145-531: The Edgar Wallace Mysteries is a British second-feature film series mainly produced at Merton Park Studios for Anglo-Amalgamated . There were 48 films in the series, which were released between 1960 and 1965. The series was screened as The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre on television in the United States. Producers Nat Cohen and Stuart Levy acquired the film rights to all of Edgar Wallace 's books and stories in 1960. The original intent
290-463: A newsreel , a short and/or serial , and a cartoon , followed by a double feature. The second feature, which actually screened before the main event, cost the exhibitor less per minute than the equivalent running time in shorts. The majors' "clearance" rules favoring their affiliated theaters prevented timely access to top-quality films for independent theaters; the second feature allowed them to promote quantity instead. The additional movie also gave
435-433: A "balanced" or entirely youth-oriented double feature as a matinee and then a single film for a more mature audience at night. In the words of one industry report, afternoon moviegoers, "composed largely of housewives and children, want quantity for their money while the evening crowds want 'something good and not too much of it. ' " Series films are often unquestioningly consigned to the B movie category, but even here there
580-406: A "programmer capable of occupying either half of a neighbourhood theatre's double-bill, [it was] budgeted at approximately $ 400,000. [Its] distributor, United Artists, released around twenty-five programmers with production budgets between $ 100,000 and $ 400,000 in 1955." The film's length, 106 minutes, is A level, but its star, Ralph Meeker , had previously appeared in only one major film. Its source
725-418: A $ 125,000 purchase price, Levine then spent $ 1.5 million on advertising and publicity, a virtually unprecedented amount. The New York Times was not impressed, claiming that the movie would have drawn "little more than yawns in the film market ... had it not been [launched] throughout the country with a deafening barrage of publicity". Levine counted on first-weekend box office for his profits, booking
870-399: A 'warning bell' so the sensitive can 'close their eyes. ' " That year, Roger Corman took AIP down a new road: "When they asked me to make two ten-day black-and-white horror films to play as a double feature, I convinced them instead to finance one horror film in color." The resulting House of Usher typifies the continuing ambiguities of B picture classification. It was clearly an A film by
1015-407: A 1953 RKO release, is the only film noir from the genre's classic period directed by a woman. That year, RKO released Split Second , which concludes in a nuclear test range, and is perhaps the first "atomic noir". The most famous such movie, the independently produced Kiss Me Deadly (1955), typifies the persistently murky middle ground between the A and B picture, as Richard Maltby describes:
1160-443: A Ride . Ten B noirs that year came from Poverty Row's big three: Republic, Monogram, and PRC/Eagle-Lion, and one came from tiny Screen Guild. Three majors beside RKO contributed a total of five more. Along with these eighteen unambiguous B noirs, an additional dozen or so noir programmers came out of Hollywood. Still, most of the majors' low-budget production remained the sort now largely ignored. RKO's representative output included
1305-511: A Zombie (1943), and The Body Snatcher (1945), directed by Jacques Tourneur , Robert Wise , and others who became renowned only later in their careers or entirely in retrospect. The movie now widely described as the first classic film noir, Stranger on the Third Floor (1940), a 64-minute B, was produced at RKO, which released many additional melodramatic thrillers in a similarly stylish vein. The other major studios also turned out
1450-611: A coin-operated peep-box Electrotachyscope model were manufactured by Siemens & Halske in Berlin and sold internationally. Nearly 34,000 people paid to see it at the Berlin Exhibition Park in the summer of 1892. Others saw it in London or at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair . On 25 November 1894, Anschütz introduced a Electrotachyscope projector with a 6x8 meter screening in Berlin. Between 22 February and 30 March 1895,
1595-545: A combination of some or all of these techniques, and other visual effects . Before the introduction of digital production, a series of still images were recorded on a strip of chemically sensitized celluloid ( photographic film stock ), usually at a rate of 24 frames per second. The images are transmitted through a movie projector at the same rate as they were recorded, with a Geneva drive ensuring that each frame remains still during its short projection time. A rotating shutter causes stroboscopic intervals of darkness, but
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#17327726009611740-576: A considerable number of movies now identified as noir during the 1940s. Though many of the best-known film noirs were A-level productions, most 1940s pictures in the mode were either of the ambiguous programmer type or destined straight for the bottom of the bill. In the decades since, these cheap entertainments, generally dismissed at the time, have become some of the most treasured products of Hollywood's Golden Age. In one sample year, 1947, RKO produced along with several noir programmers and A pictures, two straight B noirs: Desperate and The Devil Thumbs
1885-411: A contract that called for an annual salary of one million dollars. From 1931 to 1956, film was also the only image storage and playback system for television programming until the introduction of videotape recorders . In the United States, much of the film industry is centered around Hollywood, California . Other regional centers exist in many parts of the world, such as Mumbai -centered Bollywood ,
2030-421: A day or two to formulate their opinions. Despite this, critics have an important impact on the audience response and attendance at films, especially those of certain genres . Mass marketed action , horror , and comedy films tend not to be greatly affected by a critic's overall judgment of a film. The plot summary and description of a film and the assessment of the director's and screenwriters' work that makes up
2175-540: A few decades before it was successfully combined with a method to record series of sequential images in real-time. In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge eventually managed to take a series of photographs of a running horse with a battery of cameras in a line along the track and published the results as The Horse in Motion on cabinet cards . Muybridge, as well as Étienne-Jules Marey , Ottomar Anschütz and many others, would create many more chronophotography studies. Muybridge had
2320-402: A few filmmakers began making nudies with greater attention to plot. Best known was Russ Meyer , who released his first successful narrative nudie, the comic Immoral Mr. Teas , in 1959. Five years later, Meyer came out with his breakthrough film, Lorna , which combined sex, violence, and a dramatic storyline. Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965), made for about $ 45,000, ultimately became
2465-460: A few more years, but Republic Pictures, long associated with cheap sagebrush sagas, was out of the filmmaking business by decade's end. In other genres, Universal kept its Ma and Pa Kettle series going through 1957, while Allied Artists stuck with the Bowery Boys until 1958. RKO, weakened by years of mismanagement, exited the movie industry in 1957. Hollywood's A product was getting longer,
2610-551: A flashing soda can during a screening). These fields may further create derivative fields, such as a movie review section in a newspaper or a television guide. Sub-industries can spin off from film, such as popcorn makers, and film-related toys (e.g., Star Wars figures ). Sub-industries of pre-existing industries may deal specifically with film, such as product placement and other advertising within films. The terminology used for describing motion pictures varies considerably between British and American English . In British usage,
2755-399: A flat rate, they were rented out on a percentage basis, like A films. The success of I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957) thus brought AIP a large return, made for about $ 100,000, it grossed more than $ 2 million . As the film's title suggests, the studio relied on both fantastic genre subjects and new, teen-oriented angles. When Hot Rod Gang (1958) turned a profit, hot rod horror was given
