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The term B movie originally referred to a s is prurient. In some cases, both are true. In either usage, most B movies represent a particular . From their beginnings to the present day, B movies have provided opportunities both for those coming up in the profession and others whose careers are waning. Celebrated filmmakers such as Anthony Mann and Jonathan Demme learned their craft in B movies. B movies are where actors such as John Wayne and Jack Nicholson became established, and the Bs have also provided work for former A movie actors, such as Vincent Price and Karen Black . Some actors, such as Béla Lugosi and Pam Grier , worked in B movies for most of their careers. HISTORY Roots of the B movie: 1920s See Also: B movies (Hollywood Golden Age) 's ''That Certain Thing'' (1928) was made for less than $20,000. Soon, director Frank Capra 's association with Columbia would help vault the studio toward Hollywood's major leagues.Hirschhorn (1999), pp. 9–10, 17.]] It is not clear that the term ''B movie'' (or ''B film'' or ''B picture'') was in general use before the 1930s, but a similar concept was already well established. In 1927–28, at the end of the Silent Era , the production cost of an average feature from a Major Hollywood Studio ranged from $190,000 at Fox to $275,000 at MGM . That average reflected both "specials" that might cost as much as $1 million and films made quickly for around $50,000. These cheaper films allowed the studios to derive maximum value from facilities and contracted staff in between a studio's more important productions, while also breaking in new personnel.Finler (1988), p. 36; Balio (1995), p. 29. Studios in the minor leagues of the industry, such as Columbia Pictures and Film Booking Offices Of America (FBO), focused on exactly those sort of cheap productions; their movies, with relatively short running times, targeted theaters that had to economize on rental and operating costs—particularly those in small towns and so-called neighborhood venues, or "nabes," in big cities. Even smaller, so-called Poverty Row outfits made films whose production costs might run as low as $3,000, seeking a profit through whatever bookings they could pick up in the gaps left by the larger concerns.See, e.g., Taves (1995), p. 320. With the widespread arrival of , a short and/or a Serial , and a Cartoon , followed by a double feature. The second feature, which actually screened before the main event, cost the exhibitor less per minute than the equivalent running time in shorts. The majors' "clearance" rules favoring their affiliated theaters prevented the independents' timely access to top-quality films; the second feature allowed them to promote quantity instead.Balio (1995), p. 29. See also Schatz (1999), pp. 16, 324. The additional movie also gave the program "balance"—the practice of pairing different sorts of features suggested to potential customers that they could count on something of interest no matter what specifically was on the bill. The low-budget picture of the 1920s thus evolved into the second feature, the B movie, of Hollywood's Golden Age. Bs in the Golden Age of Hollywood (1): 1930s See Also: B movies (Hollywood Golden Age) The largely freed the majors from worrying about their Bs' quality—even when booking in less than seasonal blocks, exhibitors had to buy most pictures sight unseen. The five largest studios— MGM , Paramount , Fox , Warner Bros. , and RKO (descendant of FBO)—also belonged to companies with sizable theater chains, further securing the bottom line. Poverty Row studios, from modest outfits like Mascot Pictures and Sono Art–World Wide down to shoestring operations, made exclusively B movies, serials, and other shorts; they also distributed totally independent productions and imported films. In no position to directly block book, they mostly sold regional distribution exclusivity to "states rights" firms, which in turn peddled blocks of movies to exhibitors, typically six or more pictures featuring the same star (a relative status on Poverty Row).Taves (1995), pp. 326–327. Two "major-minors"— Universal and rising Columbia—had production lines roughly similar to, though somewhat better endowed than, the top Poverty Row concerns'. They had few or no theaters, but they did have major-league-level distribution exchanges.See, e.g., Balio (1995), pp. 103–104. In the standard Golden Age model, the industry's top product, its A films, premiered at a small number of select first-run houses in major cities. Double features were not the rule at these prestigious venues. As described by historian Edward Jay Epstein, "During these first runs, films got their reviews, garnered publicity, and generated the word of mouth that served as the principal form of advertising."Epstein (2005), p. 6. See also Schatz (1999), pp. 16–17. Then it was off to the subsequent-run market where the double feature prevailed. At the larger local venues controlled by the majors, movies might turn over on a weekly basis. At the thousands of smaller, independent theaters, programs often changed two or three times a week. To meet the constant demand for new B product, the low end of Poverty Row turned out a stream of micro-budget movies rarely much more than sixty minutes long; these were known as "quickies" for their tight production schedules—as short as four days.Taves (1995), p. 325. As Brain Taves describes, "Many of the poorest theaters, such as the 'grind houses' in the larger cities, screened a continuous program emphasizing action with no specific schedule, sometimes offering six quickies for a nickel in all-night show that changed daily."Taves (1995), p. 326. Many small theaters never saw a big-studio A film, getting their movies from the states rights concerns that handled almost exclusively Poverty Row product. Millions of Americans went to their local theaters as a matter of course: for an A picture, along with the Trailers , or screen previews, that presaged its arrival, " {Link without Title} he new film's title on the marquee and the listings for it in the local newspaper constituted all the advertising most movies got."Epstein (2005), p. 4. Aside from at the theater itself, B films might not be advertised at all. The introduction of sound had driven costs higher: by 1930, the average U.S. feature film cost $375,000 to produce.Finler (1988), p. 36. A broad range of motion pictures occupied the B category. The leading studios made not only clear-cut A and B films, but also movies classifiable as "programmers" (also "in-betweeners" or "intermediates"): "Depending