Talk:B movie

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Contents

[edit] Terminology question

from article: "lower half" of a double feature

  • Does this refer to the writing on the marquee or maybe to projection order?--Pharos 03:56, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Usually, both. The b-movie was regularly shown last and billed last. --b. Touch 20:12, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • Just so we don't start off this discusion page with an uncorrected error: that's an error. The B movie was shown before the main event--that is, the A film--just as you'd expect at a rock concert with opening acts, a boxing or wrestling event with bouts ascending in importance as the evening goes on, and so forth.—DCGeist 01:02, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge proposal

I disagree with the merge proposal. B-movies are different enough from exploitation films that merging is not warranted. Anthopos 21:29, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Have to agree -- far better to see some revisions that emphasize the original meaning of the term, perhaps expand the information on the studios' B-units and on other B-creators, and trim material more appropriate for exploitation film or other articles. Robertissimo 08:04, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I've just removed another request to merge this article with Exploitation film, based on the lack of support for such a merger both here and at Talk:Exploitation film, which has a concise but thorough description of the distinctions. I would ask editors in favor of this merge not to re-add the merge tag unless they are willing to discuss it here. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 00:40, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality discussion

I don't think that the neutrality of the article should be called in question: B-movie is a term for a film with a lower quality, budget, and/or list of stars than A-list pictures. The article might need a clean-up to differentiate it from, say, "art house" films (those that have a smaller budget but higher quality productions and acting, like the Merchant-Ivory films). --Dynayellow 22:52, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jennifer Aniston

Sure about Jennifer Aniston starring in B-Movies? 87.123.82.139 20:31, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I was curious about this myself. The paragraph she was mentioned in implies that she was in an American International Pictures film, but IMDb shows no such film. The only arguable B-movie she was in (though I wouldn't agree) was Leprechaun, and that was a Trimark picture. Therefore, I've removed her name from the AIP stable list. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 23:38, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hello to hollywood

Does Roger Corman really not capitalize Hollywood in the title of his book? Rick Norwood 01:03, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Corman does capitalize Hollywood in the title of his book. I changed the title to the way it is supossed to be capitalized. --KVox 20:50, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References still needed

We still need references for the copious amount of information in this article that User:Judgesurreal777 requested quite a few weeks ago. While editing the new section on "psychotronic movies", I decided to get the ball rolling by scaring up one quote, properly citing its reference, and tagging the other info in that section with specific requests for citations, on the theory that the user who just added this information may have those citations at their fingertips. But a general effort on the whole article by all its readers and editors would be greatly appreciated. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 04:30, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] TV and DTV movies

Aren't many TV movies considered similar to B-movies in that they are on a shoestring budget and use lower grade actors?

TV movies are generally considered soap-operatic; these days they rarely have shoestring budgets and instead were probably made to go straight-to-video but were sold to a TV station instead. Also the actors in them are not so much nobodies as formerly famous people who have fallen from their fame.
What about those SF movies the Sci-Fi Channel produces -- like Mansquito, for example -- wouldn't they be considered B-movies?
Aren't DTV movies another modern equivelant of the B movie? Shouldn't there be a note about this in the article? Ace of Sevens 11:11, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Salt of the Earth?

Could Salt of the Earth be considered a notable B-movie? -MBlume 23:21, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Curious about the "Selected B/C/Z actors" list

How was the selection done? It seems to me there are some actors that deserve to be on that list because they appeared in a number of B-movies. John Rait is an example. --ChrisWinter 00:36, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Oops, that should have been "John Agar". --ChrisWinter 20:36, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Ah, after looking at the list again I think I see: these are all younger actors: Valerie Bertinelli, Bruce Campbell, Steven Seagal, etc. The list definitely needs names from the earlier B-movies. --ChrisWinter 00:42, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Not exactly an expert on early B-movies, but Ronald Reagan surely qualifies, so I added him. Ace of Sevens 00:48, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Repointing Reference 4

This reference, for "David Payne: Do Fear the Reeker", used to point at the Google cache of that page. I repointed it to the live site. But, since I assume there's some reason the cache was referenced, here is the old link: [1] --ChrisWinter 20:33, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Hail to King, Baby!"