2900-454: A fully bared, unpainted breast, but flirts with nudity throughout. The Meyer and Corman lines were drawing closer. Motion picture A film , also known as a movie , is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally accompanied by sound and (less commonly) other sensory stimulations. The word "cinema"
3045-452: A lively, energetic film uninhibited by the constraints imposed on more expensive projects and unburdened by the conventions of putatively serious independent film . The term is also now used loosely to refer to some higher-budget, mainstream films with exploitation-style content, usually in genres traditionally associated with the B movie. From their beginnings to the present day, B movies have provided opportunities both for those coming up in
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#17327726009613190-400: A matter of course: for an A picture, along with the trailers , or screen previews, that presaged its arrival, "[t]he new film's title on the marquee and the listings for it in the local newspaper constituted all the advertising most movies got", writes Epstein. Aside from at the theater itself, B films might not be advertised at all. The introduction of sound had driven costs higher: by 1930,
3335-764: A more dynamic and engaging experience for the viewer. The development of scene construction through mise-en-scène , editing, and special effects led to more sophisticated techniques that can be compared to those utilized in opera and ballet. The French New Wave movement of the late 1950s and 1960s also embraced the montage technique, with filmmakers such as Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut using montage to create distinctive and innovative films. This approach continues to be influential in contemporary cinema, with directors employing montage to create memorable sequences in their films. In contemporary cinema, montage continues to play an essential role in shaping narratives and creating emotional resonance. Filmmakers have adapted
3480-485: A new Monogram production house. Into the 1950s, most Republic and Monogram product was roughly on par with the low end of the majors' output. Less sturdy Poverty Row concerns, with a penchant for grand sobriquets like Conquest, Empire, Imperial, and Peerless, continued to churn out dirt-cheap quickies. Joel Finler has analyzed the average length of feature releases in 1938, indicating the studios' relative emphasis on B production ( United Artists produced little, focusing on
3625-425: A new section or sequence within a film. This technique can be used to convey a narrative or to create an emotional or intellectual effect by juxtaposing different shots, often for the purpose of condensing time, space, or information. Montage can involve flashbacks , parallel action, or the interplay of various visual elements to enhance the storytelling or create symbolic meaning . The concept of montage emerged in
3770-481: A particular genre : the Western was a Golden Age B movie staple, while low-budget science-fiction and horror films became more popular in the 1950s. Early B movies were often part of series in which the star repeatedly played the same character. Almost always shorter than the top-billed feature films, many had running times of 70 minutes or less. The term connoted a general perception that B movies were inferior to
3915-467: A profit through whatever bookings they could pick up in the gaps left by the larger concerns. With the widespread arrival of sound film in American theaters in 1929, many independent exhibitors began dropping the then-dominant presentation model, which involved live acts and a broad variety of shorts before a single featured film. A new programming scheme developed that soon became standard practice:
4060-466: A projection before 1882. He then further developed the device into the Théâtre Optique which could project longer sequences with separate backgrounds, patented in 1888. He created several movies for the machine by painting images on hundreds of gelatin plates that were mounted into cardboard frames and attached to a cloth band. From 28 October 1892 to March 1900 Reynaud gave over 12,800 shows to
4205-562: A relationship between the content in the separate shots in the minds of the viewer. It is this relationship that makes all film storytelling possible. In a simple example, if a person is shown looking out a window, whatever the next shot shows, it will be regarded as the view the person was seeing.) Each scene was a single stationary shot with the action occurring before it. The scenes were later broken up into multiple shots photographed from different distances and angles. Other techniques such as camera movement were developed as effective ways to tell
4350-526: A source of profit almost as soon as the process was invented. Upon seeing how successful their new invention, and its product, was in their native France, the Lumières quickly set about touring the Continent to exhibit the first films privately to royalty and publicly to the masses. In each country, they would normally add new, local scenes to their catalogue and, quickly enough, found local entrepreneurs in
4495-415: A story with film. Until sound film became commercially practical in the late 1920s, motion pictures were a purely visual art , but these innovative silent films had gained a hold on the public imagination. Rather than leave audiences with only the noise of the projector as an accompaniment, theater owners hired a pianist or organist or, in large urban theaters, a full orchestra to play music that fit
Edgar Wallace Mysteries - Misplaced Pages Continue
4640-563: A studio's more important productions, while also breaking in new personnel. Studios in the minor leagues of the industry, such as Columbia Pictures and Film Booking Offices of America (FBO), focused on exactly those sorts of cheap productions. Their movies, with relatively short running times, targeted theaters that had to economize on rental and operating costs, particularly small-town and urban neighborhood venues, or "nabes". Even smaller production houses, known as Poverty Row studios, made films whose costs might run as low as $ 3,000, seeking
4785-463: A subsequent-run A film had largely disappeared from American theaters. The AIP-style dual genre package was the new model. In July 1960, the latest Joseph E. Levine sword-and-sandals import, Hercules Unchained , opened at neighborhood theaters in New York. A suspense film, Terror Is a Man , ran as a "co-feature" with a now familiar sort of exploitation gimmick: "The dénouement helpfully includes
4930-687: A time through "peep show" devices such as the Electrotachyscope , Kinetoscope and the Mutoscope . Not much later, exhibitors managed to project films on large screens for theatre audiences. The first public screenings of films at which admission was charged were made in 1895 by the American Woodville Latham and his sons, using films produced by their Eidoloscope company, by the Skladanowsky brothers and by
5075-531: A total of circa 7,000 paying customers came to view a 1.5-hour show of some 40 scenes at a 300-seat hall in the old Reichstag building in Berlin. Émile Reynaud already mentioned the possibility of projecting the images of the Praxinoscope in his 1877 patent application. He presented a praxinoscope projection device at the Société française de photographie on 4 June 1880, but did not market his praxinoscope
5220-516: A total of over 500,000 visitors at the Musée Grévin in Paris. By the end of the 1880s, the introduction of lengths of celluloid photographic film and the invention of motion picture cameras , which could photograph a rapid sequence of images using only one lens, allowed action to be captured and stored on a single compact reel of film. Movies were initially shown publicly to one person at
5365-526: A try: Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow (1959). David Cook credits AIP with leading the way "in demographic exploitation , target marketing , and saturation booking, all of which became standard procedure for the majors in planning and releasing their mass-market 'event' films" by the late 1970s. In terms of content, the majors were already there, with films about juvenile delinquency such as Warner Bros.' Untamed Youth (1957) and MGM's High School Confidential (1958), both starring Mamie Van Doren . In 1954,