on the prestige of the theater and the other material on the double bill, a programmer could show up at the top or bottom of the marquee."Taves (1995), p. 317. Taves (like this article) adopts the usage of "programmer" argued for by author Don Miller in his 1973 study ''B Movies'' (New York: Ballantine). As Taves notes, "the term ''programmer'' was used in a variety of different ways by reviewers" of the 1930s (p. 431, n. 8). Some present-day critics employ the Miller–Taves usage; others refer to any B movie from the Golden Age as a "programmer" or "program picture." On Poverty Row, many Bs were made on budgets that would have barely covered petty cash on a major's A film, with costs at the bottom of the industry running as low as $5,000.Taves (1995), p. 325. By the mid-1930s, the double feature was the dominant U.S. exhibition model, and the majors responded. In 1935, B movie production at Warner Bros. was raised from 12 to 50 percent of studio output. The unit was headed by Bryan Foy, known as the "Keeper of the Bs."Balio (1995), p. 102. At Fox, which also shifted half of its production line into B territory, Sol M. Wurtzel was similarly in charge of more than twenty movies a year during the late 1930s. ), Tucson Smith (Corrigan), and Lullaby Joslin (Terhune) didn't get much time in harness. Republic Pictures ' ''Pals of the Saddle'' (1938) lasts just 55 minutes, average for a Three Mesquiteers adventure.]] A number of the top Poverty Row firms consolidated: Sono Art joined another company to create Monogram Pictures early in the decade. In 1935, Monogram, Mascot, and several smaller studios merged to form Republic Pictures . The heads of Monogram soon pulled out and revived their company. Into the 1950s, most Republic and Monogram product was roughly on par with the low end of the majors' output. Less sturdy Poverty Row concerns—with a penchant for grand sobriquets like Conquest, Empire, Imperial, and Peerless—continued to churn out dirt-cheap quickies.See Taves (1995), pp. 321–329. Joel Finler has analyzed the average length of feature releases in 1938, indicating the studios' relative emphasis on B production ( United Artists produced little, focusing on the distribution of prestigious films from independent outfits):Adapted from Finler (1988), pp. 21–22. Taves estimates that half of the films produced by the eight majors in the 1930s were B movies. Calculating in the three hundred or so films made annually by the many Poverty Row firms, approximately 75 percent of Hollywood movies from the decade, more than four thousand pictures, are classifiable as Bs.Taves (1995), p. 313. The Western was by far the predominant B genre in both the 1930s and, to a lesser degree, the 1940s.Nachbar (1974), p. 2. Film historian Jon Tuska has argued that "the 'B' product of the Thirties—the Universal films with '' (1938) was such a success in its independent bookings that Columbia picked it up for distribution.Taves (1995), p. 316. Series of various genres, featuring recurrent, title-worthy characters or name actors in familiar roles, were particularly popular during the first decade of sound film. Fox's many B series, for instance, produced by Sol Wurtzel included chronicles had leading stars and budgets that would have been A-level at some of the lesser majors.Naremore (1998), p. 141. For many series, even a lesser major's standard B budget was far out of reach: Poverty Row's Consolidated Pictures featured Tarzan, the Police Dog in a series with the proud name of Melodramatic Dog Features.Taves (1995), p. 328. Bs in the Golden Age of Hollywood (2): 1940s See Also: B movies (Hollywood Golden Age) By 1940, the average production cost of an American feature was $400,000, a negligible increase over ten years.Finler (1988), p. 36. A number of small Hollywood companies had folded around the turn of the decade, including the ambitious Grand National, but a new firm, brought his bloated-budget spectacle '' Duel In The Sun '' to market with heavy nationwide promotion and wide release. The distribution strategy was a major success, despite what was widely perceived as the movie's poor quality.Schatz (1993), p. 11. The ''Duel'' release anticipated practices that fueled the B-movie industry in the late 1950s; when the top Hollywood studios made them standard two decades after that, the B movie would be hard hit. Considerations beside cost made the line between A and B movies ambiguous. Films shot on B-level budgets were occasionally marketed as A pictures or emerged as , to develop and distribute relatively expensive films, mostly from independent producers. Around the same time, Republic launched a similar effort under the "Premiere" rubric.Schatz (1999), pp. 340–341. In 1947 as well, PRC was subsumed by Eagle-Lion , a British company seeking entry to the American market. Warners' former Keeper of the Bs, Brian Foy, was installed as production chief.Schatz (1999), p. 295; Naremore (1998), p. 142; PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation) essay by Mike Haberfelner, August 2005; part of the ''(re)Search my Trash'' website. Retrieved 12/30/06. '', a 1948 Film Noir directed by Anthony Mann and Shot by John Alton , was put out by Poverty Row's Eagle-Lion firm. Such movies were routinely marketed as pure sensationalism, but many also possessed great visual beauty, "resplendent with velvety blacks, mists, netting, and other expressive accessories of poetic noir decor and lighting."Robert Smith, "Mann in the Dark," quoted in Ottoson (1981), p. 145.]] In the 1940s, RKO stood out among the industry's Big Five for its focus on B pictures. From a latter-day perspective, the most famous of the major studios' Golden Age B units is Val Lewton 's horror unit at RKO. Lewton produced such moody, mysterious films as '' Cat People '' (1942), '' I Walked With A Zombie '' (1943), and '' The Body Snatcher '' (1945), directed by Jacques Tourneur , Robert Wise , and others who would become renowned only later in their careers or entirely in retrospect. The movie now widely described as the first classic film noir—'' Stranger On The Third Floor '' (1940), a 64-minute B—was produced at RKO, which would release many additional melodramatic thrillers in a similarly stylish vein. The other major studios also turned out a considerable number of movies now identified as noir during the 1940s. Though many of the best-known film noirs were A-level productions, most 1940s pictures in the mode were either of the ambiguous programmer type or destined straight for the bottom of the bill. In the decades since, these cheap entertainments, generally dismissed at the