Introduction

While the major studios were trying to cope with the effects of the Paramount decree, but mostly with the impact of the economic recession, the Poverty Row studios had to deal only with the latter. The US Justice Department had concentrated its efforts strictly on the Big Five and the Little Three, leaving all other companies out of the lawsuit as their position in the industry was marginal and their collusion with the Big Five minimal. The recession, however, hit companies like Allied Artists (formerly Monogram Pictures), Republic Pictures and other smaller outfits in a more forceful manner than the studios. Not only did the Poverty Row studios not possess adequate resources to cope with dwindling audiences, declining profits and the rise of the big-budget film, they also had to deal with the end of the double bill as a dominant exhibition practice and the closure of hundreds of small, neighbourhood theatres that traditionally were the Poverty Row firms’ best customers. More importantly, these low-budget companies faced fierce competition from television, which in those early years became a vehicle for action-oriented, cheaply made shows that were modelled on the B film. If the majors tried to battle with this emergent competitor with investment in new exhibition technologies such as widescreen and 3-D and with extremely expensive epics and spectacles that could be appreciated only on the big screen, the Poverty Row studios were in no position to invest either in technology or in blockbusters, despite their occasional attempts to finance films with budgets that reached the $1.5 million mark in the late 1940s (see Chapter 2).