5510-474: A valid fine art . André Bazin reacted against this theory by arguing that film's artistic essence lay in its ability to mechanically reproduce reality, not in its differences from reality, and this gave rise to realist theory . More recent analysis spurred by Jacques Lacan 's psychoanalysis and Ferdinand de Saussure 's semiotics among other things has given rise to psychoanalytic film theory , structuralist film theory , feminist film theory , and others. On
5655-476: A young filmmaker named Roger Corman received his first screen credits as writer and associate producer of Allied Artists' Highway Dragnet . Corman soon independently produced his first movie, Monster from the Ocean Floor , on a $ 12,000 budget and a six-day shooting schedule. Among the six films he worked on in 1955, Corman produced and directed the first official ARC release, Apache Woman , and Day
5800-401: Is a shortening of the word " cinematography " and is used to refer to either filmmaking , the film industry , the overall art form, or a movie theater . The moving images of a film are created by photographing actual scenes with a motion-picture camera , by photographing drawings or miniature models using traditional animation techniques, by means of CGI and computer animation , or by
5945-464: Is a type of cheap, poorly made commercial motion picture . Originally, during the Golden Age of Hollywood , this term specifically referred to films meant to be shown as the lesser-known second half of a double feature , somewhat similar to B-sides in recorded music. However, the production of such films as "second features" in the United States largely declined by the end of the 1950s. This shift
Edgar Wallace Mysteries - Misplaced Pages Continue
6090-596: Is ambiguity: at MGM, for example, popular series like the Andy Hardy and the Dr. Kildare – Dr. Gillespie chronicles had leading stars and budgets that would have been A-level at most of the lesser studios. For many series, even a lesser major's standard B budget was far out of reach: Poverty Row's Consolidated Pictures featured Tarzan, the Police Dog in a series with the proud name of Melodramatic Dog Features. By 1940,
6235-411: Is having a shot that zooms in on the forehead of an actor with an expression of silent reflection that cuts to a shot of a younger actor who vaguely resembles the first actor, indicating that the first person is remembering a past self, an edit of compositions that causes a time transition. Montage is a film editing technique in which separate pieces of film are selected, edited, and assembled to create
6380-534: Is pure pulp , one of Mickey Spillane 's Mike Hammer novels, but Robert Aldrich 's direction is self-consciously aestheticized. The result is a brutal genre picture that also evokes contemporary anxieties about what was often spoken of simply as the Bomb. The fear of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, along with less expressible qualms about radioactive fallout from America's own atomic tests, energized many of
6525-446: Is the greatest director , the one who invented a new language , true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream." An example of the language is a sequence of back and forth images of one speaking actor's left profile, followed by another speaking actor's right profile, then a repetition of this, which is a language understood by the audience to indicate a conversation. This describes another theory of film,
6670-460: The 180-degree rule , as a visual story-telling device with an ability to place a viewer in a context of being psychologically present through the use of visual composition and editing. The " Hollywood style " includes this narrative theory, due to the overwhelming practice of the rule by movie studios based in Hollywood, California, during film's classical era. Another example of cinematic language
6815-496: The ABC Cinemas circuit, which was Anglo-Amalgamated 's usual outlet; but ten of them were allocated to the rival Rank circuit, with screenings in their Odeon and Gaumont cinemas. Most of the series featured a standard title sequence, in which a shadowed bust of Edgar Wallace revolves slowly against a backdrop of swirling mist, to the accompaniment of the " Man of Mystery " theme written by Michael Carr . "Man of Mystery"
6960-545: The French New Wave , New German Cinema wave, Indian New Wave , Japanese New Wave , New Hollywood , and Egyptian New Wave ) and the rise of film-school-educated independent filmmakers contributed to the changes the medium experienced in the latter half of the 20th century. Digital technology has been the driving force for change throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s. Digital 3D projection largely replaced earlier problem-prone 3D film systems and has become popular in
7105-802: The Indian film industry's Hindi cinema which produces the largest number of films in the world. Though the expense involved in making films has led cinema production to concentrate under the auspices of movie studios , recent advances in affordable film making equipment have allowed independent film productions to flourish. Profit is a key force in the industry, due to the costly and risky nature of filmmaking; many films have large cost overruns , an example being Kevin Costner 's Waterworld . Yet many filmmakers strive to create works of lasting social significance. The Academy Awards (also known as "the Oscars") are
7250-643: The Mexican Spitfire and Lum and Abner comedy series, thrillers featuring the Saint and the Falcon , Westerns starring Tim Holt , and Tarzan movies with Johnny Weissmuller . Jean Hersholt played Dr. Christian in six films between 1939 and 1941. The Courageous Dr. Christian (1940) was a standard entry: "In the course of an hour or so of screen time, the saintly physician managed to cure an epidemic of spinal meningitis, demonstrate benevolence towards
7395-564: The "Premiere" rubric. In 1947 as well, PRC was subsumed by Eagle-Lion , a British company seeking entry to the American market. Warners' former "Keeper of the Bs", Brian Foy, was installed as production chief. In the 1940s, RKO stood out among the industry's Big Five for its focus on B pictures. From a latter-day perspective, the most famous of the major studios' Golden Age B units is Val Lewton 's horror unit at RKO. Lewton produced such moody, mysterious films as Cat People (1942), I Walked with
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#17327726009617540-438: The 1840s and commercial success since the early 1850s, raised interest in completing the photographic medium with the addition of means to capture colour and motion. In 1849, Joseph Plateau published about the idea to combine his invention of the phénakisticope with the stereoscope, as suggested to him by stereoscope inventor Charles Wheatstone , and to use photographs of plaster sculptures in different positions to be animated in
7685-427: The 1890s. Photography was introduced in 1839, but initially photographic emulsions needed such long exposures that the recording of moving subjects seemed impossible. At least as early as 1844, photographic series of subjects posed in different positions were created to either suggest a motion sequence or document a range of different viewing angles. The advent of stereoscopic photography, with early experiments in
7830-432: The 1920s, with pioneering Soviet filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein and Lev Kuleshov developing the theory of montage. Eisenstein's film Battleship Potemkin (1925) is a prime example of the innovative use of montage, where he employed complex juxtapositions of images to create a visceral impact on the audience. As the art of montage evolved, filmmakers began incorporating musical and visual counterpoint to create
7975-542: The 1930s, the average U.S. feature production cost had essentially doubled over the 1940s, reaching $ 1 million by the turn of the decade—a 93% rise after adjusting for inflation. The first prominent victim of the changing market was Eagle-Lion, which released its last films in 1951. By 1953, the old Monogram brand had disappeared, the company having adopted the identity of its higher-end subsidiary, Allied Artists. The following year, Allied released Hollywood's last B series Westerns. Non-series B Westerns continued to appear for
