TV Reviews : ‘Birth of a Titan’: BBC Tells the RKO Story

Movie historians and Hollywood documentary buffs will not want to miss the life story of RKO Pictures, an estimable six-part BBC series that kicks off tonight in “Hollywood: The Golden Years” (KCET Channel 28 at 10 p.m.).

Each hourlong program (previously shown on cable) makes an incisive thematic point through clips and reminiscences with survivors, including some who have died since they were interviewed, about the studio’s history and its impact. Tonight’s episode, “Birth of a Titan” (subsequent segments air every Friday), segues from narrator Ed Asner prowling RKO’s archives and old sound stages at Melrose and Gower to encapsulate the shaky Depression-era struggles of the young company, started in 1928 by David Sarnoff and Joseph Kennedy.

It’s true that one may feel fatigued by the plethora of material about Hollywood (KCET debuted its “Golden Age of Television” drama series Thursday night, premiered a dark 1939 movieland yarn, “Hyde of Hollywood” last week, and the County Museum of Art tonight unveils a five-month celebration of great movies of 1941). But this look at the movie company that gave us “King Kong,” “Citizen Kane,” Howard Hughes and Katharine Hepburn is a collector’s item, scholarly and ineffably entertaining. VCRs should be spinning all over town.

Hepburn’s arrival on the RKO lot and her latter-day assessment of her first role opposite John Barrymore in “Bill of Divorcement” (1932) is classic Hepburn. We also hear tonight Fay Wray’s delightful recollections of working with “the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood” (King Kong).

But buckle up because the greatest moments tonight are reserved for the riotous clips from the movie that was to establish RKO’s musical signature, “Flying Down to Rio” (1933). The ankles of chorus girls are strapped to the wings of airplanes, the wind machines are blowing their gowns away and the back projection is breathtaking. Co-star Gene Raymond, still looking good, shows up to remember it all.

We’re also introduced to a couple of fresh faces in “Flying Down to Rio,” with fourth and fifth billing, to be exact, named Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, who put down their cocktails to dance the “Carioca.” They continued dancing through nine RKO pictures (and are interviewed in the series’ Aug. 16 installment).

Next week’s program will deal with RKO’s “women’s pictures,” to be followed by segments on Orson Welles (July 26), Howard Hughes (Aug. 9), and Hollywood’s nightmare years during the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, with interviews with blacklisted directors Edward Dmytryk and Paul Jarrico (Aug. 2).