time, have become some of the most treasured products of Hollywood's Golden Age.See, e.g., Dave Kehr, "Critic's Choice: New DVD's," ''New York Times'', August 22, 2006; Dave Kehr, "Critic's Choice: New DVD's," ''New York Times'', June 7, 2005; Robert Sklar, "Film Noir Lite: When Actions Have No Consequences," ''New York Times'', "Week in Review," June 2, 2002. In one sample year, 1947, RKO produced in addition to several noir programmers and A pictures, two straight B noirs: '' and Lum And Abner comedy series, thrillers featuring the Saint and the Falcon , Westerns starring Tim Holt , and Tarzan movies with Johnny Weissmuller . Jean Hersholt played Dr. Christian in six films between 1939 and 1941. ''The Courageous Dr. Christian'' (1940) was a standard entry: "In the course of an hour or so of screen time, the saintly physician managed to cure an epidemic of spinal meningitis, demonstrate benevolence towards the disenfranchised, set an example for wayward youth, and calm the passions of an amorous old maid."Jewell (1982), p. 147. Down in Poverty Row, low budgets led to less palliative fare. Republic aspired to major-league respectability while making many cheap and modestly budgeted Westerns, but there wasn't much from the bigger studios that compared with Monogram " was known as "the Capra of PRC."Naremore (1998), p. 144. Ulmer made films of every generic stripe: His ''Girls in Chains'' was released in May 1943, six months before ''Women in Bondage''; by the end of the year, Ulmer had also made the teen-themed musical ''Jive Junction'' as well as ''Isle of Forgotten Sins'', a South Seas adventure set around a brothel. Transition I/The B movie in the television age: 1950s See Also: B movies (Transition in the 1950s) In 1948, a Supreme Court ruling in a Federal Antitrust Suit Against The Majors outlawed block booking and led to the Big Five divesting their theater chains. With audiences draining away to television and studios scaling back production schedules, the classic double feature vanished from many American theaters during the 1950s. The major studios promoted the benefits of recycling, offering former headlining movies as second features in the place of traditional B films.Strawn (1974), p. 257. With television airing many classic Westerns as well as producing its own original Western series, the cinematic market for B oaters in particular was drying up. After barely inching forward in the 1930s, the average U.S. feature production cost had essentially doubled over the 1940s, reaching $1 million by the turn of the decade—a 93 percent rise after adjusting for inflation.Finler (1988), p. 36. The first prominent victim of the changing market was Eagle-Lion, which released its last films in 1951. By 1953, the old Monogram brand had disappeared, the company having adopted the identity of its higher-end subsidiary, Allied Artists. The following year, Allied released Hollywood's last B series Westerns. Non-series B Westerns continued to appear for a few more years, but Republic Pictures, long associated with cheap sagebrush sagas, was out of the filmmaking business by decade's end. In other genres, Universal kept its Ma And Pa Kettle series going through 1957, while Allied Artists stuck with the Bowery Boys until 1958.Lev (2003), p. 205. RKO, weakened by years of mismanagement, exited the movie industry in 1957.Lasky (1989), p. 229. Hollywood's A product was getting longer—the top ten box-office releases of 1940 had averaged 112.5 minutes; the average length of 1955's top ten was 123.4.See Finler (1988), pp. 276–277, for top films. Finler lists '' The Country Girl '' as 1955, when it made most of its money, but it premiered in December 1954. '' The Seven Year Itch '' replaces it in this analysis (the two films happen to be virtually identical in length). In their modest way, the Bs were following suit. The age of the hour-long feature film was past; 70 minutes was now roughly the minimum. While the Golden Age–style second feature was dying, ''B movie'' was still used to refer to any low-budget genre film featuring relatively unheralded performers (" B Actors "). The term retained its earlier suggestion that such movies relied on formulaic plots, "stock" character types, and simplistic action or unsophisticated comedy. At the same time, the realm of the B movie was becoming increasingly fertile territory for experimentation, both serious and outlandish. , had previously appeared in only one major film. Its source is pure Pulp , one of Mickey Spillane 's Mike Hammer novels, but Robert Aldrich 's direction is self-consciously aestheticized. The result is a brutal genre picture that also evokes contemporary anxieties about what was often spoken of simply as the Bomb. '' (1950), produced and released by small Lippert Pictures, is cited as possibly "the first postnuclear holocaust film."Shapiro (2002), p. 96. See also Atomic Films: The CONELRAD 100 part of the ''CONELRAD'' website. It was at the leading edge of a large cycle of movies, mostly low-budget and many long forgotten, classifiable as "atomic bomb cinema."]] The fear of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, along with less expressible qualms about radioactive fallout from America's own atomic tests, energized many of the era's genre films. Science fiction, horror, and various hybrids of the two were now of central economic importance to the low-budget end of the business. Most down-market films of the type—like many of those produced by William Alland at Universal (e.g., '' Creature From The Black Lagoon '' and Sam Katzman at Columbia (e.g., '' It Came From Beneath The Sea '' [1955 )—provided little more than simple diversion. But these were genres whose fantastic nature could also be used as cover for mordant cultural observations often difficult to make in mainstream movies. Director Don Siegel 's '' Invasion Of The Body Snatchers '' (1956), released by Allied Artists, treats conformist pressures and the evil of banality in haunting, allegorical fashion.Lev (2003), pp. 186, 184; Braucort (1972), 75. '' The Amazing Colossal Man '' (1957), directed by Bert I. Gordon , is both a monster movie that happens to depict the horrific effects of radiation exposure and "a ferocious cold-war fable [that] spins Korea , the army's obsessive secrecy, and America's post-war growth into one fantastic whole."Auty (1999), p. 24. See also Shapiro (2002), pp. 120–124. ''The Amazing Colossal Man'' was released by a new company whose name was much bigger than its budgets. , Target Marketing , and saturation booking, all of which would become standard procedure for the majors