8120-418: The 1960s saw a major expansion in the commercial viability of a variety of B movie subgenres that became known collectively as exploitation films . The combination of intensive and gimmick-laden publicity with movies featuring vulgar subject matter and often outrageous imagery dated back decades. The term had originally defined truly fringe productions, made at the lowest depths of Poverty Row or entirely outside
8265-686: The 2000s is so intense, well-coordinated and well financed that reviewers cannot prevent a poorly written or filmed blockbuster from attaining market success. However, the cataclysmic failure of some heavily promoted films which were harshly reviewed, as well as the unexpected success of critically praised independent films indicates that extreme critical reactions can have considerable influence. Other observers note that positive film reviews have been shown to spark interest in little-known films. Conversely, there have been several films in which film companies have so little confidence that they refuse to give reviewers an advanced viewing to avoid widespread panning of
8410-586: The Big Five over to A-film production, making the smaller studios even more important as B movie suppliers. Genre pictures made at very low cost remained the backbone of Poverty Row, with even Republic's and Monogram's budgets rarely climbing over $ 200,000. Many smaller Poverty Row firms folded as the eight majors, with their proprietary distribution exchanges, now commanded about 95% of U.S. and Canadian box office receipts. In 1946, independent producer David O. Selznick brought his bloated-budget spectacle Duel in
8555-535: The Body Snatchers (1956), released by Allied Artists, treats conformist pressures and the evil of banality in haunting, allegorical fashion. The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), directed by Bert I. Gordon , is both a monster movie that happens to depict the horrific effects of radiation exposure and "a ferocious cold-war fable [that] spins Korea , the army's obsessive secrecy, and America's post-war growth into one fantastic whole". The Amazing Colossal Man
8700-508: The Dolby A noise reduction system, which became a standard in the recording industry and eliminated the hissing sound associated with earlier standardization efforts. Dolby Stereo , a revolutionary surround sound system, followed and allowed cinema designers to take acoustics into consideration when designing theaters. This innovation enabled audiences in smaller venues to enjoy comparable audio experiences to those in larger city theaters. Today,
8845-554: The Hollywood system. Many graphically depicted the wages of sin in the context of promoting prudent lifestyle choices, particularly " sexual hygiene ". Audiences might see explicit footage of anything from a live birth to a ritual circumcision. Such films were not generally booked as part of movie theaters' regular schedules but rather presented as special events by traveling roadshow promoters (they might also appear as fodder for " grindhouses ", which typically had no regular schedule at all). The most famous of those promoters, Kroger Babb ,
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#17327726009618990-785: The Republic Westerns with John Wayne and the Three Mesquiteers achieved a uniquely American perfection of the well-made story." At the far end of the industry, Poverty Row's Ajax put out oaters starring Harry Carey , then in his fifties. The Weiss outfit had the Range Rider series, the American Rough Rider series, and the Morton of the Mounted "northwest action thrillers". One low-budget oater of
9135-457: The Sun to market with heavy nationwide promotion and wide release. The distribution strategy was a major success, despite what was widely perceived as the movie's poor quality. The Duel release anticipated practices that fueled the B movie industry in the late 1950s; when the top Hollywood studios made them standard two decades after that, the B movie was hard hit. Considerations beside cost made
9280-458: The United States is "movie", while in Europe , "film" is preferred. Archaic terms include "animated pictures" and "animated photography". "Flick" is, in general a slang term, first recorded in 1926. It originates in the verb flicker, owing to the flickering appearance of early films. Common terms for the field, in general, include "the big screen", "the movies", "the silver screen", and "cinema";
9425-402: The United States, movie is the predominant term for the medium. Although the words film and movie are sometimes used interchangeably, film is more often used when considering artistic , theoretical , or technical aspects. The term movies more often refers to entertainment or commercial aspects, as where to go for fun evening on a date. For example, a book titled How to Understand
9570-630: The World Ended , half of Arkoff and Nicholson's first twin-bill package. Corman directed over fifty feature films through 1990. As of 2007, he remained active as a producer, with more than 350 movies to his credit. Often referred to as the "King of the Bs", Corman has said that "to my way of thinking, I never made a 'B' movie in my life", as the traditional B movie was dying out when he began making pictures. He prefers to describe his metier as "low-budget exploitation films". In later years Corman, both with AIP and as head of his own companies, helped launch
9715-406: The average U.S. feature film cost $ 375,000 to produce. A broad range of motion pictures occupied the B category. The leading studios made not only clear-cut A and B films, but also movies classifiable as "programmers" (also known as "in-betweeners" or "intermediates"). As Taves describes, "Depending on the prestige of the theater and the other material on the double bill, a programmer could show up at
9860-465: The average production cost of an American feature was $ 400,000, a negligible increase over ten years. A number of small Hollywood companies had folded around the turn of the decade, including the ambitious Grand National , but a new firm, Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC), emerged as third in the Poverty Row hierarchy behind Republic and Monogram. The double feature, never universal, was still
10005-511: The bottom line. Poverty Row studios, from modest outfits like Mascot Pictures , Tiffany Pictures , and Sono Art-World Wide Pictures , down to shoestring operations, made exclusively B movies, serials, and other shorts, and also distributed totally independent productions and imported films. In no position to directly block book, they mostly sold regional distribution exclusivity to " states rights " firms, which in turn peddled blocks of movies to exhibitors, typically six or more pictures featuring
10150-482: The careers of Francis Ford Coppola , Jonathan Demme , Robert Towne , and Robert De Niro , among many others. In the late 1950s, William Castle became known as the great innovator of the B movie publicity gimmick. Audiences of Macabre (1958), an $ 86,000 production distributed by Allied Artists, were invited to take out insurance policies to cover potential death from fright. The 1959 creature feature The Tingler featured Castle's most famous gimmick, Percepto: at
10295-479: The chronophotography works of Muybridge and Étienne-Jules Marey . In 1886, Anschütz developed the Electrotachyscope , an early device that displayed short motion picture loops with 24 glass plate photographs on a 1.5 meter wide rotating wheel that was hand-cranked to a speed of circa 30 frames per second. Different versions were shown at many international exhibitions, fairs, conventions, and arcades from 1887 until at least 1894. Starting in 1891, some 152 examples of
10440-420: The classic double feature vanished from many American theaters during the 1950s. The major studios promoted the benefits of recycling, offering former headlining movies as second features in the place of traditional B films. With television airing many classic Westerns as well as producing its own original Western series, the cinematic market for B oaters in particular was drying up. After barely inching forward in
10585-552: The combined device. In 1852, Jules Duboscq patented such an instrument as the "Stéréoscope-fantascope, ou Bïoscope", but he only marketed it very briefly, without success. One Bïoscope disc with stereoscopic photographs of a machine is in the Plateau collection of Ghent University, but no instruments or other discs have yet been found. By the late 1850s the first examples of instantaneous photography came about and provided hope that motion photography would soon be possible, but it took
