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 moviestudios. Although many of them were based on (or near) today's
Gower Street in Hollywood, 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.
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[2] such as those featuring the
Bowery Boys (
Monogram Pictures)[3] and detectives such as
The Shadow. The films were characterized by low budgets,[4] casts made up of minor stars or unknowns, and overall production values betraying the haste and economy with which they were made.[5]
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.
Larry Darmour Productions 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.
Monogram Pictures 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[8] and the final films of
Kay Francis. It evolved, in relatively good financial condition, into
Allied Artists in 1953.
Grand National Films Inc. 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.
The smallest studios, including
Tiffany Pictures,
Sam Katzman's Victory,
Mascot and Chesterfield, often packaged and released films from independent producers, British "
quota quickie" films, or borderline
exploitation films such as Hitler, Beast of Berlin[13] to supplement their own limited production capacity. Sometimes the same producers would found a new studio when the old one failed, such as
Harry S. Webb and Bernard B. Ray's Reliable Pictures and Metropolitan Pictures.
Some organizations such as
Astor Pictures[14] and
Realart Pictures[15] began by obtaining the rights to re-release older films from other studios before producing their own films.
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.[16]
Davis, Blair (2012). The Battle for the Bs: 1950s Hollywood and the Rebirth of Low-Budget Cinema. Rutgers University Press.
ISBN978-0-8135-5324-5.
Dick, Bernard F. (19 October 2021). The Merchant Prince of Poverty Row: Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures. University Press of Kentucky.
ISBN978-0-8131-9614-5.
Lewis, Jack C. (2002). White Horse, Black Hat: A Quarter Century on Hollywood's Poverty Row. Scarecrow Press.
ISBN978-1-4617-3108-5.
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.
ISBN978-0-7864-2319-4.
OCLC891667311.
Stephens, E.J.; Wanamaker, Marc (2014). Early Poverty Row Studios. Arcadia Publishing.
ISBN978-1-4396-4829-2.
Read, Robert (August 2010).
A Squalid-Looking Place: Poverty Row Films of the 1930s.
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.