in planning and releasing their mass-market 'event' films" by the late 1970s.Cook (2000), p. 324. See also p. 171. In terms of content, the majors were already there, with " J.D. " movies such as Warner Bros.' ''Untamed Youth'' (1957) and MGM's ''High School Confidential'' (1958), both starring Mamie Van Doren . In 1954, a young filmmaker named Roger Corman received his first screen credits as writer and associate producer of Allied Artists' ''Highway Dragnet''. Corman soon independently produced his first movie, ''The Monster from the Ocean Floor'', on a $12,000 budget and a six-day shooting schedule.Di Franco (1979), p. 3. Among the six films he worked on in 1955, Corman produced and directed the first official ARC release, ''Apache Woman'', and ''Day the World Ended'', half of Arkoff and Nicholson's first twin-bill package. Corman would go on to direct over fifty feature films through 1990. As of 2007, he remained active as a producer, with more than 350 movies to his credit. Often referred to as the "King of the Bs," Corman has said that "to my way of thinking, I never made a 'B' movie in my life," as the traditional B movie was dying out when he began making pictures. He prefers to describe his metier as "low-budget exploitation films."Corman (1998), p. 36. It appears Corman made at least one true B picture—according to Arkoff, ''Apache Woman'', to his displeasure, was handled as a second feature (Strawn {Link without Title} , p. 258). In later years Corman, both with AIP and as head of his own companies, would help launch the careers of Francis Ford Coppola , Jonathan Demme , Robert Towne , and Robert De Niro , among many others. In the late 1950s, William Castle became known as the great innovator of the B movie publicity gimmick. Audiences of ''Macabre'' (1958), an $86,000 production distributed by Allied Artists, were invited to take out insurance policies to cover potential death from fright. The 1959 creature feature '' The Tingler '' featured Castle's most famous gimmick, Percepto: at the film's climax, buzzers attached to select theater seats would unexpectedly rattle a few audience members, prompting either appropriate screams or even more appropriate laughter.Heffernan (2004), pp. 102–104. With such films, Castle "combine {Link without Title} the saturation advertising campaign perfected by Columbia and Universal in their Sam Katzman and William Alland packages with centralized and standardized publicity stunts and gimmicks that had previously been the purview of the local exhibitor."Heffernan (2004), pp. 95–98. The postwar Drive-in Theater boom was vital to the expanding independent B movie industry. In January 1945, there were 96 drive-ins in the United States; a decade later, there were more than 3,700.Segrave (1992), p. 33. Unpretentious pictures with simple, familiar plots and reliable shock effects were ideally suited for auto-based film viewing, with all its attendant distractions. The phenomenon of the drive-in movie became one of the defining symbols of American popular culture in the 1950s. At the same time, many local television stations began showing B genre films in late-night slots, popularizing the notion of the Midnight Movie . Increasingly, American-made genre films were joined by foreign movies acquired at low cost and, where necessary, dubbed for the U.S. market. In 1956, distributor Joseph E. Levine financed the shooting of new footage with American actor Raymond Burr that was edited into the Japanese sci-fi horror film '' Godzilla ''. The British Hammer Film Productions made the successful '' The Curse Of Frankenstein '' (1957) and '' Dracula '' (1958), major influences on future horror film style. In 1959, Levine's Embassy Pictures bought the worldwide rights to '' Hercules '', a cheaply made Italian movie starring American-born bodybuilder Steve Reeves . On top of a $125,000 purchase price, Levine then spent $1.5 million on advertising and publicity, a virtually unprecedented amount.Cook (2000), p. 324. '' The New York Times '' was nonplussed, noting that it would have drawn "little more than yawns in the film market...had it not been {Link without Title} throughout the country with a deafening barrage of publicity."Nason (1959). Levine counted on first-weekend box office for his profits, booking the film "into as many cinemas as he could for a week's run, then withdrawing it before poor word-of-mouth withdrew it for him."Hirschhorn (1979), p. 343. ''Hercules'' opened at a remarkable 600 theaters, and the strategy was a smashing success: the film earned $4.7 million in domestic rentals. Just as valuable to the bottom line, it was even more successful overseas.Cook (2000), p. 324. Within a few decades, Hollywood would be dominated by both movies and an exploitation philosophy very like Levine's. The golden age of exploitation (1): 1960s See Also: B movies (The exploitation boom) Despite all the transformations in the industry, by 1961 the average production cost of an American feature film was still only $2 million—after adjusting for inflation, less than 10 percent more than it had been in 1950.Finler (1988), p. 36. The traditional twin bill of B film preceding and balancing a subsequent-run A film had largely disappeared from American theaters. The AIP-style dual genre package was the new model. In July 1960, the latest Joseph E. Levine '' typifies the continuing ambiguities of B picture classification. It was clearly an A film by the standards of both director and studio, with the longest shooting schedule and biggest budget Corman had ever enjoyed. But it is generally seen as a B movie: the schedule was still a mere fifteen days, the budget just $200,000 (one-tenth the industry average),Per Corman, quoted in Di Franco (1979), p. 97. and its 85-minute running time close to an old thumbnail definition of the B: "Any movie that runs less than 80 minutes."Quoted in Reid (2005a), p. 5. With the loosening of industry Censorship Constraints , the 1960s saw a major expansion in the commercial viability of a variety of B movie subgenres that came to be known collectively as ''exploitation films''. The combination of intensive and gimmick-laden publicity with movies featuring vulgar subject matter and often outrageous imagery dated back decades—the term had originally defined truly fringe productions, made at the lowest depths of Poverty Row or entirely outside the Hollywood system. Many graphically depicted the wages of sin in the context of promoting prudent lifestyle choices, particularly " Sexual Hygiene ." Audiences might see explicit footage of anything from a live birth to a ritual