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Classics 101: Answering Qs about Bs

Bob Hope, when Bing Crosby makes his first appearance in The Road to Utopia (1945): “Hey! I thought this was an A picture!”

One of the reasons I began writing about films nearly 20 years ago was to answer the questions I was asked whenever the subject of “old movies” came up (which happens a lot in my circle), or to clear up misconceptions. And over the years, the #1 question/misconception that I’ve encountered about film (edging out “What’s the difference between the Dead End Kids, the East Side Kids, and the Bowery Boys?”, which I’ll get to, no doubt, as this column continues) is the erroneous definition of a B movie.

I’ve heard it described as everything from a “bad” film to any low-budget movie to horror and science-fiction genre films only, all of which are ridiculous and wrong. The B-movie as a specific entity was an important part of the cinema experience for about three decades beginning in the mid-1930s, and calling anything else a “B” dilutes that experience and makes understanding the history of Hollywood and its films that much more difficult.

Two films for every ticket

One of the misconceptions about Hollywood history is that movies retained their popularity during the Great Depression as a cheap way for the out-of-work masses to take their minds off their troubles. It’s true that at first, it seemed as though the Great Crash of ’29 was having only a minimal effect; approximately 100 million Americans bought movie theatre tickets every WEEK in 1929, and receipts stayed strong through 1930. Ah, but there was a novelty afoot: thousands of neighborhood theatres had been wired for sound, and the lure of “talkies” was strong.

By 1931, the Hollywood studios were making black & white features drenched in red ink; as an example, look to Warner Bros., producers of The Jazz Singer: profits of 7.9 million in 1929, down to million in 1930, and a .9 million dollar LOSS on the books in 1931. Technicolor and widescreen (“Fox Grandeur”) films were tried, but the novelty of the talking picture was not to be repeated. According to Andrew Bergman’s book on films of the 1930s, movie attendance dropped 60% from the beginning of 1931 to the beginning of 1933. Theatres cut prices, gave away free dishware and cutlery, and offered special Bank Nights, where lucky patrons could win cash prizes—AND, incidentally, see a movie. 

All this helped, but even more drastic measures were called for. Perhaps taking a cue from the popularity of baseball double-headers, and encouraged by the successful test showings of new films paired with older “encore presentation” films, studios and theatre owners alike began to realize that giving patrons two movies for the price of one was a natural audience pleaser. By making variety part of the program – matching, say, a comedy and a melodrama, or a musical and an action picture – you could ensure that both mom and dad (and Junior and Sis) would be equally happy.

There were logistics to be worked out; newsreels, cartoons, coming attractions, and one- and two-reel comedy or musical shorts were also part of audience expectations of the day, so squeezing two films into the mix meant that theatres running double-features would probably have one fewer showing per day. The second feature would have to be shorter and more economical, yet sturdy enough so that the smaller venues in town that didn’t cater to double-features could occasionally book them as the main attraction. In the fall of 1935, both Loew’s and RKO – the two major  theatre chains – had announced that their main venues would henceforth exclusively run double-feature programs; by the following year, better than 8 out of every 10 theatres were catering to the two-for-one crowd.

How it worked

A typical double-feature consisted of an “A” film and a “B” film. The “A” had a top-name cast, the best directors, and often a pedigree of having been based on a popular book or play. The “B” was, by necessity, lower-budget, with lesser stars (either young ones on the way up, older ones on the way down, or never-quite-making the A-list actors), shorter running times (frequently 55-70 minutes, tops), and an economical production unit that could, well, for lack of a better term, “grind ‘em out.” The major and minor studios had either prolific B units (under the aegis of such thrifty producers as Sol Wurtzel or Sam Katzman) or produced B films as their specialty; some of the cheaper units, such as Monogram, practically did nothing BUT B movies. So long as they were turned in on time and on (meager) budget, a B was practically ensured success. If it turned out to be GOOD, well, so much the better. And some B movies were very good indeed.

