B-movie facts for kids

A B-movie is usually a low-budget movie crafted by second rate talents and starring lesser-known actors. In the past, these movies were the second feature on a double-bill. Some actors (such as Bela Lugosi) appeared mostly in B-movies. Today, many of these movies are highly regarded. Detour starring Tom Neal and Ann Savage, for example, has come to be considered as one of the greatest of film noirs.

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  The "King of the Bs", Roger Corman, produced and directed The Raven (1963) for American International Pictures. Vincent Price headlines a cast of veteran character actors along with a young Jack Nicholson.

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  Columbia's That Certain Thing (1928) was made for less than $20,000 (about $297,791 today). Soon, director Frank Capra's association with Columbia helped vault the studio toward Hollywood's major leagues.

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  Stony Brooke (Wayne), Tucson Smith (Corrigan), and Lullaby Joslin (Terhune) did not get much time in harness. Republic Pictures' Pals of the Saddle (1938) lasts just 55 minutes, average for a Three Mesquiteers adventure.

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  Rocketship X-M (1950), produced and released by small Lippert Pictures, is cited as possibly "the first postnuclear holocaust film". It was at the leading edge of a large cycle of movies, mostly low-budget and many long forgotten, classifiable as "atomic bomb cinema".

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  famous poster]], "with its promise of titillating thrills".

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  "Too gory to be an art film, too arty to be an exploitation film, funny but not quite a comedy": 168 private investors backed the Sundance winner Blood Simple's $1.5 million budget. Brothers Joel and Ethan Coen brought a striking visual style to the 1984 noir. In one repeated motif, writes David Denby, "automobile headlights threaten people doing surreptitious things in the dark."

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  Not all B movies are necessarily "schlock" or of shock value. Shane Carruth made the sophisticated Sundance-winning science fiction film Primer (2004) for $7,000. According to critic Adam Lemke, Carruth's "cramped, claustrophobic mise-en-scene" exemplifies a "subtle yet austere visual style that never succumbs to the restrictions of his limited budget".

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  Ed Wood's ultra-low-budget Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) is often called "the worst film ever made"

See also

In Spanish: Cine B para niños