Poverty Row Films of the 1930S by Robert J Read Department of Art History and Communication Studies
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A Squalid-Looking Place: Poverty Row Films of the 1930s by Robert J Read Department of Art History and Communication Studies McGill University, Montreal August 2010 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or by other means, without permission of the author. Robert J Read, 2010. ii Abstract 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. However, the emergence of the independent Poverty Row studios of the 1930s was actually the result of a complex interplay between the emerging Hollywood studios and independent film production during the late 1910s and 1920s. As the Hollywood studios expanded their production, as well as their distribution networks and exhibition circuits, the independent producers that remained outside of the studio system became increasingly marginalized and cut-off from the most profitable aspects of film exhibition. By the late 1920s, non-Hollywood independent film production became reduced to the making of low-budget action films (westerns, adventure films and serials) for the small profit, suburban neighbourhood and small town markets. With the economic hardships of the Depression, the dominant Hollywood studios were forced to cut-back on their lower budgeted films, thus inadvertently allowing the independent production companies now referred to in the trade press as Poverty Row to expand their film practice. This dissertation examines the history of the 1930s independent Poverty Row studios from the introduction of sound film production to the end of the independent companies in 1940. Through archival research and textual analysis, this project documents the declining fortunes of independent film production and contrasts this decline to the rise of the Hollywood studios, and the gradual iii transformation of silent era independent film production into the Poverty Row studios. Moreover, this dissertation examines how the residual positioning of Poverty Row within the field of 1930s American cinema determines its relationship with the larger, dominant Hollywood studios, as well as its distinct film practice. Although independent Poverty Row film production took place at the same time as that of the classical Hollywood cinema, it did not directly participate in the artistic and technological innovations of the classical Hollywood model of film practice. Instead, these low-budget producers perpetuated the established film aesthetics of the silent period into the sound cinema. As a result, the films produced by the independent Poverty Row studios of the 1930s take on lingering elements of the silent cinema, including genres, film styles, film stars, and outmoded representations of modernity. This perpetuation of a past cinema into the sound era not only defines Poverty Row film practice, but it also defines its relationship with the larger Hollywood studios and its position within the 1930s film industry. Résumé La littérature en études cinématographiques présume que les studios indépendants de films à petit budget, plus connus sous le vocable Poverty Row, prennent leur origine aux débuts du cinéma sonore, afin de bénéficier de la popularité croissante des projections à programme double. Cependant, l'émergence des studios indépendants de Poverty Row est en fait le résultat iv d'interactions complexes entre les studios naissants d'Hollywood et la production cinématographique indépendante durant la fin des années 1910 et durant les années 1920. À mesure que les studios hollywoodiens augmentent leur production, tout comme leurs réseaux de distribution et leurs circuits de projection, les producteurs indépendants restés en dehors du système de studios, deviennent de plus en plus marginalisés et coupés des secteurs les plus profitables de la projection de films. À la fin des années 1920, la production indépendante non-hollywoodienne en est réduite à des films d'action de série B (des westerns, des films d'aventure ou des séries) comptant de maigres profits réalisés dans des marchés de petites villes et villages. Avec les difficultés économiques causées par la Dépression, les studios hollywoodiens dominants sont forcés de couper la production de leurs films à petit budget, permettant ainsi involontairement aux compagnies de production indépendante, aujourd'hui connues sous le nom de Poverty Row, d'augmenter leur création. Cette thèse porte sur l'histoire des studios indépendants de Poverty Row des années 1930, depuis l'introduction du son dans les films, jusqu'à la fin de ces compagnies indépendantes en 1940. À travers une recherche d'archives et des analyses textuelles, ce projet documente le sort déclinant de la production indépendante de films et contraste ce déclin avec la montée des studios d'Hollywood, et la transformation graduelle de la production cinématographique indépendante de