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One of the fundamental principles of filmmaking is that of risk, with gambling metaphors proving common when film producers and analysts describe the industry. Perhaps more than any other category of films, the 1950s B-movie exemplifies this risk, given that it was an extremely marginalized entity during a highly transitional period. With films of the 1930s and 1940s ensconced in the block-booking policies of the classical Hollywood studio system, B-movies in these decades were not subject to the same level of uncertainty as were the Bs of the 1950s. Whereas most studio-system-era B-movies were essentially guaranteed distribution and a minimum profit level, no such guarantees existed once the effects of the 1948 antitrust ruling were felt. The modern era of low-budget filmmaking—with all of its risks and rewards—can be seen as being born in the 1950s by way of the independent producers and directors who gambled on making films outside of the major Hollywood studios. The late 1950s saw major developments in what has been called the “underground” cinema movement in America, particularly regarding a number of films made in New York City.1 Independent director Shirley Clarke described in 1961 how “in New York now a very exciting movement is starting, a movement of filmmaking that will benefit the entire NY area.”2 Variety had reported on this movement a year earlier, with Vincent Canby’s February 17, 1960, article “Film’s Poverty Row Now in N.Y.—Fast-Buck Lurids sans Union Cards.” Referring to these films as “exploitation pictures,” it detailed the growing cinematic movement of a particular kind of low-budget filmmaking that would flourish into the category of underground films—the article in fact described such directors as “new wavers.” While underground and exploitation films are typically seen as being very different products, the similarities between the two became quite evident as the 1950s came to a close. 7 Notes from the Underground The Legacy of the 1950s B-Movie 201 THE BATTLE FOR THE Bs 202 Quick Bucks and Underground Films “Want to make a movie?” asked Canby. It’s easy, if you have a lot of drive, ambition, nerve, and say about $23,000. Of course you can spend more, but that isn’t always necessary , and you can always spend less, but that usually means putting your mother-in-law behind the camera, and if she doesn’t have a natural aptitude for photography, you might waste more money than you save. The point is that N.Y. City and environs currently seem to be in the midst of a do-it-yourself boom in very-low-budget feature film production. Last year approximately 20 such v.1.b.s [sic] were turned out in and around N.Y.; several are in production right now and perhaps a dozen more or so are scheduled to go before begged, borrowed or rented cameras during the year. These pictures are all in the $20,000 to $90,000 category, with most being around the lower figure. Their producers eschew local studios (they can’t afford them obviously), shooting instead around the city in apartments, hotels, streets, parks, lofts, and anywhere else that might be imagined. Canby divided such low-budget production into two groups. The first he designated as the “‘elder’ generation,” being those established producers who had already been making B-films for a number of months or years. They are further referred to as “the ‘quick buck boys’” who “build comparatively innocuous screenplays around sensational-type titles.” Canby also described a second category of filmmakers, however, consisting of “the ‘youngsters,’ guys in their twenties and early thirties who are out to learn about films in the only way possible—by making films themselves.” As compared with the “quick buck boys,” these “youngsters” represent the underground filmmakers that emerged out of New York during this period. That both categories of low-budget filmmaking are described as constituting a new Poverty Row as per the article’s title signifies how wide-ranging the industry’s conception was regarding what constituted a B-movie at the end of the 1950s. Canby indirectly addressed the seeming discrepancy between underground films and B-movies when he noted, “College backgrounds and copies of Sight and Sound in their hip pockets, however, do not mean that they, too, aren’t out to make as quick a buck as their elders.” Canby went on to chronicle the mode...

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