Really suprised to not see Bruce Campbell referenced in this article. Especially considering his book "If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor".

He is now, but there's no mention of the ultimate B-movie: Army of Darkness. Vranak 00:58, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Bruce campbell is like the mic jagger of B-movies —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.156.145.27 (talk) 04:01, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Move to B movie

Setting out to resolve stylistic discrepancies in the article, I checked the latest editions of the two standard dictionaries of American English—Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary—as well as the New York Times. All three give B movie (or B picture), unhyphenated, as the proper spelling of the noun.—DCGeist 07:22, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sci Fi Pictures original films

Seeing as this falls well into the B movie category, I was wondering if a better mention of these films. DrWho42 22:25, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

They're appropriately acknowledged in the "C movie" section.—DCGeist 22:35, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What the!?

This is not the article I supported for featured status. What the heck happened? It is three times the size it was when it was first nominated not two weeks ago[1]. I would not have voted to support it in the state its now in. I feel duped. --Jayzel 05:35, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

"Duped?" By whom? In what manner? The article was nominated by Andman8 on December 22. At that point I had been the primary contributor to the article for the preceding two or three months. Once I realized it was nominated, I soon began working on it intensively to (a) respond to the comments raised in the FAC and to (b) raise it to the comprehensiveness necessary for FA status. That extensive work was ongoing when you supported the article for FA-hood on December 27. Further work was all done in the same spirit as the work happening then: broadening coverage, bringing in more hard data, making descriptions more precise, adding better sourcing, tying historical periods together, giving more detail on Poverty Row studios, giving more detail on relevant promotional and exhibition practices, discussing all crucial persons, adding helpful and informative images, etc.
Is it really helpful to talk about being "duped"? Who "duped" you? Andman8? Me? How exactly were you deceived? You registered your support on 15:57, 27 December 2006. Compare the article then with its state less than 24 hours before [2]; look at the history and see the rate at which I was working at the point when you registered support. The article remained under FAC for two weeks after you registered support; when it was deemed by the administrator that consensus for FA status existed, the article was essentially in its current state. (After status was awarded, I [a] added two last images, [b] covered an additional, significant motivation for 1930s exhibitors to switch to double-billing, and [c] in fact, eliminated some old information that was weakly sourced and only trivially relevant.) You had all that time to weigh in again. It's difficult to understand how you could feel "duped."
If you have constructive criticisms, I'd love to hear them. It is a long article, but it's a very complex topic--covering a wide range of industrial practices and products; intricate relationships between art, commerce, politics, and broader cultural movements; a host of significant people in different occupations; major shifts in the entire field from decade to decade; and major complications in the basic meaning of the term and its various synonyms. You seem to feel that it is too long. How so? What, if any, places in the article do you think provide unhelpful and counterproductive detail? Best, Dan—DCGeist 06:41, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

As the article stands now, it is clearly in violation of FA criteria 1) (e) "Stable" means that the article is not the subject of ongoing edit wars and that its content does not change significantly from day to day; 4) It is of appropriate length, staying focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). It fact, not only is it overly large, it is now one of the longest articles in all of Wikipedia. At 127 kilobytes in length, it is almost as long as the article on World War II(!) and longer than the article on World War I. Additionally, the enormous amount of copyrighted pics is unacceptable. As soon as the 30-day waiting period has ended, I will be submitting this article to FA review. --Jayzel 15:03, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