Don Miller, in his great book on B movies, credits A Man to Remember with being the first great B movie. The term “greatness” isn’t bestowed on many of them, yet they were popular crowd-pleasers and remain some of the most fondly remembered films of their era. In particular, series films could be pre-sold as a block, and thus guaranteed a profit to the studio if they didn’t go over budget; hence, every few months, you can be sure the neighborhood Bijou would feature a new Charlie Chan, Saint, or Boston Blackie movie on the undercard. When TV came along (that medium that finally killed off B movies for good), the series were packaged up and offered as a weekly show; hence, a new generation in the ‘50s and ‘60s could enjoy more than 50 Three Mesquiteers pictures, four dozen Bowery Boys pictures, nearly 30 Blondie features, 66 films starring William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy, and a seemingly endless number of Charlie Chan films.

Some of our favorite B movies

A Man to Remember (RKO, 1938) is an example of what can happen when young, upcoming writer/directors – in this case, Dalton Trumbo and Garson Kanin – are at the helm. By rights, this should’ve been a forgettable, minor drama, a remake of an earlier RKO picture. Even with a brief 15 day production time and a minor-league budget, the result – at 79 minutes, a long B movie – is a memorable story about a dedicated doctor.

I Walked with a Zombie (RKO, 1943) - Following the success of The Wolf Man over at Universal, RKO’s Val Lewton was promoted to producer and instructed to make horror films along a similar line, given lurid (but well-marketed) titles like The Cat People, The Ghost Ship, and The Leopard Man. Having no real appreciation of horror, Lewton instead turned out moody, psychological thrillers that tended to make a LOT of money. I Walked with a Zombie (actually, despite its lurid title, pretty much an adaptation of Jane Eyre) is one of the best of them; a pretty young nurse discovers the catatonia from which her charge suffers is a product of West Indian Voodoo.

Detour (PRC, 1945) - Producers Releasing Corporation wasn’t just the bottom of the barrel, it was the dirt under the barrel—where actors went when they’d washed out on Poverty Row. Tom Neal, a handsome leading man with a fiery temper (he’d later spend six years in prison for manslaughter) picks up the wrong hitchhiker on the wrong night, and every step he makes after that only gets him in deeper trouble in the quintessential noir directed by Edgar Ulmer.

(Ann Savage & Tom Neal in a stil from Detour)

Let’s Go Navy! (Monogram, 1951) - The ‘Dead End’ Kids were practically a B movie phenomenon all to themselves; after a start in A pictures with the likes of Cagney and Bogart, they degenerated at Warner’s to the likes of The Dead End Kids on Dress Parade (1939), a 62 minute feature with no stars at all. They moved on to Universal for B features and serials, and then to lowly Monogram, where as the East Side Kids they starred in a series that ran for more than five years. Following the war, with the “Kids” now all hitting 30, they reorganized as The Bowery Boys, their most successful incarnation of all, churning out 48 films in only 12 years. Let’s Go Navy! Is our pick for the funniest one of all, as Slip, Sach, and the guys who stand around in the background join the Navy in search of stolen charity funds that had been entrusted to them. It’s a good example of the team at its peak, and a very funny film.

Overland Stage Raiders (Republic, 1938) - B Westerns deserve their own article; undoubtedly the single most popular and prolific of all B picture genres. I chose this one as being a typical example of a good, solid B Western from probably my favorite cowboy series. The Three Mesquiteers starred in more than fifty films, all but a couple for Republic Pictures, and the trio of lead characters – typically the lover, Stony Brook, the fighter, Tucson Smith, and the comic, Lullaby Joslin – were played by various actors over the years. This incarnation gives us John Wayne, Crash Corrigan, and Max Terhune, and the film has the added attraction of being the final screen appearance of the once-legendary Louise Brooks.

By the mid-1950s, with production cost rising and television further encroaching into the domain of theatres (why BUY a ticket when you can watch TV for NOTHIN’?!?!), the B movie was on its last legs. Young studios like American-International designed films as co-features rather than an A and a B; by the early 1960s, the A and B designations were meaningless, and made-for-TV films, imported Japanese monster movies, and independent low-budget films were all tarred with the “B movie” brush. It can be argued, though, that B movies saved Hollywood – Paramount, RKO, Fox and Universal all survived receivership or staved off foreclosure due in large part to successful B movie series – and should be remembered and celebrated for what they are.