Kennedy had no illusions about his studio's place in the realm of cinematic art. A journalist once complimented him on FBO's recent output: "You have had some good pictures this year." Kennedy jocularly inquired, "What the hell "were" they?" In her history of RKO, author Betty Lasky points to the pre-Kennedy "Broken Laws" (1924), directed by Roy William Neill and starring Dorothy Davenport (again billed as Mrs. Wallace Reid) as exemplifying the rare "unforgettable picture of the higher caliber" put out by FBO.