Double Trouble

In the 1930s, the economic Depression, indeed gave the motion picture industry quite the walloping, the medium would not go unscathed as a result of the declining economy. There was a serious diminishing in the amount of theatre goers. In an eleventh hour effort, to accommodate the public and their lighter purses, cinemas would introduce a "double feature," which entailed an A-grade film ( featuring noted stars) preceded by a more concise and cheaply produced "B-movie." All of the major studios possessed a B-movie unit, however there were smaller studios - coined at the time "Poverty Row" studios; namely Republic and Monogram studios, which specifically produced B-movies.















In the 1940s, the A-grade film budgets were in the range of $1 million, whereas B-movies could be produced scantly at $50,000. In between these extremes were films, at times referred to as "intermediates", with moderate budgets of around $ 350,000. These intermediates would present themselves in either the first or second showing of a double feature, completely depending on the
level of attention they garnered.





One of the many marquee signs denoting double features in the Golden Age.


The majority of film noir releases were actually of a B-movie status, consequently they were produced at all budgetary levels and by every last major studio. Thus, Double Indemnity (1944) and Laura (1944) were both high end produced movies. Whereas, T-Men (1948) and Gun Crazy (1950) are examples of intermediates, and on the lower end of the spectrum - films such as Desperate (1948) and Detour (1945) would host budgets of $117,000.







The B-movie units and studios were the places where fledgling auteurs would have a new way of getting themselves noticed. Jacques Tourneur would spend several years working at the famed horror unit at RKO, directing such B-movie staples as Cat People (1942) and I Walked With A Zombie (1943), before matriculating to main features in the likes of the Robert Mitchum vehicle Out Of The Past. On the heels of this, Anthony Mann would cut his own teeth on quite a number of low budget film noirs for various companies ( RKO included), securing slightly higher budgets at Eagle Lion studios, where T-Men and Raw Deal (1948) would be produced. By eking out quality with the meagrest of budgets, some of these directors became victims of their own success. The most noted was the Austrian national Edgar G Ulmer ( director of Detour) who despite his colossal talent, never could be ransomed from the B-movie stigma, and would never produce a Hollywood A-movie.