Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film

BMovies
Edgar G. Ulmer. EVERETT COLLECTION. REPRODUCED BY
PERMISSION.
Bs and Poverty Row quickies, the impact of a low budget
and a fast shooting schedule was much more obvious.
Lower budgets meant that exposition tended to be
handled in a more overt, at times ham-fisted, manner
than in A films, in which it could be delivered more
subtly over a longer running time through character
behavior. Dialogue was the most expedient way to transmit
crucial plot information. In PRC’s The Devil Bat
(1941), the vengeful mad scientist Bela Lugosi greets the
jumbo creation of the title by telling it, ‘‘Ahhh, my
friend, our teeory ov glandular stimooolation through
electrical impulses vas correct! A few days ago you were
as small as your companion. And now, look at you!’’ He
reveals his plan to murder the employers who have
cheated him by having them wear a bat-baiting shaving
lotion he has concocted. He tells the bat, ‘‘You hate diss
strange oriental fragrance even vile you sleep, just as you
did before I made you big and strong. Now if you detect
de fragrance in de night when you’re fully avake, you vill
strike! Yes, you vill strike and kill!’’ The overwrought
dialogue is not, of course, meant for the bat but for the
audience, as the film awkwardly establishes its story line.
Exposition could also be transmitted overtly in the form
of swirling newspaper headlines, radio news broadcasts,
and character voice-over. All three techniques are utilized
in The Devil Bat, which plays out as a series of repetitive
attacks, interspersed with investigation scenes with a bigcity
newspaper reporter and his photographer, who provides
comic relief.
The plots of B movies were generally as thin as the
film on which they were shot. As a result, many films
required padding of various kinds to bulk them up to
feature length. For instance, Arizona Badman, a 1935
B western, clocks in at just under an hour. It uses a song
sung at a campfire and footage of cattle meandering over
the hills to pad its running time, and more than a third of
the film’s first sixteen minutes are devoted to interminable
scenes of townsfolk hoofing at a square dance.
Other cost-saving measures were employed in B movie
production to save both time and money, most of which
are evident on the screen: day-for-night shooting (daylight
shooting employing filters and/or underexposing
the film to simulate nighttime), liberal doses of stock
shots and repeated shots (e.g., the Devil Bat flying out
of its lair to attack), and the use of rear-screen projection
in place of location work. Shooting techniques always
attempted to maximize efficiency. For example, rather
than shooting dialogue as a series of complex shot/reverse
shot combinations (shooting over the shoulder of one
actor, then the other), which requires multiple set-ups,
relighting, and time in the editing room to assemble the
footage, B directors would cut corners. Dialogue scenes
were often filmed by framing all of the actors together
facing each other, but turned slightly toward the camera.
The conversation unfolds in a single, extended shot—
effectively eliminating the time necessary for additional
set-ups and the editing needed to achieve shot/reverse shot
combinations. Moving camera shots were usually kept to a
minimum because of the expense and time needed to
mount them. As a result of these factors, the majority of
B movies have a relatively static quality.
That static quality carried over to acting. Because of
the brief shooting schedules and desire to avoid retakes,
performances in B movies often appear hesitant and
wooden when compared to the smoother, more naturalistic
performances in A films. Fight scenes in Bs were
often poorly choreographed, with pulled punches
obvious and falls leaden. While Bs occasionally employed
imaginative camerawork and staging (e.g., the opening
dream sequence in Fear in the Night, 1947), B movies
can best be described as displaying classical Hollywood
style in its most stripped-down, unembellished form.
DECLINE OF THE Bs
The rationing of raw materials during World War II led
to an overall cutback in film production. The majors
reduced their output of B movies to concentrate on fewer
158 SCHIRMER ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM