The battle for the Bs : 1950s Hollywood and the rebirth of low-budget cinema / Blair Davis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Davis, Blair, 1975-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

B films--United States--History and criticism.

B films.

Motion pictures--United States--History--20th century.

Motion pictures.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (275 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, 2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The emergence of the double-bill in the 1930's 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 1950's and demonstrates the possibilities that existed for low-budget filmmaking at a time when many in Hollywood had abandoned the B's. Made by newly formed independent companies, 1950's 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 1950's and created a legacy that was passed on to independent filmmakers in the decades to come.

Contents:

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.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-280-49339-9

9786613588623

0-8135-5324-5

OCLC:

787843683