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The 1950s mark a significant change in the definition of the B movie. The transformation of the film industry due to court rulings that brought an end to many long-standing distribution practices as well as the challenge of television led to major changes in U.S. cinema at the exhibition level. These shifts signaled the eventual demise of the double feature that had defined much of the American moviegoing experience during Hollywood's Golden Age of the 1930s and 1940s. Even as the traditional bottom-of-the-bill second feature slowly disappeared, the term ''B movie'' was applied more broadly to the sort of inexpensive genre films that came out during the era, such as those produced to meet the demands of the burgeoning drive-in theater market. ==Fadeout of the classic B== In 1948, a Supreme Court ruling in a federal antitrust suit against the leading Hollywood studios, the so-called Big Five, outlawed block booking and led to the divestiture of the majors' theater chains over the next few years. After barely inching forward in the 1930s, the average U.S. feature production cost had essentially doubled through the 1940s, reaching an average $1 million by the turn of the decade (the increase from 1940 to 1950 was 150 percent in simple terms, 93 percent after adjusting for inflation).〔Finler (2003), p. 42.〕 With audiences draining away to television and other economic pressures forcing the studios to scale back production schedules, the Golden Age–style double feature began disappearing from American theaters. At the beginning of the 1950s, most U.S. movie houses still programmed double features at least part of the time.〔Schatz (1999), p. 78.〕 The major studios promoted the benefits of recycling, offering former headlining movies as second features in the place of traditional B films.〔Strawn (1974), p. 257.〕 Their longer running time appears to have both accommodated and hastened the progressive abandonment of the traditional "variety program" of newsreel/cartoon/short preceding the feature presentations at many theaters. With television airing many classic Westerns as well as producing its own original Western series, the cinematic market for B oaters in particular was drying up. The first prominent victim of the changing market was the Poverty Row studio Eagle-Lion, which released its last films in 1951. By 1953, the old Monogram brand had disappeared, the company having adopted the identity of its higher-end subsidiary, Allied Artists. The following year, Allied released Hollywood's last two B series Westerns, starring Wayne Morris: ''The Desperado'' in June and ''Two Guns and a Badge'' in September.〔Loy (2004), pp. 9–10; Reid (2005), pp. 53–54. As was not uncommon in series Westerns, Morris didn't play precisely the same character in the six B oaters he starred in for Allied Artists in 1953 and 1954. Even leaving aside the plots, the series nature of the films is evident from the credits: Vincent M. Fennelly produced all six pictures. Lewis D. Collins and Thomas Carr split directorial duties equally, each taking three. Daniel P. Ullman wrote four of the films. Three cinematographers each shot two of the films—in all three cases, one for each of the two directors. (IMDb.com Power Search ) performed 12/30/06.〕 Non-series B Westerns would continue to come out for a few more years, but Republic Pictures, long associated with cheap sagebrush sagas, was out of the filmmaking business by the end of the decade. In other genres, Universal maintained B series featuring Abbott and Costello (through 1955), Francis the Talking Mule (through 1956), and Ma and Pa Kettle (through 1957).〔Lev (2003), p. 205.〕 Allied Artists kept its Bomba, the Jungle Boy series going through 1955; Allied's Bowery Boys finished their run in 1958—the end of the longest feature series in movie history (48 films, altogether) and the last B series from one of Hollywood's Golden Age studios. The most B oriented of the Big Five, RKO Pictures, weakened by what one studio historian describes as its "systematic seven-year rape" by former owner Howard Hughes, abandoned the movie industry in 1957.〔Lasky (1989), p. 229.〕 Hollywood's A product was getting longer—the top ten box-office releases of 1940 had averaged 112.5 minutes; the average length of 1955's top ten was 123.4.〔See Finler (2003), pp. 357–58, for top films. Finler lists ''The Country Girl'' as 1955, when it made most of its money, but it premiered in December 1954. ''The Seven Year Itch'' replaces it in this analysis (the two films happen to be virtually identical in length).〕 In their modest way, the B's were following suit. The age of the hour-long feature film was now past; at 69 minutes, ''Two Guns and a Badge'' was about as short as Hollywood features ran. In sum, the Golden Age–style second feature was dying. ''B movie'', however, continued to be used in a broader sense, referring to any low-budget genre film featuring relatively unheralded performers ("B actors"). The term retained its earlier suggestion that such movies relied on formulaic plots, "stock" character types, and simplistic action or unsophisticated comedy. At the same time, the realm of the B movie was becoming increasingly fertile territory for experimentation, both serious and outlandish. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「B movies (Transition in the 1950s)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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