Retake at RKO

A familiar pilot was back at the controls of RKO Pictures last week. Howard Hughes, who sold control of the studio only two months ago for $7,093,940 to a group headed by Chicago Promoter Ralph Stolkin, moved back into control without putting up any cash. Noah Dietrich, Hughes's right-hand man and executive vice president of Hughes Tool Co., is expected to become RKO president. With Dietrich and two other satellites on the five-man board, Hughes has complete control, although the Stolkin group still holds the majority (29%) stock interest.

After a flood of unfavorable publicity had forced four Stolkin men to step down from the board, Stolkin turned to Hughes because he still has a sizable financial interest in RKO (the group still owes Hughes some $6,000,000, to be paid off in 2 1/2 years), and seemed to be the only one willing to try to put the studio's humpty-dumpty operation together. Hughes, reluctant to step back into RKO, promised to keep his eccentric hand off picture production.

Even at that, he and his associates will have to perform something like a miracle to get RKO on its feet. The studio has been losing $100,000 a week, has made one picture in the last five months, has been sued by a group of stockholders and has no movie production boss. Hughes's first move was to announce plans for five movies; his next task will be to try to persuade a big-name producer to take the job. Meanwhile, RKO's 15,000 stockholders could only hope that one of the most harrowing scripts since The Great Train Robbery would somehow have a happy ending.

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