Death on the Cheap : The Lost B Movies of Film Noir

Robert Mitchum once commented to Arthur Lyons about his movies of the 1940s and 1950s: "Hell, we didn't know what film noir was in those days. We were just making movies. Cary Grant and all the big stars at RKO got all the lights. We lit our sets with cigarette butts." Film noir was made to order for the "B," or low-budget, part of the movie double bill. It was cheaper to produce because it made do with less lighting, smaller casts, limited sets, and compact story lines—about con men, killers, cigarette girls, crooked cops, down-and-out boxers, and calculating, scheming, very deadly women. In Death on the Cheap , Arthur Lyons entertainingly looks at the history of the B movie and how it led to the genre that would come to be called noir, a genre that decades later would be transformed in such "neo-noir" films as Pulp Fiction, Fargo , and L.A. Confidential . The book, loaded with movie stills, also features a witty and informative filmography (including video sources) of B films that have largely been ignored or neglected—“lost" to the general public but now restored to their rightful place in movie history thanks to Death on the Cheap . Robert Mitchum once commented to Arthur Lyons about his movies of the 1940s and 1950s: "Hell, we didn't know what film noir was in those days. We were just making movies. Cary Grant and all the big stars at RKO got all the lights. We lit our sets with cigarette butts." Film noir was made to order for the "B," or low-budget, part of the movie double bill. It was cheaper to produce because it made do with less lighting, smaller casts, limited sets, and compact story linesabout con men, killers, cigarette girls, crooked cops, down-and-out boxers, and calculating, scheming, very deadly women. In Death on the Cheap , Arthur Lyons entertainingly looks at the history of the B movie and how it led to the genre that would come to be called noir, a genre that decades later would be transformed in such "neo-noir" films as Pulp Fiction, Fargo , and L.A. Confidential . The book, loaded with movie stills, also features a witty and informative filmography (including video sources) of B films that have largely been ignored or neglectedlost" to the general public but now restored to their rightful place in movie history thanks to Death on the Cheap . "In Death on the Cheap, Arthur Lyons looks at the history of the B movie and how it led to the genre that would come to be called noir, a genre that decades later would be transformed in such "neo-noir" films as Pulp Fiction, Fargo, and L.A. Confidential. The book, loaded with movie stills, also features a filmography (including video sources) of B films that have largely been ignored or neglected - "lost" to the general public but now restored to their rightful place in movie history thanks to Death on the Cheap."--BOOK JACKET. Complemented by dozens of black-and-white movie stills, this entertaining study of low-budget film noir and its influence on the history of cinema presents an informative filmography of neglected B films, including Bad Blonde, Bury Me Dead, Short Cut to Hell, They Made Me a Killer, Wicked as They Come, Date with Death, and others. Original. 15,000 first printing. Film noir: it's all in the story Roots: the boys in the back room Attack of the killer B's The emergence of the B noir Poverty row: the B factories The final decade: the demise of the B Filmography Epilogue.