circumcision.Schaefer (1999), pp. 187, 376. Such films were not generally booked as part of movie theaters' regular schedules but rather presented as special events by traveling roadshow promoters (they might also appear as fodder for "grindhouses," which typically had no regular schedule at all). The most famous of those promoters, Kroger Babb , was in the vanguard of marketing low-budget, sensationalistic films with a "100% saturation campaign," inundating the target audience with ads in almost any imaginable medium.Schaefer (1999), p. 118. In the era of the traditional double feature, no one would have characterized these graphic exploitation films as "B movies." With the majors having exited traditional B production and exploitation-style promotion becoming standard practice at the lower end of the industry, "exploitation" became a way to refer to the entire field of low-budget genre films. The 1960s would see exploitation-style themes and imagery become increasingly central to the realm of the B. '' (1965) wasn't hard to market. It had director Russ Meyer 's reputation for eroticism; the biker theme ("MURDERcycles") that would soon prove its popularity in historic fashion; and that trendy title word—''psycho''.]] Exploitation movies in the original sense continued to appear: 1961's ''Damaged Goods'', a " films featuring nudist-camp footage or striptease artists like Bettie Page had simply been the Softcore pornography of previous decades. As far back as 1933, ''This Nude World'' was "Guaranteed the Most Educational Film Ever Produced!"Halperin (2006), p. 201. In the late 1950s, as more of the old grindhouse theaters devoted themselves specifically to "adult" product, a few filmmakers began making nudies with greater attention to plot. Best known was Russ Meyer , who released his first successful narrative nudie, '' The Immoral Mr. Teas '', in 1959. Five years later, on a sub-$100,000 budget, Meyer came out with '' Lorna '', "a harder-edged film that combined sex with gritty realism and violence."Halperin (2006), p. 201. A talented director, Meyer would gain renown for so-called Sexploitation pictures such as '' Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! '' (1965) and '' Vixen! '' (1968). These films were largely relegated to the fringe circuit of "adult" theaters, while AIP teen movies with wink-wink titles like '' Beach Blanket Bingo '' (1965) and '' How To Stuff A Wild Bikini '' (1966), starring Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon , played drive-ins and other reputable venues. Roger Corman's '' The Trip '' (1967) for American International, written by veteran AIP/Corman actor Jack Nicholson , never shows a fully bared, unpainted breast, but flirts with nudity throughout. The Meyer and Corman lines were drawing closer. One of the most influential films of the era, on Bs and beyond, was Paramount's '' Psycho ''. Its $8.5 million in earnings against a production cost of $800,000 made it the most profitable movie of 1960.Cook (2000), p. 222. Its mainstream distribution without the Production Code seal of approval helped weaken U.S. film censorship. And, as William Paul notes, this move into the horror genre by respected director Alfred Hitchcock was made, "significantly, with the lowest-budgeted film of his American career and the least glamorous stars. {Link without Title} greatest initial impact...was on schlock horror movies (notably those from second-tier director William Castle), each of which tried to bill itself as scarier than ''Psycho''."Paul (1994), p. 33. Castle's first film in the ''Psycho'' vein was '' Homicidal '' (1961), an early step in the development of the Slasher subgenre that would take off in the late 1970s. '' Blood Feast '' (1963), a movie about human dismemberment and culinary preparation made for approximately $24,000 by experienced nudie-maker Herschell Gordon Lewis , established a new, more immediately successful subgenre, the gore or Splatter Film . Lewis's business partner David F. Friedman drummed up publicity by distributing vomit bags to theatergoers—the sort of gimmick Castle had mastered—and arranging for an injunction against the film in Sarasota, Florida—the sort of problem exploitation films had long run up against, except Friedman had planned it.Rockoff (2002), pp. 32–33. This new breed of gross-out movie typifies the emerging sense of "exploitation"—the progressive adoption of traditional exploitation and nudie elements into horror, into other classic B genres, and into the low-budget film industry as a whole. Imports of Hammer Film's increasingly explicit horror movies and Italian Gialli , highly stylized pictures mixing sexploitation and ultraviolence, would fuel this trend. The Production Code was officially scrapped in 1968, to be replaced by the first version of the modern Rating System . That year, two horror films came out that heralded directions American cinema would take in the next decade, with major consequences for the B movie. One was a high-budget Paramount production, directed by the celebrated Roman Polanski . Produced by B horror veteran William Castle, '' Rosemary's Baby '' "took the genre up-market for the first time since the 1930s."Cook (2000), pp. 222–223. It was a critical success and the year's seventh-biggest hit. The other was George Romero 's now classic '' Night Of The Living Dead '', produced on weekends in and around Pittsburgh for $114,000. Building on the achievement of B genre predecessors like ''Invasion of the Body Snatchers'' in its subtextual exploration of social and political issues, it doubled as a highly effective thriller and an incisive allegory for both the Vietnam War and domestic racial conflicts. Its greatest influence, though, derived from its clever subversion of genre clichés and the connection made between its exploitation-style imagery, low-cost, truly independent means of production, and high profitability.Cook (2000), p. 223. With the Code gone and the X Rating established, major studio A films like '' Midnight Cowboy '' could now show "adult" imagery, while the market for increasingly Hardcore Pornography exploded. In this transformed commercial context, work like Russ Meyer's gained a new legitimacy. In 1969, for the first time a Meyer film, '' Finders Keepers, Lovers Weepers! '', was reviewed in the ''New York Times''.Canby (1969). Soon, Corman would be putting out nudity-filled sexploitation pictures such as ''Private Duty Nurses'' (1971) and '' Women In Cages '' (1971). In May 1969, the most important of all exploitation movies premiered at the . The film (which incorporated another favorite exploitation