B movies (Hollywood Golden Age)

The B movie, whose roots trace to the silent film era, was a significant contributor to Hollywood's Golden Age of the 1930s and 1940s. As the Hollywood studios made the transition to sound film in the late 1920s, many independent exhibitors began adopting a new programming format: the double feature. The popularity of the twin bill required the production of relatively short, inexpensive movies to occupy the bottom half of the program. The double feature was the predominant presentation model at American theaters throughout the Golden Age, and B movies constituted the majority of Hollywood production during the period.

It is not clear that the term B movie (or B film or B picture) was in general use before the 1930s; in terms of studio production, however, a similar concept was already well established. In 1916, Universal became the first Hollywood studio to establish different feature brands based on production cost: the small Jewel line of "prestige" productions, midrange Bluebird releases, and the low-budget Red Feather line of five-reelers—a measure of film length indicating a running time between fifty minutes and an hour. The following year, the Butterfly line, a grade between Red Feather and Bluebird, was introduced. During those two years, about half of Universal's output was in the Red Feather and Butterfly categories. According to historian Thomas Schatz, "These low-grade westerns, melodramas, and action pictures...underwent a disciplined production and marketing process," in contrast to the Jewels, which were not as strictly governed by studio policies. While the down-market branding was soon eliminated, Universal continued to focus on low and modestly budgeted productions. In 1919, wealthy Paramount Pictures created its own distinct low-budget brand: the company's Realart films were made attractive to exhibitors with lower rental fees than movies from the studio's primary production line. Indicating the breadth of the budgetary range at a single studio, in 1921, when the average cost of a Hollywood feature was around $60,000, Universal spent approximately $34,000 on The Way Back, a five-reeler, and over $1 million on Foolish Wives, a top-of-the-line Super Jewel. The production of inexpensive films like The Way Back 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.

By 1927–28, at the end of the silent era, the production cost of an average feature from Hollywood's major film studios had soared, ranging from $190,000 at Fox to $275,000 at MGM. These averages, again, reflected "specials" and "superspecials" that might cost as much as $1 million and films made quickly for around $50,000. Some studios, like large Paramount and growing Warner Bros., depended on block booking and blind bidding practices, under which "independent ('unaffiliated') theater owners were forced to take large numbers of the studio's pictures sight unseen. Those studios could then parcel out second-rate product along with A-class features and star vehicles, which made both production and distribution operations more economical." Studios in the minor leagues of the industry, such as Columbia Pictures and Film Booking Offices of America (FBO), focused on low-budget productions; most of 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 outfits—the sort typical of Hollywood's so-called Poverty Row—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.

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