UID:
edocfu_9959369644402883
Format:
1 online resource (280 p.) :
,
15 photographs
ISBN:
9780813553245
Content:
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.
Note:
Frontmatter --
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CONTENTS --
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS --
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The Bs Take Flight: An Introduction --
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1. Hollywood in Transition: The Business of 1950s Filmmaking --
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2. The Battle Begins: Hollywood Reacts, Poverty Row Collapses --
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3. The Rebirth of the B-Movie in the 1950s --
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4. Attack of the Independent: American International Pictures and the B-Movie --
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5. Small Screen, Smaller Pictures: New Perspectives on 1950s Television and B-Movies --
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6. Big B, Little b: A Case Study of Three Films --
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7. Notes from the Underground: The Legacy of the 1950s B-Movie --
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NOTES --
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INDEX
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In English.
Language:
English
DOI:
10.36019/9780813553245
URL:
https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9780813553245
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