

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.įrom their beginnings to the present day, B movies have provided opportunities both for those coming up in the profession and others whose careers are waning.
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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) a lively, energetic film uninhibited by the constraints imposed on more expensive projects and unburdened by the conventions of putatively serious independent film. As the average running time of top-of-the-line films increased, so did that of B pictures.
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Latter-day B movies still sometimes inspire multiple sequels, but series are less common. The term connoted a general perception that B movies were inferior to the more lavishly budgeted headliners individual B films were often ignored by critics. Almost always shorter than the top-billed feature films, many had running times of 70 minutes or less. Early B movies were often part of series in which the star repeatedly played the same character. In either usage, most B movies represent 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. In its post-Golden Age usage, there is ambiguity on both sides of the definition: on the one hand, the primary interest of many inexpensive exploitation films is prurient on the other, many B movies display a high degree of craft and aesthetic ingenuity. The term B movie continues to be used in its broader sense to this day. They created much of the same type of content in low budget films and series. With the emergence of commercial television at that time, film studio B movie production departments changed into television film production divisions. production of films intended as second features largely ceased by the end of the 1950s. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double feature (akin to B-sides for recorded music). Vincent Price headlines a cast of veteran character actors along with a young Jack Nicholson.Ī B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. 31.The "King of the Bs", Roger Corman, produced and directed The Raven (1963) for American International Pictures.

FilmBar's October schedule mixes new independent thrillers with schlocky and camp-ridden slashers.
