The Battle For The Bs: 1950s Hollywood And The Rebirth Of Low-budget Cinema Project Muse Upcc Books

The emergence of the double-bill in the 1930s created a divide between A-pictures and B-pictures as theaters typically screened packages featuring one of each. With the former considered more prestigious because of their larger budgets and more popular actors, the lower-budgeted Bs served largely as a support mechanism to A-films of the major studios—most of which also owned the theater chains in which movies were shown. When a 1948 U.S. Supreme Court antitrust ruling severed ownership of theaters from the studios, the B-movie soon became a different entity in the wake of profound changes to the corporate organization and production methods of the major Hollywood studios. In __The Battle for the Bs__, Blair Davis analyzes how B-films were produced, distributed, and exhibited in the 1950s and demonstrates the possibilities that existed for low-budget filmmaking at a time when many in Hollywood had abandoned the Bs. Made by newly formed independent companies, 1950s B-movies took advantage of changing demographic patterns to fashion innovative marketing approaches. They established such genre cycles as science fiction and teen-oriented films (think __Destination Moon__ and __I Was a Teenage Werewolf__) well before the major studios and also contributed to the emergence of the movement now known as underground cinema. Although frequently proving to be multimillion-dollar box-office draws by the end of the decade, the Bs existed in opposition to the cinematic mainstream in the 1950s and created a legacy that was passed on to independent filmmakers in the decades to come. Acknowledgments ix The Bs Take Flight: An Introduction I 1 Hollywood in Transition: The Business of 1950s Filmmaking 19 2 The Battle Begins: Hollywood Reacts, Poverty Row Collapses 43 3 The Rebirth of the B-Movie in the 1950s 67 4 Attack of the Independent: American International Pictures and the B-Movie 103 5 Small Screen, Smaller Pictures: New Perspectives on 1950s Television and B-Movies 131 6 Big B, Little b: A Case Study of Three Films 164 7 Notes from the Underground: The Legacy of the 1950s B-Movie 201 Notes 217 Index 249 In The Battle for the Bs, Blair Davis analyzes how B-films were produced, distributed, and exhibited in the 1950s and demonstrates the new possibilities that existed for low-budget filmmaking at a time when many in Hollywood abandoned the Bs. B-movies innovated such industrial components as demographic patterns and marketing approaches, created such genres as science fiction and the teen-oriented films of the early and mid fifties, and led to the emergence of 'New Poverty Row'; a movement now known as underground cinema Introduction -- Hollywood In Transition: The Business Of 1950s Filmmaking -- The Battle Begins: Hollywood Reacts, Poverty Row Collapses -- The Rebirth Of The B-movie In The 1950s -- Attack Of The Independent: American International Pictures And The B-movie -- Small Screen, Smaller Pictures: New Perspectives On 1950s Television And B-movies -- Big 'b', Little 'b': A Case Study Of Three Films -- Notes From The Underground : The Legacy Of The 1950s B-movie. Blair Davis. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.