10730-526: The concurrent Rialto Film series then being produced in Germany (see German krimis ), there was no attempt to set them in the period settings of Wallace's original stories, probably to eliminate the need for elaborate costumes and sets. A 1962 article in Scene magazine quotes £22,000 as the budget for an episode in production at the time of reporting. The majority of the films played as supporting features on
10875-403: The contours of dozens of his chronophotographic series traced onto glass discs and projected them with his zoopraxiscope in his lectures from 1880 to 1895. Anschütz made his first instantaneous photographs in 1881. He developed a portable camera that allowed shutter speeds as short as 1/1000 of a second in 1882. The quality of his pictures was generally regarded as much higher than that of
11020-591: The decade, more than four thousand pictures, are classifiable as Bs. The Western was by far the predominant B genre in both the 1930s and, to a lesser degree, the 1940s. Film historian Jon Tuska has argued that "the 'B' product of the Thirties—the Universal films with [Tom] Mix , [Ken] Maynard , and [Buck] Jones , the Columbia features with Buck Jones and Tim McCoy , the RKO George O'Brien series,
11165-446: The disenfranchised, set an example for wayward youth, and calm the passions of an amorous old maid." Down in Poverty Row, low budgets led to less palliative fare. Republic aspired to major-league respectability while making many cheap and modestly budgeted Westerns, but there was not much from the bigger studios that compared with Monogram " exploitation pictures " like juvenile delinquency exposé Where Are Your Children? (1943) and
11310-416: The distribution of prestigious films from independent outfits; Grand National , active 1936–40, occupied an analogous niche on Poverty Row, releasing mostly independent productions ): Taves estimates that half of the films produced by the eight majors in the 1930s were B movies. Calculating in the three hundred or so films made annually by the many Poverty Row firms, approximately 75% of Hollywood movies from
11455-512: The double feature prevailed. At the larger local venues controlled by the majors, movies might turn over on a weekly basis. At the thousands of smaller, independent theaters, programs often changed two or three times a week. To meet the constant demand for new B product, the low end of Poverty Row turned out a stream of micro-budget movies rarely much more than sixty minutes long; these were known as "quickies" for their tight production schedules—as short as four days. As Azam Patel describes, "Many of
11600-414: The double feature remained a popular exhibition mode. It was standard policy at 25% of theaters and used part-time at an additional 36%. The leading Poverty Row firms began to broaden their scope; in 1947, Monogram established a subsidiary, Allied Artists , to develop and distribute relatively expensive films, mostly from independent producers. Around the same time, Republic launched a similar effort under
11745-435: The drive-in movie became one of the defining symbols of American popular culture in the 1950s. At the same time, many local television stations began showing B genre films in late-night slots, popularizing the notion of the midnight movie . Increasingly, American-made genre films were joined by foreign movies acquired at low cost and, where necessary, dubbed for the U.S. market. In 1956, distributor Joseph E. Levine financed
11890-593: The early 2010s. " Film theory " seeks to develop concise and systematic concepts that apply to the study of film as art . The concept of film as an art-form began in 1911 with Ricciotto Canudo 's manifest The Birth of the Sixth Art . The Moscow Film School , the oldest film school in the world, was founded in 1919, in order to teach about and research film theory. Formalist film theory , led by Rudolf Arnheim , Béla Balázs , and Siegfried Kracauer , emphasized how film differed from reality and thus could be considered
12035-432: The end of the silent era , the production cost of an average feature from a major Hollywood studio ranged from $ 190,000 at Fox to $ 275,000 at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer . That average reflected both "specials" that might cost as much as $ 1 million and films made quickly for around $ 50,000. These cheaper films (not yet called B movies ) allowed the studios to derive maximum value from facilities and contracted staff in between
12180-417: The end of the year, Ulmer had also made the teen-themed musical Jive Junction as well as Isle of Forgotten Sins , a South Seas adventure set around a brothel. In 1948, a Supreme Court ruling in a federal antitrust suit against the majors outlawed block booking and led to the Big Five divesting their theater chains. With audiences draining away to television and studios scaling back production schedules,
12325-776: The era's genre films. Science fiction, horror, and various hybrids of the two were now of central economic importance to the low-budget end of the business. Most down-market films of the type—like many of those produced by William Alland at Universal (such as Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)) and Sam Katzman at Columbia (including It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955))—provided little more than thrills, though their special effects could be impressive. But these were genres whose fantastic nature could also be used as cover for mordant cultural observations often difficult to make in mainstream movies. Director Don Siegel 's Invasion of
12470-411: The era, made totally outside the studio system, profited from an outrageous concept: a Western with a cast consisting of only little people , The Terror of Tiny Town (1938) was such a success in its independent bookings that Columbia picked it up for distribution. Series of various genres, featuring recurrent, title-worthy characters or name actors in familiar roles, were particularly popular during
12615-435: The expanding second-feature market. Block booking became standard practice: to get access to a studio's attractive A pictures, many theaters were obliged to rent the company's entire output for a season. With the B films rented at a flat fee (rather than the box office percentage basis of A films), rates could be set virtually guaranteeing the profitability of every B movie. The parallel practice of blind bidding largely freed
12760-502: The film "into as many cinemas as he could for a week's run, then withdrawing it before poor word-of-mouth withdrew it for him". Hercules opened at a remarkable 600 theaters, and the strategy was a smashing success: the film earned $ 4.7 million in domestic rentals. Just as valuable to the bottom line, it was even more successful overseas. Within a few decades, Hollywood was dominated by both movies and an exploitation philosophy very much like Levine's. Also playing rounds during this time
12905-423: The film's climax, buzzers attached to select theater seats unexpectedly rattled a few audience members, prompting either appropriate screams or even more appropriate laughter. With such films, Castle "combine[d] the saturation advertising campaign perfected by Columbia and Universal in their Sam Katzman and William Alland packages with centralized and standardized publicity stunts and gimmicks that had previously been
13050-792: The film. However, this usually backfires, as reviewers are wise to the tactic and warn the public that the film may not be worth seeing and the films often do poorly as a result. Journalist film critics are sometimes called film reviewers. Critics who take a more academic approach to films, through publishing in film journals and writing books about films using film theory or film studies approaches, study how film and filming techniques work, and what effect they have on people. Rather than having their reviews published in newspapers or appearing on television, their articles are published in scholarly journals or up-market magazines. They also tend to be affiliated with colleges or universities as professors or instructors. The making and showing of motion pictures became
13195-404: The films through to the 1990s, later being re-shown on Talking Pictures TV from 2018. It was shown on American television as The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre , with episodes cut to fit hour-long commercial TV slots. In July 2012, Network DVD began to release the complete series on DVD, uncut and presented in its original aspect ratio. Urge to Kill (1960) does not appear to have been part of