l'époque muette vers les studios de Poverty Row. De plus, cette thèse analyse comment le positionnement résiduel de Poverty Row à l'intérieur du champ du cinéma américain des années 1930 détermine sa relation avec les v importants studios hollywoodiens dominants, tout comme sa production cinématographique distinctive. Même si la production indépendante de Poverty Row a lieu en même temps que le cinéma hollywoodien classique, elle n'a pas participé directement aux innovations artistiques et technologiques du modèle classique de production de films hollywoodiens. À la place, ces productions à petit budget ont perpétué l'esthétique établie durant la période muette au sein du cinéma sonore. En conséquence, les films produits par les studios indépendants de Poverty Row durant les années 1930 démontrent des éléments persistants du cinéma muet, incluant les genres, les styles de film et des représentations démodées de la modernité. Cette perpétuation d'un cinéma du passé au sein du cinéma sonore définit non seulement la production des films de Poverty Row, elle détermine également sa relation avec les importants studios d'Hollywood et sa position à l'intérieur de l'industrie du film des années 1930. vi Acknowledgements Many thanks are due to my dissertation committee, also Dr. Jonathan Sterne and Dr. Keir Keightley for their contributions. As well, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Will Straw, for, if it were not for his support and encouragement, guidance and patience, this project would never have come to completion. I would also like to thank my wife, Bernaie, and my family for their love and support. vii Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements vi Introduction: Poverty Row as Cinematic Slum 1 Chapter One: Why do a Study of 1930s Poverty Row? 15 Chapter Two: The Origins of Poverty Row 61 Chapter Three: The Independent Phase of Poverty Row 99 Chapter Four: 1935 and the End of the Independent 160 Chapter Five: Poverty Row as Residual Film Practice 204 Chapter Six: Residual Modernity 240 Conclusion 272 Appendices Appendix A 275 Appendix B 380 Works Cited 405 Introduction: Poverty Row as Cinematic Slum On August 5th, 1938, in his syndicated newspaper column ―In New York,‖ commentator George Rose regaled his readers with ―more paragraphs from this returned tourist‘s Hollywood notebook.‖ In this installment, Rose tells of his tour of the ‗New York‘ streets on the Hollywood back lots. He is particularly taken by the authenticity and detail of the Warner Bros. recreated ghetto neighborhood of Manhattan‘s lower eastside (10). The reproduction of the slums is too realistic for comfort. The pushcart mart, the unswept filth, the grime, the cluttered fire escapes, the washing and the grim and dirty little shops might have been transported bodily from the part of Manhattan nearest the Williamsburg Bridge. They worship authenticity on that set to the extent of sticking paper mache flies on the store windows and littering a decaying bookstall with magazines of recent vintage. (10) Rose waxes nostalgic about his authentic home town in the company of film star Pat O‘Brien and screenwriter Gene Fowler, but eventually concedes to the enchantment of the unnatural mix of California sun and the paper-mache Gotham (10). Then, suddenly, Rose‘s tour takes an unexpected turn from Hollywood‘s simulated ghettos to Hollywood‘s real-life slum. 2 This is Hollywood and so when the driver who is pointing out sights, remarks that on the left of the boulevard that connects Beverly Hills and Hollywood is Poverty Row, you don‘t cast your eye around for tumbledown shacks, ill- nourished children and debris on the pavement. Instead you will see a rickety picket fence tapering off on a narrow alley and behind it a building that looks like it might be a pants factory. It is a factory turning out celluloid fiction at sweatshop speed and on a shoestring budget. For in Hollywood, Poverty Row is the name of the place where nondescript producers turn out ―quickies,‖ the films usually included on the nether end of a double feature program. A squalid-looking place, too, this Poverty Row, and an eyesore, like any slum. (10) Rose‘s detour creates a harsh juxtaposition between the simulated ghettos found on Hollywood‘s back lots and the real-world cinematic slums of the region known as Poverty Row. He presents his readers with an image of Poverty Row as urban blight and an eyesore, evoking the real-life crowded filthy ghetto of the Lower Eastside and not the simulations of Warner‘s back lot. Moreover, Rose‘s comments coincide with a tendency towards industrial modernization and a reinvention of low-budget film production that begins mid-decade with the 3 introduction of the Hollywood B film, the reorganization of double feature programs, the development of conglomerate Poverty Row companies, commonly referred to as B-movie studios, and the decline of the old-time ‗quickie‘ companies of Poverty Row.