—Leonard Maltin

"...a fascinating study that readers will find difficult to pause between finishing one chapter and starting the next one."—Los Angeles City Historical Society Newsletter

“With this engrossing second volume to his masterful business history, Richard Jewell brings the story of RKO to its tragic close. It’s a smartly researched tale of malfeasance and mischief and sheer managerial madness, told with Jewell’s talents for the illuminating detail as well as the revealing big picture. An essential contribution to Hollywood history.”—Dana Polan, Professor, Department of Cinema Studies, New York University

“With Slow Fade to Black, Richard Jewell completes his monumental history of RKO Pictures, which stands with Tino Balio’s two-volume history of United Artists as the best ‘inside account’ of a Hollywood studio ever written. Making use of archival material no longer available to film scholars (or anyone else), Jewell reconstructs the operations of the studio in amazing detail. He also takes us inside the offices—and the business minds—of executives like Peter Rathvon and Charles Koerner, who guided the studio to its glory years in the 1940s, and the inimitable Howard Hughes, who drove it tragically into the ground in the 1950s.”—Thomas Schatz, Professor, Department of Radio-Television-Film, The University of Texas at Austin