13340-432: The first decade of sound film. Fox's many B series, for instance, included Charlie Chan mysteries, Ritz Brothers comedies, and musicals with child star Jane Withers . These series films are not to be confused with the short, cliffhanger -structured serials that sometimes appeared on the same program. As with serials, however, many series were intended to attract young people—a theater that twin-billed part-time might run
13485-410: The future of sound in film remains uncertain, with potential influences from artificial intelligence , remastered audio, and personal viewing experiences shaping its development. However, it is clear that the evolution of sound in cinema has been marked by continuous innovation and a desire to create more immersive and engaging experiences for audiences. A significant technological advancement in film
13630-522: The future of the cinema industry, and Hollywood employment has become less reliable, particularly for medium and low-budget films. Derivative academic fields of study may both interact with and develop independently of filmmaking, as in film theory and analysis. Fields of academic study have been created that are derivative or dependent on the existence of film, such as film criticism , film history , divisions of film propaganda in authoritarian governments, or psychological on subliminal effects (e.g., of
13775-419: The industry's top product, the A films, premiered at a small number of select first-run houses in major cities. Double features were not the rule at these prestigious venues. As described by Edward Jay Epstein , "During these first runs, films got their reviews, garnered publicity, and generated the word of mouth that served as the principal form of advertising." Then it was off to the subsequent-run market where
13920-493: The innovative work of D. W. Griffith in The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916). However, in the 1920s, European filmmakers such as Eisenstein , F. W. Murnau and Fritz Lang , in many ways inspired by the meteoric wartime progress of film through Griffith, along with the contributions of Charles Chaplin , Buster Keaton and others, quickly caught up with American film-making and continued to further advance
14065-452: The last of these is commonly used, as an overarching term, in scholarly texts and critical essays. In the early years, the word "sheet" was sometimes used instead of "screen". The art of film has drawn on several earlier traditions in fields such as oral storytelling , literature , theatre and visual arts . Forms of art and entertainment that had already featured moving or projected images include: The stroboscopic animation principle
14210-593: The line between A and B movies ambiguous. Films shot on B-level budgets were occasionally marketed as A pictures or emerged as sleeper hits : one of 1943's biggest films was Hitler's Children , an RKO thriller made for a fraction over $ 200,000. It earned more than $ 3 million in rentals, industry language for a distributor's share of gross box office receipts. Particularly in the realm of film noir , A pictures sometimes echoed visual styles generally associated with cheaper films. Programmers, with their flexible exhibition role, were ambiguous by definition. As late as 1948,
14355-484: The lower end of the industry, "exploitation" became a way to refer to the entire field of low-budget genre films. The 1960s saw exploitation-style themes and imagery become increasingly central to the realm of the B. Exploitation movies in the original sense continued to appear: 1961's Damaged Goods , a cautionary tale about a young lady whose boyfriend's promiscuity leads to venereal disease , comes complete with enormous, grotesque closeups of VD's physical effects. At
14500-461: The majority of most film reviews can still have an important impact on whether people decide to see a film. For prestige films such as most dramas and art films , the influence of reviews is important. Poor reviews from leading critics at major papers and magazines will often reduce audience interest and attendance. The impact of a reviewer on a given film's box office performance is a matter of debate. Some observers claim that movie marketing in
14645-409: The majors from worrying about their Bs' quality; even when booking in less than seasonal blocks, exhibitors had to buy most pictures sight unseen. The five largest studios: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , Paramount Pictures , Fox Film Corporation ( 20th Century Fox as of 1935), Warner Bros. , and RKO Radio Pictures (descendant of FBO), also belonged to companies with sizable theater chains, further securing
14790-405: The medium. In the 1920s, the development of electronic sound recording technologies made it practical to incorporate a soundtrack of speech, music and sound effects synchronized with the action on the screen. The resulting sound films were initially distinguished from the usual silent "moving pictures" or "movies" by calling them "talking pictures" or "talkies." The revolution they wrought
14935-401: The mood of the film at any given moment. By the early 1920s, most films came with a prepared list of sheet music to be used for this purpose, and complete film scores were composed for major productions. The rise of European cinema was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I , while the film industry in the United States flourished with the rise of Hollywood , typified most prominently by
15080-452: The more lavishly budgeted headliners; individual B films were often ignored by critics. Latter-day B movies still sometimes inspire multiple sequels , but series are less common. As the average running time of top-of-the-line films increased, so did that of B pictures. In its current usage, the term has somewhat contradictory connotations: it may signal an opinion that a certain movie is (a) a "genre film" with minimal artistic ambitions or (b)
15225-479: The most famous of Meyer's sexploitation pictures. Crafted for constant titillation but containing no nudity, it was aimed at the same "passion pit" drive-in circuit that screened AIP teen movies with wink-wink titles like Beach Blanket Bingo (1965) and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1966), starring Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon . Roger Corman's The Trip (1967) for American International, written by veteran AIP/Corman actor Jack Nicholson , never shows
15370-440: The most prominent film awards in the United States, providing recognition each year to films, based on their artistic merits. There is also a large industry for educational and instructional films made in lieu of or in addition to lectures and texts. Revenue in the industry is sometimes volatile due to the reliance on blockbuster films released in movie theaters . The rise of alternative home entertainment has raised questions about
15515-477: The name of the medium is film . The word movie is understood but seldom used. Additionally, the pictures (plural) is used somewhat frequently to refer to the place where movies are exhibited; in American English this may be called the movies , but that term is becoming outdated. In other countries, the place where movies are exhibited may be called a cinema or movie theatre . By contrast, in
15660-436: The number of films made in color gradually increased year after year. In the early 1950s, the proliferation of black-and-white television started seriously depressing North American theater attendance. In an attempt to lure audiences back into theaters, bigger screens were installed, widescreen processes, polarized 3D projection , and stereophonic sound were introduced, and more films were made in color, which soon became
15805-442: The original series of films produced at Merton Park. Other films not shot as part of the series, but subsequently included, are Crossroads to Crime (1960) and Seven Keys (1961). The Radio Times described the series as " Brit noir at its best, updating some of the author's stories to more contemporary settings and blending classic B-movie elements with a distinctly British feel." B film A B movie , or B film ,
15950-454: The other hand, critics from the analytical philosophy tradition, influenced by Wittgenstein , try to clarify misconceptions used in theoretical studies and produce analysis of a film's vocabulary and its link to a form of life . Film is considered to have its own language . James Monaco wrote a classic text on film theory, titled "How to Read a Film," that addresses this. Director Ingmar Bergman famously said, " Andrei Tarkovsky for me
