Pan Berman had received his first screen credit in 1925 as a nineteen-year-old assistant director on FBO's Midnight Molly.Kear (2009), p. 144. He departed RKO in December 1939 after policy clashes with studio president George J. Schaefer, handpicked the previous year by the Rockefellers and backed by Sarnoff.Lasky (1989), pp. 152, 156–57; Jewell (1982), p. 116. With Berman gone, Schaefer became in effect production chief, though other men—including the former head of the industry censorship board, Joseph I. Breen—nominally filled the role.For Breen's position, see Jeff and Simmons (2001), pp. 119, 122–125. Schaefer, announcing his philosophy with a new studio slogan, "Quality Pictures at a Premium Price", was keen on signing up independent producers whose films RKO would distribute.Jewell (1982), p. 140. In 1941, the studio landed one of the most prestigious independents in Hollywood when it arranged to handle Samuel Goldwyn's productions. The first two Goldwyn pictures released by the studio did excellent box office: The Little Foxes, directed by William Wyler and starring Bette Davis, and the Howard Hawks–directed Ball of Fire also garnered four Oscar nominations apiece; the latter was Barbara Stanwyck's biggest hit under the RKO banner. However, Schaefer agreed to terms so favorable to Goldwyn that it was next to impossible for the studio to make money with his films.Jewell (1982), p. 304; Schatz (1999), p. 57; Jewell (2012), p. 253. David O. Selznick loaned out his leading contracted director for two RKO pictures in 1941: Alfred Hitchcock's Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the final release of Carole Lombard's lifetime, was a modest success and Suspicion a substantial one, with an Oscar-winning turn by Joan Fontaine.Jewell (2012), pp. 231–34; Jewell (1982), pp. 156, 167.
