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Rio Rita (1929 - RKO)
Rio
Rita was adapted from Ziegfeld's hit musical of 1928. The stage version
catapulted Wheeler and Woolsey to stardom after years of moderate success as
solo performers. This 1929 film made the team movie stars, eclipsing the top
billed Bebe Daniels and John Boles, both long established film stars. The herald
(handbill) pictured was used throughout Australia and reversed the star billing
to Wheeler and Woolsey over Boles and Daniels, who received star billing in the
U.S. release. This big budget film was the first true movie musical and was a
smash hit which was re-released to theaters twice after its initial run. It
included a lengthy Technicolor musical sequence near the end of the film and
began the screen partnership of Wheeler & Woolsey as a comic duo, a partnership
that lasted 21 feature films and nine years. Without "Rita", the team of Wheeler
& Woolsey would have never existed and RKO would have gone bankrupt before
making "King Kong", "Citizen Kane", the Fred Astaire - Ginger Rogers movies, or
anything else RKO released after 1930. Wheeler & Woolsey were RKO's biggest
moneymakers from 1929 to 1935 and kept the studio solvent through the worst days
of the Great Depression.
