Years of Poems and Spirits

Just read an article on WSJ, “Why Did B-Movies Vanish From Theaters?” Totally fascinating. One of the things that opened my eye to some new dimensions. Here is the quote -

On “what changed since the 80s that lead to today’s lack of B-movies”, a “King of the B’s” said,

Drive-ins faded away and the cost of distribution got bigger. And then “Jaws.” Vincent Canby wrote in the New York Times: “What is ‘Jaws’ but a big-budget Roger Corman film?” What he didn’t say was it was not only bigger but better. I’m perfectly willing to admit that. When I saw “jaws,” I thought, I’ve made this picture. First picture I ever made was “Monster From the Ocean Floor.” This is the first time a major had gone into the type of picture that was bread-and-butter for me and the other independents. Shortly thereafter, “Star Wars” did the same thing. They took away a lot of the backbone of the picture we were making.

I never thought of/demarcate B-movie this way. And what people keep calling “the Classics”. Now they all make sense. I guess we are now in an era where movies are categorized more by the budget than the sophistication of plots.

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