16095-445: The poorest theaters, such as the 'grind houses' in the larger cities, screened a continuous program emphasizing action with no specific schedule, sometimes offering six quickies for a nickel in an all-night show that changed daily." Many small theaters never saw a big-studio A film, getting their movies from the states rights concerns that handled almost exclusively Poverty Row product. Millions of Americans went to their local theaters as
16240-426: The prevailing exhibition model: in 1941, fifty percent of theaters were double-billing exclusively, and others employed the policy part-time. In the early 1940s, legal pressure forced the studios to replace seasonal block booking with packages generally limited to five pictures. Restrictions were also placed on the majors' ability to enforce blind bidding. These were crucial factors in the progressive shift by most of
16385-627: The prison film Women in Bondage (1943). In 1947, PRC's The Devil on Wheels brought together teenagers, hot rods , and death. The little studio had its own house auteur : with his own crew and relatively free rein, director Edgar G. Ulmer was known as "the Capra of PRC". Ulmer made films of every generic stripe: his Girls in Chains was released in May 1943, six months before Women in Bondage ; by
16530-650: The profession and others whose careers are waning. Celebrated filmmakers such as Anthony Mann and Jonathan Demme learned their craft in B movies. They are where actors such as John Wayne and Jack Nicholson first became established, and they have provided work for former A movie actors and actresses, such as Vincent Price and Karen Black . Some actors and actresses, such as Bela Lugosi , Eddie Constantine , Bruce Campbell , and Pam Grier , worked in B movies for most of their careers. The terms "B actor and actress" are sometimes used to refer to performers who find work primarily or exclusively in B pictures. In 1927–28, at
16675-438: The program "balance", the practice of pairing different sorts of features suggested to potential customers that they could count on something of interest no matter what specifically was on the bill. The low-budget picture of the 1920s thus evolved into the second feature, the B movie, of Hollywood's Golden Age. The major studios , at first resistant to the double feature, soon adapted; all established B units to provide films for
16820-422: The purview of the local exhibitor". The postwar drive-in theater boom was vital to the expanding independent B movie industry. In January 1945, there were 96 drive-ins in the United States; a decade later, there were more than 3,700. Unpretentious pictures with simple, familiar plots and reliable shock effects were ideally suited for auto-based film viewing, with all its attendant distractions. The phenomenon of
16965-523: The rule rather than the exception. Some important mainstream Hollywood films were still being made in black-and-white as late as the mid-1960s, but they marked the end of an era. Color television receivers had been available in the US since the mid-1950s, but at first, they were very expensive and few broadcasts were in color. During the 1960s, prices gradually came down, color broadcasts became common, and sales boomed. The overwhelming public verdict in favor of color
17110-492: The same dreams and hurts, then it deserves to be called great. — Roger Ebert (1986) Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films. In general, these works can be divided into two categories: academic criticism by film scholars and journalistic film criticism that appears regularly in newspapers and other media. Film critics working for newspapers, magazines , and broadcast media mainly review new releases. Normally they only see any given film once and have only
17255-409: The same star (a relative status on Poverty Row). Two "major-minors", Universal Studios and rising Columbia Pictures had production lines roughly similar to, though somewhat better endowed than, the top Poverty Row studios. In contrast to the Big Five majors, Universal and Columbia had few or no theaters, though they did have top-rank film distribution exchanges. In the standard Golden Age model,
17400-561: The same time, the concept of fringe exploitation was merging with a related, similarly venerable tradition: " nudie " films featuring nudist-camp footage or striptease artists like Bettie Page had simply been the softcore pornography of previous decades. As far back as 1933, This Nude World was "Guaranteed the Most Educational Film Ever Produced!" In the late 1950s, as more of the old grindhouse theaters devoted themselves specifically to "adult" product,
17545-484: The same time, the realm of the B movie was becoming increasingly fertile territory for experimentation, both serious and outlandish. Ida Lupino , a leading actress, established herself as Hollywood's sole female director of the era. In short, low-budget pictures made for her production company, The Filmakers, Lupino explored taboo subjects such as rape in 1950's Outrage and 1953's self-explanatory The Bigamist . Her best known directorial effort, The Hitch-Hiker ,
17690-402: The series was still in production; hence, the distributor Anglo-Amalgamated attached the "Wallace Mysteries" credits to some of its other mystery and crime films, such as House of Mystery (1961), and thereby expanded the series. The series has been shown on television. In Britain, it was shown by ITV in 1968 under the title Tales of Edgar Wallace . Later, Channel 4 and Bravo rescreened
17835-523: The shooting of new footage with American actor Raymond Burr that was edited into the Japanese sci-fi horror film Godzilla . The British Hammer Film Productions made the successful The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Dracula (1958), major influences on future horror film style. In 1959, Levine's Embassy Pictures bought the worldwide rights to Hercules , a cheaply made Italian movie starring American-born bodybuilder Steve Reeves . On top of
17980-602: The spoken words, music, and other sounds ) runs along a portion of the film exclusively reserved for it, and was not projected. Contemporary films are usually fully digital through the entire process of production, distribution, and exhibition. The name "film" originally referred to the thin layer of photochemical emulsion on the celluloid strip that used to be the actual medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for an individual motion-picture, including "picture", "picture show", "moving picture", "photoplay", and "flick". The most common term in
18125-493: The standards of both director and studio, with the longest shooting schedule and biggest budget Corman had ever enjoyed. But it is generally seen as a B movie: the schedule was still a mere fifteen days, the budget just $ 200,000 (one tenth the industry average), and its 85-minute running time close to an old thumbnail definition of the B: "Any movie that runs less than 80 minutes." With the loosening of industry censorship constraints ,
18270-510: The street, and the view from the front of a trolley as it traveled a city's Main Street. According to legend, when a film showed a locomotive at high speed approaching the audience, the audience panicked and ran from the theater. Around the turn of the 20th century, films started stringing several scenes together to tell a story. (The filmmakers who first put several shots or scenes discovered that, when one shot follows another, that act establishes
18415-445: The television threat emerged in the 1940s and 1950s, the film industry needed to innovate to attract audiences. In terms of sound technology, this meant the development of surround sound and more sophisticated audio systems, such as Cinerama's seven-channel system. However, these advances required a large number of personnel to operate the equipment and maintain the sound experience in theaters. In 1966, Dolby Laboratories introduced
18560-413: The top or bottom of the marquee." On Poverty Row, many Bs were made on budgets that would have barely covered petty cash on a major's A film, with costs at the bottom of the industry running as low as $ 5,000. By the mid-1930s, the double feature was the dominant U.S. exhibition model, and the majors responded. In 1935, B movie production at Warner Bros. was raised from 12 to 50% of studio output. The unit
