Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – RKO – 1933: SWEEPINGS & FLYING DOWN TO RIO

This 1933 RKO Studios Year by Year episode takes us from the sweepings on the floor of a palatial early 20th century department store to celestial shenanigans high above Rio de Janeiro. Lester Cohen's adaptation of his Dreiseresque novel Sweepings (directed by John Cromwell), another failson saga strongly anticipating HBO's Succession , struggles to translate generational saga into a coherent 80 minutes, but Gregory Ratoff's performance as a hired man trying to get his dues in spite of anti-Semitism is one of the things that make it worth watching; and while a climactic bevy of aerial showgirls can't make Flying Down to Rio the equal of either the 1933 Warner Bros. Busby Berkeley musicals or the Fred and Ginger musicals at RKO to come, the Astaire and Rogers team film debut does offer a curious glimpse of an alternate universe in which they were comic buddies instead of love interests at odds. But already setting the world on fire when they put their heads together as a dance team. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: 1933 and RKO 0h 04m 02s: SWEEPINGS (1933) [dir. John Cromwell] 0h 26m 14s: FLYING DOWN TO RIO (1933) [dir. Thornton Freeland] 0h 45m 16s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: Final Screening of the Naruse Retrospective at TIFF Lightbox – Untamed (1955) Studio Film Capsules provided by The RKO Story by Richard B. Jewell & Vernon Harbin Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler 1933 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive ) * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours , and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – RKO – 1933: SWEEPINGS & FLYING DOWN TO RIO is an episode from Another Kind of Distance: A Time Travel, Twin Peaks, Film, Doom Patrol and Nostalgia Podcast by Dave.

This episode is 51:15 long.

This episode was published on Feb 6, 2026.

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