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At stake in the battle for the Bs in the 1950s was the very survival of B- filmmaking itself. Although many low-budget films established new trends throughout the decade, several Hollywood studios quickly abandoned the B-movie in the decade’s early years, while a few others were (tentatively) dedicated to its ongoing viability. At the same time, Poverty Row studios such as Producers Releasing Corporation, Republic, and Monogram underwent substantial changes as the industrial role of the B-movie continued to evolve throughout the decade. The battle would significantly affect all three of these studios, with two of them going out of business and another transforming itself into one of the industry’s leading independents. The battle over B-movies actually began in Hollywood soon after World War II, with the trend toward fewer but bigger pictures beginning at a few studios as early as 1946. Soon after the district court’s antitrust ruling of that year, the New York Times reported that some studios were “reducing, or stopping altogether, production of modest budget pictures in the expectation of a tougher selling market” in light of the consent decrees.1 That same year, Universal’s merger with International Pictures saw the newly formed UniversalInternational Productions immediately attempt to distinguish itself from its former incarnation by favoring quality over quantity. Four B-production units were shut down in late July of 1946, and when the merger occurred at the end of that month it was announced that Universal would eliminate “Westerns, serials and low-budgeters,” since the “new type of selling under the antitrust decision . . . would also make more difficult sale of B product.” To emphasize its new direction, Universal fired nine of its B-movie producers on the day of the merger. This soon put an end to Universal’s long-running cycle of low-to-modestly budgeted horror films, despite the fact that the last major entry, House of Dracula (1945), was a financial success 2 The Battle Begins Hollywood Reacts, Poverty Row Collapses 43 THE BATTLE FOR THE Bs 44 even while playing on the bottom half of double bills. Trade publications and newspapers commenting on the film’s box office performance described its run as a “remarkably strong session,” using such expressions as “excellent,” “terrific,” “potent,” and “smash” in reference to its earning power.2 Regardless of this success, Universal had all but eliminated horror films by the end of 1946 (a policy that continued well into the next decade) after such entries that year as The Cat Creeps, The Spider Woman Strikes Back, and She-Wolf of London failed to rejuvenate the genre for the studio.3 Not all of the major studios eliminated low-budget films, however, as Twentieth Century–Fox announced plans in September of 1947 to distribute films from independent producers in the $100,000 to $200,000 range, in the hopes that such films would absorb any potential losses on the studio’s other, larger films. Spurred by the success of its film Crossfire (1947), RKO announced a program of Bs that it hoped “would differ from routine B-pictures in their experimental nature,” including The Boy with the Green Hair (1948), which it estimated would cost $300,000.4 MGM added a new B-filmmaking unit in 1948 that would specifically produce low-budget action films using a semidocumentary style. The studio also told its heads of story development to “find material for ‘Exploitation’ pictures that could be produced for as little as $400,000”—with the word “exploitation” being defined by MGM executives as “newsworthy, violent and even controversial subjects which lend themselves to documentary treatment and can be specifically advertised to sell a picture.”5 Warner Bros. also announced a new slate of low-budget films in 1948 but was hesitant to call them outright Bs. “The reason for the studio’s official silence on the subject,” wrote Thomas F. Brady, was “the chronic fear that exist[ed] in Hollywood of the label B pictures—a term which primarily designates a low cost category but has acquired a derogatory qualitative significance , secondarily.” One actor under contract to Warner Bros., James Davis, even refused his assignment to the film The Big Punch (1948) because he was reportedly afraid of the “B-stigma” carried by its $300,000 budget. The studio subsequently laid him off, but his actions demonstrate just how uncertain the fate of the B-movie was...

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