B Movies (Hollywood Golden Age) - Bs From Major To Minor: 1940s

Bs From Major To Minor: 1940s

By 1940, the average production cost of an American feature was $400,000, a negligible increase over ten years. A number of small Hollywood companies had folded around the turn of the decade, including the ambitious Grand National, but a new firm, Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC), emerged as third in the Poverty Row hierarchy behind Republic and Monogram. The double feature, never universal, was still the prevailing exhibition model: in 1941, 50 percent of theaters were double-billing exclusively, with additional numbers screening under the policy part-time. In the early 1940s, legal pressure forced the studios to replace seasonal block booking with packages generally limited to five pictures (MGM carried on with blocks of twelve for a while). Restrictions were also placed on the majors' ability to enforce blind bidding. These were crucial factors in the progressive shift by most of the Big Five over to A-film production, making the smaller studios even more important as B-movie suppliers. In 1944, for instance, MGM, Paramount, Fox, and Warners released a total of ninety-five features: fourteen had B-level budgets of $200,000 or less; eleven were budgeted between $200,000 and $500,000, a range encompassing programmers as well as straight B movies on the lower end; and seventy were A budgeted at $0.5 million or more. In late 1946, executives at the newly merged Universal-International announced that no U-I feature would run less than seventy minutes; supposedly, all B pictures were to be discontinued, even if they were in the midst of production. The studio did release three more sub-70-minute films: two Cinecolor Westerns, Michigan Kid and The Vigilantes Return, in 1947; the self-explanatory Arctic Manhunt in 1949. Fox also phased out B production in 1946, releasing low-budget unit chief Bryan Foy, who had come over from Warners five years before. For its B-picture needs, the studio turned to independent producers like the now-freelance Sol Wurtzel.

Genre pictures made at very low cost remained the backbone of Poverty Row, with even Republic's and Monogram's budgets rarely climbing over $200,000. According to Naremore, between 1945 and 1950, "the average B western from Republic Pictures was made for about $50,000." Among the established studios, Monogram was exploring fresh territory with what were being called "exploitation pictures." Variety defined these as "films with some timely or currently controversial subject which can be exploited, capitalized on in publicity or advertising." Many smaller Poverty Row firms were folding because there simply was not enough money to go around: the eight majors, with their proprietary distribution exchanges, were now "taking in around 95 percent of all domestic (U.S. and Canada) rental receipts." The wartime shortage of film stock was another contributing factor.

Referencing the work of historian Lea Jacobs, Naremore describes how the line between A and B movies was "ambiguous and never dependent on money alone." Films shot on B-level budgets were occasionally marketed as A pictures or emerged as sleeper hits: One of 1943's biggest films was Hitler's Children, an 82-minute-long RKO thriller made for a fraction over $200,000. It earned more than $3 million in rentals, industry language for a distributor's share of gross box office receipts. The violent Dillinger (1945), made for a reported $35,000, earned Monogram more than $1 million for the first time. A pictures, particularly in the realm of film noir, sometimes echoed visual styles generally associated with cheaper films. Between November 1941 and November 1943, Dore Schary ran what was effectively a "B-plus" unit at MGM. Programmers, with their flexible exhibition role, were ambiguous by definition, leading in certain cases to historical confusion. As late as 1948, the double feature remained a popular exhibition mode—it was the standard screening policy at 25 percent of theaters and used part-time at an additional 36 percent. The leading Poverty Row firms began to broaden their scope: In 1947, Monogram established a subsidiary, Allied Artists, as a development and distribution channel for relatively expensive films, mostly from independent producers. Around the same time, Republic launched a similar effort under the "Premiere" rubric. In 1947 as well, PRC was subsumed by Eagle-Lion, a British company seeking entry to the American market. Warners' (and Fox's) former Keeper of the B's, Brian Foy, was installed as production chief.