theme, the Redneck menace, as well as a fair amount of nudity) was brought in at a cost of $501,000. '' Easy Rider '' earned $19.1 million in rentals and became "the seminal film that provided the bridge between all the repressed tendencies represented by schlock/kitsch/hack since the dawn of Hollywood and the mainstream cinema of the seventies."Quote: Cagin and Dray (1984), p. 53. General history: Cagin and Dray (1984), pp. 61–66. Financial figures: per associate producer William L. Hayward, cited in Biskind (1998), p. 74. The golden age of exploitation (2): 1970s See Also: B movies (The exploitation boom) Midnight movie In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a new generation of low-budget film companies emerged that drew from all the different lines of exploitation as well as the sci-fi and teen themes that had been a mainstay since the 1950s. Operations such as Roger Corman's '', ''Ivanna'' (aka ''Scream of the Demon Lover''; U.S. premiere: 1971), and ''The Student Nurses''. For purchase of ''Ivanna'': Di Franco (1979), p. 164. These films could turn a tidy profit. The first New World release, the biker movie ''Angels Die Hard'', cost $117,000 to produce and took in more than $2 million at the box office.Di Franco (1979), p. 160. The biggest studio in the low-budget field remained a leader in exploitation's growth. In 1973, American International gave a shot to young director '' (1973) and '' Foxy Brown '' (1974). Grier has the distinction of starring in the first widely distributed movie to climax with a castration scene. Blaxploitation was the first exploitation genre in which the major studios were central. Indeed, the United Artists release ''Cotton Comes to Harlem'' (1970), directed by wrote, co-produced, directed, starred in, edited, and composed the music for the film, which was completed with a loan from Bill Cosby .Van Peebles (2003). Its distributor was small Cinemation Industries , then best known for releasing dubbed versions of the Italian '' Mondo Cane '' "shockumentaries" and the Swedish skin flick '' Fanny Hill '', as well as for its one in-house production, ''The Man from O.R.G.Y.'' (1970). These sorts of films played in the "grindhouses" of the day—many of them not outright porno theaters, but rather venues for all manner of exploitation cinema. The days of six quickies for a nickel were gone, but a continuity of spirit was evident. '' (1978), directed by ; a humorous parody of '' Jaws ''; and an environmentalist Cautionary Tale .]] In 1970, a low-budget crime drama shot in '' (1975), '' Rabid '' (1977), '' The Brood '' (1979). An ''Easy Rider'' with conceptual rigor, the movie that most clearly presaged the way in which exploitation content and artistic treatment would be combined in modestly budgeted films of later years was United Artists' biker-themed '' Electra Glide In Blue '' (1973), directed by James William Guercio .See, e.g., Tom Milne, "''Electra Glide in Blue''," in ''Time Out Film Guide'', 8th ed., ed. John Pym (London et al.: Penguin, 1999), p. 303. The ''New York Times'' reviewer thought little of it: "Under different intentions, it might have made a decent grade-C Roger Corman bike movie—though Corman has generally used more interesting directors than Guercio."Greenspun (1973). In the early 1970s, the growing practice of screening nonmainstream motion pictures as late shows, with the goal of building a 's '' Pink Flamingos '' (1972), with its campy spin on exploitation, spurred the development of the independent film movement. '' The Rocky Horror Picture Show '' (1975), an inexpensive film from 20th Century-Fox that spoofed all manner of classic B picture clichés, became an unparalleled hit when it was relaunched as a late show feature the year after its initial, unprofitable release. Even as ''Rocky Horror'' generated its own Subcultural phenomenon, it contributed to the mainstreaming of the theatrical midnight movie. Asian 's '' Halloween '' (1978), produced on a $320,000 budget, grossed over $80 million worldwide and effectively established the slasher flick as horror's primary mode for the next decade. Just as Hooper had learned from Romero's work, ''Halloween'', in turn, largely followed the model of '' Black Christmas '' (1974), directed by ''Deathdream'''s Bob Clark.For the film's cost and worldwide gross: Harper (2004), pp. 12–13. For its influence and debt to ''Black Christmas'': Rockoff (2002); Paul (1994), p. 320. On television, the parallels between the weekly series that became the mainstay of Prime-time programming and the Hollywood series films of an earlier day had long been clear. In the 1970s, original feature-length programming increasingly began to echo the B movie as well. As production of TV Movies expanded with the introduction of the '' ABC Movie Of The Week '' in 1969, soon followed by the dedication of other network slots to original features, time and financial factors shifted the medium progressively into B picture territory. Television films inspired by recent scandals—such as ''The Ordeal of Patty Hearst '', which premiered a month after her release from prison in 1979—harkened all the way back to the 1920s and such movies as ''Human Wreckage'' and ''When Love Grows Cold'', FBO pictures made swiftly in the wake of celebrity misfortunes. Many 1970s TV films—such as ''The California Kid'' (1974), starring Martin Sheen —were action-oriented genre pictures of a type familiar from contemporary cinematic B production. ''Nightmare in Badham County'' (1976) headed straight into the realm of road-tripping-girls-in-redneck-bondage exploitation. The reverberations of ''Easy Rider'' could be felt in such pictures, as well as in a host of big-screen exploitation films. But its greatest influence on the fate of the B movie was less direct. By 1973, the major studios were catching on to the commercial potential of genres once largely consigned to the bargain basement. ''Rosemary's Baby'' had been a big hit, but it had little in common with the exploitation style. Warner Bros.' '''s '' American Graffiti '', a Universal production, did something similar. Described by Paul as "essentially an American-International teenybopper pic with a lot more spit and polish," it was 1973's third biggest film and, likewise, by far the highest-earning teen-themed movie yet made.Paul (1994), p. 92. Even more historically significant movies with B themes and A-level financial backing would follow in their wake. Decline of the B (1): 1980s See Also: B movies (1980s to the present) Most of the B movie production houses founded during the exploitation era collapsed or were