Cutting Koerners: Floyd Odlum, the Atlas Corporation and the Dismissal of Orson Welles from RKO

The dismissal of Orson Welles from his contract at RKO is one of the most debated topics in the history of American film. This article examines the corporate background behind this decision through the role of Floyd Odlum and the Atlas Corporation in engineering Welles’s dismissal. It then explains the company strategy that Odlum pursued vis-à-vis his assumption of control at RKO, against the backdrop of Atlas as a large US investment firm. It also re-examines Welles’s claim that (apart from It’s All True) his films never went over-budget. By bringing these elements together, a new understanding of why Welles was dismissed from RKO is obtained.