18705-681: The top ten box-office releases of 1940 had averaged 112.5 minutes; the average length of 1955's top ten was 123.4. In their modest way, the Bs were following suit. The age of the hour-long feature film was past; 70 minutes was now roughly the minimum. While the Golden Age-style second feature was dying, B movie was still used to refer to any low-budget genre film featuring relatively unheralded performers (sometimes referred to as B actors ). The term retained its earlier suggestion that such movies relied on formulaic plots, "stock" character types, and simplistic action or unsophisticated comedy. At
18850-451: The traditional montage technique to suit the evolving aesthetics and storytelling styles of modern cinema. As the medium of film continues to evolve, montage remains an integral aspect of visual storytelling, with filmmakers finding new and innovative ways to employ this powerful technique. If a movie can illuminate the lives of other people who share this planet with us and show us not only how different they are but, how even so, they share
18995-564: The various countries of Europe to buy their equipment and photograph, export, import, and screen additional product commercially. The Oberammergau Passion Play of 1898 was the first commercial motion picture ever produced. Other pictures soon followed, and motion pictures became a separate industry that overshadowed the vaudeville world. Dedicated theaters and companies formed specifically to produce and distribute films, while motion picture actors became major celebrities and commanded huge fees for their performances. By 1917 Charlie Chaplin had
19140-403: The viewer does not notice the interruptions due to flicker fusion . The apparent motion on the screen is the result of the fact that the visual sense cannot discern the individual images at high speeds, so the impressions of the images blend with the dark intervals and are thus linked together to produce the illusion of one moving image. An analogous optical soundtrack (a graphic recording of
19285-420: The – arguably better known – French brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière with ten of their own productions. Private screenings had preceded these by several months, with Latham's slightly predating the otherss'. The earliest films were simply one static shot that showed an event or action with no editing or other cinematic techniques . Typical films showed employees leaving a factory gate, people walking in
19430-410: Was K. Gordon Murray , known for distributing international matinee fare like the 1959 Mexican kids' movie Santa Claus . Despite all the transformations in the industry, by 1961 the average production cost of an American feature film was still only $ 2 million —after adjusting for inflation, less than 10% more than it had been in 1950. The traditional twin bill of B film preceding and balancing
19575-488: Was clear. After the final flurry of black-and-white films had been released in mid-decade, all Hollywood studio productions were filmed in color, with the usual exceptions made only at the insistence of "star" filmmakers such as Peter Bogdanovich and Martin Scorsese . The decades following the decline of the studio system in the 1960s saw changes in the production and style of film. Various New Wave movements (including
19720-538: Was due to the rise of commercial television, which prompted film studio B movie production departments to transition into television film production divisions. These divisions continued to create content similar to B movies, albeit in the form of low-budget films and series. Today, the term "B movie" is used in a broader sense. In post-Golden Age usage, B movies can encompass a wide spectrum of films, ranging from sensationalistic exploitation films to independent arthouse productions. In either usage, most B movies represent
19865-541: Was headed by Bryan Foy , known as the "Keeper of the Bs". At Fox, which also shifted half of its production line into B territory, Sol M. Wurtzel was similarly in charge of more than twenty movies a year during the late 1930s. A number of the top Poverty Row firms consolidated: Sono Art joined another company to create Monogram Pictures early in the decade. In 1935, Monogram, Mascot, and several smaller studios merged to establish Republic Pictures . The former heads of Monogram soon sold off their Republic shares and set up
20010-420: Was in the vanguard of marketing low-budget, sensationalistic films with a "100% saturation campaign", inundating the target audience with ads in almost any imaginable medium. In the era of the traditional double feature, no one would have characterized these graphic exploitation films as "B movies". With the majors having exited traditional B production and exploitation-style promotion becoming standard practice at
20155-549: Was introduced in 1833 with the stroboscopic disc (better known as the phénakisticope ) and later applied in the zoetrope (since 1866), the flip book (since 1868), and the praxinoscope (since 1877), before it became the basic principle for cinematography. Experiments with early phénakisticope-based animation projectors were made at least as early as 1843 and publicly screened in 1847. Jules Duboscq marketed phénakisticope projection systems in France from c. 1853 until
20300-614: Was later recorded by The Shadows and became a number 5 hit record in the UK. Later episodes of the series used a speeded up version of the title music after the Shadows' cover version . The film Violent Moment (1959), was later released with the Wallace Mysteries' credits replacing the originals, even though it was not part of the series. According to Kim Newman , insufficient episodes were available for American television, for
20445-479: Was released by a new company whose name was much bigger than its budgets. American International Pictures (AIP), founded in 1956 by James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff in a reorganization of their American Releasing Corporation (ARC), soon became the leading U.S. studio devoted entirely to B-cost productions. American International helped keep the original-release double bill alive through paired packages of its films: these movies were low-budget, but instead of
20590-947: Was swift. By 1930, silent film was practically extinct in the US and already being referred to as "the old medium." The evolution of sound in cinema began with the idea of combining moving images with existing phonograph sound technology. Early sound-film systems, such as Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope and the Vitaphone used by Warner Bros ., laid the groundwork for synchronized sound in film. The Vitaphone system, produced alongside Bell Telephone Company and Western Electric , faced initial resistance due to expensive equipping costs, but sound in cinema gained acceptance with movies like Don Juan (1926) and The Jazz Singer (1927). American film studios, while Europe standardized on Tobis-Klangfilm and Tri-Ergon systems. This new technology allowed for greater fluidity in film, giving rise to more complex and epic movies like King Kong (1933). As
20735-517: Was that 30 of the films would be produced by Independent Artists at Beaconsfield Studios while a further 20 would be made by the Film Producers Guild at Merton Park Studios . In the event, Independent Artists' only contribution to the series would be The Malpas Mystery (1960) while more than double the intended 20 were made at Merton Park. The resulting adaptations were loose, with very few using Wallace's original titles. Like
20880-458: Was the introduction of "natural color," where color was captured directly from nature through photography, as opposed to being manually added to black-and-white prints using techniques like hand-coloring or stencil-coloring. Early color processes often produced colors that appeared far from "natural". Unlike the rapid transition from silent films to sound films, color's replacement of black-and-white happened more gradually. The crucial innovation
21025-485: Was the three-strip version of the Technicolor process, first used in animated cartoons in 1932. The process was later applied to live-action short films, specific sequences in feature films, and finally, for an entire feature film, Becky Sharp, in 1935. Although the process was expensive, the positive public response, as evidenced by increased box office revenue, generally justified the additional cost. Consequently,
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