subsumed by larger companies as the field's financial situation changed in the early 1980s. Even a comparatively cheap, efficiently made genre picture intended for theatrical release began to cost millions of dollars, as the major movie studios steadily moved into the production of expensive genre movies, raising audience expectations for spectacular action sequences and realistic special effects. Intimations of the trend were evident as early as '''' had once been exceptional; in the new Hollywood, increasingly under the sway of multi-industrial conglomerates, they would rule.See The Eight Majors In The Post-system Era for a record of the sales and mergers involving the eight major studios of the Golden Age. '''s $1.5 million budget.David Handelman ("The Brothers from Another Planet," ''Rolling Stone'', May 21, 1987), quoted in Russell (2001), p. 7. In the tradition of Mann and Alton, brothers Joel And Ethan Coen brought a striking visual style to the B noir in 1984.]] It had taken a decade and half, from 1961 to 1976, for the production cost of the average Hollywood feature to double from $2 million to $4 million—actually a decline if adjusted for inflation. In just four years it more than doubled again, hitting $8.5 million in 1980 (a constant-dollar increase of about 25 percent). Even as the U.S. inflation rate eased, the average expense of moviemaking would continue to soar.Finler (1988), p. 36. Prince (2002) gives $9 million as the average production cost in 1980, and a total of $13 million after adding on costs for manufacturing exhibition prints and marketing (p. 20). See also p. 21, chart 1.2. The ''Box Office Mojo'' website gives $9.4 million as the 1980 production figure; see Movie Box Office Results by Year, 1980–Present . Retrieved 12/29/06. With the majors now routinely saturation booking in over a thousand theaters, it was becoming increasingly difficult for smaller outfits to secure the exhibition commitments needed to turn a profit. Double features were now literally history—almost impossible to find except at Revival House s. One of the first leading casualties of the new economic regime was venerable B studio Allied Artists, which declared bankruptcy in April 1979.Lubasch (1979). In the late 1970s, AIP had moved into the production of relatively expensive films like the very successful '' Amityville Horror '' and the disastrous '' Meteor '' in 1979. The studio was soon sold off and dissolved as a moviemaking concern by the end of 1980.Cook (2000), pp. 323–324. Despite the mounting financial pressures, distribution obstacles, and overall risk, a substantial number of genre movies from small studios and independent filmmakers were still reaching theaters. Horror was the strongest low-budget genre of the time, particularly in the "slasher" mode as with '''' is a good genre film."Canby (1984). Note that IMDb.com's entry on the film incorrectly states that it was released by New World. Larry Cohen continued to twist genre conventions in pictures such as '', was a week shy of his twenty-second birthday; star and co–executive producer Bruce Campbell was twenty-three. "A shoestring ''tour de force'',"David Chute (''Los Angeles Herald-Examiner'', May 27, 1983), quoted in Warren (2001), p. 94. it was picked up for distribution by New Line, retitled '' The Evil Dead '', and became a hit. One of the most successful 1980s B studios was a survivor from the heyday of the exploitation era, industry also helped support the low-budget film industry, as many B movies quickly wound up as "filler" material for 24-hour cable channels or were made expressly for that purpose. Decline of the B (2): 1990s See Also: B movies (1980s to the present) By 1990, the cost of the average U.S. film had passed $25 million. Movie Box Office Results by Year, 1980–Present part of ''Box Office Mojo'' website. Retrieved 12/29/06. Of the nine films released that year to gross more than $100 million at the U.S. box office, two would have been strictly B movie material before the late 1970s: '' along with real estate pressures were making survival more difficult for the sort of small- or non-chain theaters that were the primary home of independently produced genre films. Drive-in screens were rapidly disappearing from the American landscape. '' in its day, writer-director Jeremy Horton's debut blurs the lines between the crime-themed B movie and the independent arthouse film.]] Surviving B movie operations adapted in different ways. Releases from Troma now frequently went Straight To Video . New Line, in its first decade, had been almost exclusively a distributor of low-budget independent and foreign genre pictures. With the smash success of exploitation veteran Wes Craven 's original '' Nightmare On Elm Street '' (1984), whose nearly $2 million cost it had directly backed, the company began moving steadily into higher-budget genre productions. In 1994, New Line was sold to the Turner Broadcasting System ; it was soon being run as a midsized studio with a broad range of product alongside Warner Bros. within the Time Warner conglomerate. The following year, Showtime launched ''Roger Corman Presents'', a series of thirteen straight-to-cable movies produced by Concorde–New Horizons. A ''New York Times'' reviewer found that the initial installment qualified as "vintage Corman...spiked with everything from bared female breasts to a mind-blowing quote from Thomas Mann 's '' Death In Venice ''."O'Connor (1995). At the same time as exhibition venues for B films vanished, the independent film movement was burgeoning; among the results were various crossovers between the low-budget genre movie and the "sophisticated" arthouse picture. Director . This result mirrored the film's scrambling of definitions: Fine Line was a subsidiary of New Line, recently merged into the Time Warner empire—specifically, it was the old exploitation distributor's arthouse division. Transition II/The B movie in the digital age: 2000s See Also: B movies (1980s to the present) By the turn of the millennium, the average production cost of an American feature had already spent three years above the $50 million mark. Movie Box Office Results by Year, 1980–Present part of ''Box Office Mojo'' website. Retrieved 12/29/06. In 2005, the top ten movies at the U.S. box office included three adaptations of children's fantasy novels (including one extending and another initiating a series), a child-targeted cartoon, a comic book adaptation, a sci-fi series installment, a sci-fi remake, and a ''King Kong'' remake. 