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Poverty Row

Poverty Row is a slang term used to refer to Hollywood films produced from the 1920s[1] to the 1950s by small (and mostly short-lived) B movie studios. Although many of them were based on (or near) today's Gower Street in Hollywood,[2] the term did not necessarily refer to any specific physical location, but was rather a figurative catch-all for low-budget films produced by these lower-tier studios.

For a street or district featuring large numbers of homeless persons, see Skid row.

Many of the films of Poverty Row were Westerns, including series such as Billy the Kid, starring Buster Crabbe, from Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC), comedy/adventure series[3] such as those featuring the Bowery Boys (Monogram Pictures)[4] and detectives such as The Shadow. The films were characterized by low budgets,[5] casts made up of minor stars or unknowns, and overall production values betraying the haste and economy with which they were made.[6]

Studios[edit]

While some Poverty Row studios had a brief existence, releasing only a few films,[7] others operated on more or less the same terms as—if on a vastly different scale from—major film studios such as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Warner Bros., and Paramount Pictures.


The most successful and longest-lived of such lower-tier companies maintained permanent lots (and many standing sets that dedicated moviegoers could frequently recognize), had both cast and crew under contract, and had a more varied output than smaller firms.

founded by Harry Cohn, was considered a Poverty Row studio from 1919 until its reorganization in 1924 as Columbia Pictures.[8]

CBC Productions

was in operation from 1921 through 1932 as both a production company (about 90 films) and a distributor.

Tiffany Pictures

was formed in 1927 by Nat Levine, and merged into Republic Pictures in 1935.

Mascot Pictures

flourished from 1927 through the 1930s, mainly on the popularity of its Mickey McGuire short film series starring Mickey Rooney. Darmour was also the principal producer within Majestic Pictures until 1935.

Larry Darmour Productions

was created in 1931 by the merger of Sono Art-World Wide Pictures with W. Ray Johnston's Rayart. After the attempted 1935 merger of Monogram into Republic Pictures, Johnston took Monogram independent again, and in the following decades produced everything from college/teen musicals starring popular swing bands to versions of classics such as Oliver Twist[9] and the final films of Kay Francis. It evolved, in relatively good financial condition, into Allied Artists in 1953.

Monogram Pictures

was organized in 1935 when Herbert J. Yates combined six other established Poverty Row companies, Monogram, Mascot Pictures, Liberty Pictures, Majestic Pictures, Chesterfield Pictures, and Invincible Films with his Consolidated Film Laboratories. Republic began by releasing serial shorts and Westerns with Gene Autry in the 1930s before eventually riding the success of eventual superstars Roy Rogers[10] and John Wayne (the latter embarking on more ambitious projects, such as 1952's Wayne hit, The Quiet Man).

Republic Pictures

was organized in 1936 with some significant talent (James Cagney and director Charles Lamont), but could not survive without its own distribution channel. It folded in 1939, having released about 100 films altogether.

Grand National Films Inc.

(PRC) emerged in 1939 and lasted until 1946, when it was absorbed into Eagle-Lion Films. PRC presented a steady output of westerns, gangster movies, with occasional high spots, such as Edgar G. Ulmer's 1945 noir classic[11] Detour[12] and their 1944 Minstrel Man, the latter film was nominated for two Academy Awards.[13]

Producers Releasing Corporation

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Paramount Pictures

20th Century Fox

Warner Bros.

(dropped out of the majors decades later)

RKO Pictures

Decline[edit]

The breakup of the studio system (and its restrictive chain-theater distribution network, which left independent movie houses eager for seat-filling product from the Poverty Row studios) following 1948's United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. decision, and the advent of television were among the factors that led to the decline and ultimate disappearance of "Poverty Row" as a Hollywood phenomenon.[17]

Independent film

Vulgar auteurism

Auteur theory

Roger Corman

French New Wave

Classical Hollywood cinema

Grindhouse

Davis, Blair (2012). The Battle for the Bs: 1950s Hollywood and the Rebirth of Low-Budget Cinema. Rutgers University Press.  978-0-8135-5324-5.

ISBN

Dick, Bernard F. (19 October 2021). The Merchant Prince of Poverty Row: Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures. University Press of Kentucky.  978-0-8131-9614-5.

ISBN

Fernett, Gene (1973). Hollywood's Poverty Row, 1930–1950. Satellite Beach, FL: Coral Reef Publications.

Lewis, Jack C. (2002). White Horse, Black Hat: A Quarter Century on Hollywood's Poverty Row. Scarecrow Press.  978-1-4617-3108-5.

ISBN

Pitts, Michael R. (2005). Poverty Row Studios, 1929–1940: An Illustrated History of 55 Independent Film Companies, with a Filmography for Each. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.  978-0-7864-2319-4. OCLC 891667311.

ISBN

Stephens, E.J.; Wanamaker, Marc (2014). Early Poverty Row Studios. Arcadia Publishing.  978-1-4396-4829-2.

ISBN

Read, Robert (August 2010). . McGill University. Thesis, Doctor of Philosophy, Department of Art History and Communication Studies; Film scholarship has generally assumed that the low-budget independent film studios, commonly known as Poverty Row, originated in the early sound-era to take advantage of the growing popularity of double feature exhibition programs.Free access icon

A Squalid-Looking Place: Poverty Row Films of the 1930s

Brennan, Paul. . academia.edu.

The Origins of Taboo: Controversial Topics in Cinema originating in Poverty Row