Poverty Row was a slang term used in Hollywood from the late 1920s through the mid-1950s to refer to a variety of small B movie studios. Although many of them were on today's Gower Street in Hollywood, the term did not necessarily refer to any specific physical location, but was rather a figurative catch-all for low-budget films produced by these lower-tier studios. The films of Poverty Row, many of which being Westerns or comedy/adventure series such as those featuring the Bowery Boys and detectives such as The Shadow, were generally characterized by low budgets, casts made up of lower-ranked stars or unknowns, and overall production values that unintentionally betrayed the haste and economy with which they were made.
Studios
While some Poverty Row studios came and quickly went after a few releases, others operated on more-or-less the same terms as—if vastly different scales from—major film studios such as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Warner Bros., and Paramount Pictures. The most successful and longest-lived of such lower-tier companies maintained permanent lots, had both cast and crew on long-term contract, and had a more varied output than smaller firms.
Leading studios
CBC Productions, founded by Harry Cohn, was considered a Poverty Row studio from 1919 until its reorganization in 1924.
Monogram Pictures was created in 1931 by the merger of Sono Art-World Wide Pictures with W. Ray Johnston's Rayart. After the attempted 1935 merger of Monogram into Republic Pictures, Johnston took Monogram independent again, and in the following decades produced everything from college/teen musicals starring popular swing bands to versions of classics like Oliver Twist and the final films of Kay Francis. It evolved, in relatively good financial condition, into Allied Artists in 1953.
Republic Pictures was organized in 1935 when Herbert J. Yates combined six other established poverty-row companies, Monogram, Mascot Pictures, Liberty Pictures, Majestic Pictures, Chesterfield Pictures, and Invincible Films with his Consolidated Film Laboratories. Republic began by releasing serial shorts and Westerns with Gene Autry in the 1930s before eventually riding the success of eventual superstars Roy Rogers and John Wayne.
Grand National Films Inc. was organized in 1936 with some significant talent, but could not survive without its own distribution channel. It folded quickly in 1939, having released about 100 films altogether.
Producers Releasing Corporation emerged in 1939 and lasted until 1946, when it was absorbed into Eagle-Lion Films. PRC presented a steady output of westerns, gangster movies, with occasional high spots, such as Edgar G. Ulmer's 1945 noir classic Detour and their 1944 Minstrel Man, the latter film was nominated for two Academy Awards.
Lower-tier studios
The smallest studios, including Tiffany Pictures, Sam Katzman's Victory, Mascot and Chesterfield, often packaged and released films from independent producers, British "quota quickie" films, or borderline exploitation films such as Hitler, Beast of Berlinto supplement their own limited production capacity. Sometimes the same producers would start a new studio when the old one failed, such as Harry S. Webb and Bernard B. Ray's Reliable Pictures and Metropolitan Pictures. Some organizations such as Astor Pictures and Realart Pictures began by obtaining the rights to re-release older films from other studios before producing their own films.
The breakup of the studio system following 1948's United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. decision, and the advent of television were among the factors that led to the decline and ultimate disappearance of "Poverty Row" as a Hollywood phenomenon.