2005 Yearly Box Office Results part of ''Box Office Mojo'' website. Retrieved 1/2/07. It was a slow year for Corman: he produced just one movie, which had no American theatrical release, true of most of the pictures he had been involved in recently. As big-budget Hollywood movies further usurped traditional low-rent genres, the ongoing viability of the familiar brand of B movie was in grave doubt. ''New York Times'' critic A. O. Scott warned of the impending "extinction" of "the cheesy, campy, guilty pleasures" of the B picture, as "the schlock of the past has evolved into star-driven, heavily publicized, expensive mediocrities...."Scott (2005). made '' Primer '' (2004) for $7,000. The sophisticated sci-fi film is 77 minutes long.]] On the other hand, recent industry trends suggest the reemergence of something that looks very like the traditional A-B split in major studio production, though with fewer "programmers" bridging the gap. According to a 2006 report by industry analyst Alfonso Marone, "The average budget for a Hollywood movie is currently around $60m, rising to $100m when the cost of marketing for domestic launch (USA only) is factored into the equation. However, we are now witnessing a polarisation of film budgets into two tiers: large productions ($120-150m) and niche features ($5-20m).... Fewer $30-70m releases are expected." "One More Ride on the Hollywood Roller-coaster" industry analysis by Alfonso Marone, Spectrum Strategy Consultants senior manager; part of the Spectrum Strategy website. Retrieved 12/29/06. Fox launched a new subsidiary in 2006, Fox Atomic , to concentrate on teen-oriented genre films, mostly variations of horror. The economic model is deliberately low-rent, at least by major studio standards. According to a '' Variety '' report, "Fox Atomic is staying at or below the $10 million mark for many of its movies. It's also encouraging filmmakers to shoot digitally—a cheaper process that results in a grittier, teen-friendly look. And forget about stars. Of Atomic's nine announced films, not one has a big-name."Zeitchik and Laporte (2006). In sum, this is an updated version of a Golden Age big studio B unit targeting a market very similar to the one AIP helped define in the 1950s. In a development hinted at in this ''Variety'' piece, recent technological advances are greatly facilitating the production of truly low-budget motion pictures. Although there have always been economical means with which to shoot movies, including have opened up entirely new avenues for the presentation of low-budget motion pictures. ASSOCIATED TERMS The terms ''C movie'' and the more common ''Z movie'' describe progressively lower grades of the B-movie category. The terms '' Drive-in Movie '' and '' Midnight Movie '', which emerged in association with specific historical phenomena, are now often used as synonyms for ''B movie''. A more recently coined synonym is ''psychotronic movie.'' C movie The C movie is the grade of motion picture at the low end of the B movie, or—in some taxonomies—simply below it.See, e.g., Megumi Komiya and Barry Litman, "The Economics of the Prerecorded Videocassette Industry," in ''Social and Cultural Aspects of VCR Use'', ed. Julia R. Dobrow (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1990), pp. 25–44. In the 1980s, with the growth of Cable Television , the C grade began to be applied with increasing frequency to low-quality genre films used as filler programming for that market. The "C" in the term then does double duty, referring not only to quality that is lower than "B" but also to the initial ''c'' of ''cable.'' Helping to popularize the notion of the C movie was the successful TV series '' Mystery Science Theater 3000 '' (1988–99), which ran on national cable channels (first Comedy Central , then the Sci Fi Channel ) after its first year. Updating a concept introduced by TV hostess Vampira over three decades before, ''MST3K'' presented cheap, low-grade movies, primarily science fiction of the 1950s and 1960s, along with running voiceover commentary highlighting the films' shortcomings. Director Ed Wood has been called "the master of the 'C-movie'" in this sense, although ''Z movie'' (see below) is perhaps even more applicable to his work.Oppermann (1996). The rapid expansion of niche cable and satellite outlets such as Sci Fi (with its Sci Fi Pictures ) and HBO 's genre channels in the 1990s and 2000s has meant an ongoing market for contemporary C pictures, many of them "direct to cable" movies—modestly budgeted genre films never released in theaters.See, e.g., "David Payne: Do Fear the Reeker" interview with the director by Eric Campos, December 12, 2005; part of the ''Film Threat'' website. Retrieved 10/20/06. 's ultra-low-budget '' Plan 9 From Outer Space '' (1959) has become the most famous of all Z Movie s.]] Z movie See Also: Z movie The term Z movie (or '''grade-Z movie''') is used by some to characterize low-budget pictures with quality standards well below those of most B and even so-called C movies. Most films referred to as Z movies are made on very small budgets by operations on the fringes of the commercial film industry. The micro-budget "quickies" of 1930s fly-by-night Poverty Row production houses may be thought of as Z movies ''avant la lettre''.See, e.g., Taves (1995), p. 323. The films of director Ed Wood, such as '' Glen Or Glenda '' (1953) and '' Plan 9 From Outer Space '' (1959)—frequently cited as one of the Worst Pictures Ever Made —exemplify the classic grade-Z movie. Latter-day Zs are often characterized by violent, gory, and/or sexual content and a minimum of artistic interest; much of this product is destined for the subscription TV equivalent of the grindhouse. Psychotronic movie Psychotronic movie is a term coined by film critic Michael J. Weldon—referred to by a fellow critic as "the historian of marginal movies"—to denote the sort of low-budget genre pictures that are generally disdained or ignored entirely by the critical establishment. "Sad News: ''Psychotronic Video'' Magazine Gives Up the Ghost" , column by Maitland McDonagh, ''TVGuide.com'', July 17, 2006. Retrieved 12/26/06. Weldon's immediate source for the term was the Chicago cult film ''.See, e.g., Steven Jay Schneider and Tony Williams, "Introduction" (1–12; pp. 2, 5), and Andrew Syder and Dolores Tierney, "Importation/Mexploitation, or, How a Crime-Fighting, Vampire-Slaying Mexican Wrestler Almost Found Himself in an Italian Sword-and-Sandals Epic" (33–55; pp. 34–35, 50–53), in ''Horror International'', ed. Steven Jay Schneider and Tony Williams (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2005). SEE ALSO
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