At this juncture, FA criteria is not what's relevant. The objective should be to make the article as useful to Wikipedia readers as is possible. To point out that it is "not stable" at this point is both incorrect (it has never been the subject of edit wars and it clearly has stopped changing--the one single change in the 46 hours before Jayzel called it "unstable" was the addition of the FA star) and confounding (in order to alter the article to Jayzel's liking, it would obviously have to become unstable). As for length, the question has already been asked: What, if any, places in the article do you think provide unhelpful and counterproductive detail? In other words, What would you cut? Jayzel chose not to answer that question, which might have led to an improvement in the article. Strange priorities.
The comparison to World War II does seem shocking on the face of it. B movie thinks it's as important as World War II!?! Of course not. The comparison is insensible. World War II has the benefit of being able to link to 171 main articles on central topics, facilitating a summary approach throughout and massive compression. Again: 171 main article links. If anyone can think of an applicable main article link that would facilitate compression of the material in B movie, let me know. The point is that the material surveyed by World War II has been covered in vastly more detail on Wikipedia (as has that of World War I, a mere 21 main article connections) than the material in B movie. In cases where there is detailed coverage of important B-movie-related topics elsewhere (as with midnight movie and drive-in theater), the article goes into summary mode. There is also broad historigraphical consensus on the relative significance of many of the multifarious elements of the world wars, which further facilitates the condensing of material. In all of American film history, there has been one single, serious book-length survey of the entire field of B movies: Charles McCarthy and Todd Flynn's Kings of the Bs, which itself is not a through-written history, but mostly an anthology of earlier criticism. Kings of the Bs came out in 1975, more than three decades ago. The present Wikipedia article is arguably the first detailed, well-referenced history of the B movie from the 1920s to the present day. Please help me identify its appropriate length.
Jayzel is simply wrong when he writes, "the enormous amount of copyrighted pics is unacceptable." As we find under Wikipedia:Fair use, "There are a few categories of copyrighted images where use on Wikipedia has been generally approved as likely being fair use when done in good faith in Wikipedia articles involving critical commentary and analysis." The movie posters, one videotape cover, and one promo photo used in the article are all in those categories. There is no amount of total images that is "unacceptable" for a given article. No individual film is represented by more than a single image in B movie. All images have been used in good faith and individual fair use rationales provided for each.—DCGeist 19:53, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
And in all that fancy shmancy hot air, the only sentence you wrote that says anything of note is: "At this juncture, FA criteria is not what's relevant."

Featured articles do not keep their little brown stars permanantly. They hold them so long as they continue to uphold FA criteria. This article at this length does not. --Jayzel 03:33, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Wikipedia Fair Use rule 3) states "The amount of copyrighted work used should be as little as possible." As it stands, this article currently contains 17 copyrighted images. --Jayzel 03:43, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Which portions of this article do you think could or should be moved to another article? A section which would offer better coverage elsewhere can certainly be moved, with a "main article at..." message. I agree this article is very long, and wonder why there was no objection to this during the lengthy FAC process. Also, let's refrain from making comments like "fancy schmancy hot air"; they don't help the discussion, right? :) Firsfron of Ronchester 04:50, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I was just flabbergasted. I retract the comment. :) The problem here is that the article was tripled in size after all but one person gave their support and near the end of the article's FAC. --Jayzel 05:13, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
As for what portions to move, I don't know right now. There is so much to read (it prints out to something like 25 pages) I won't have the time to thoroughly look it over until Saturday evening. --Jayzel 05:15, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
OK. Can we hope for a retraction of "duped" to follow?
Point of fact: It is wildly incorrect to claim that "the article was tripled in size after all but one person gave their support". Quadzilla99 gave his support on 07:23, January 3; igordebraga on 21:29, January 3; and Anthonycfc on 01:39, January 7. From the point that Quadzilla99 gave his support to the administrator's determination that consensus had been reached on 16:29, January 9, the article did not even double in size (see [3]). It was 77 KB when Quadzilla99 supported, bigger when igordebraga supported, bigger when Anthonycfc supported, and 125 KB when it was judged an FA. (And, of course, much of the increase in the final days was not text, but images.) That's a far cry from Jayzel's claim. Nonetheless, the article is, indeed, very long.
I imagine there was no objection to the length of the article during its FAC because (a) it arguably didn't get into "very long" territory until the final week of the process and the last three voters weighed in and (b) those reviewers (as well as some earlier ones) recognized, as I attempted to discuss with Jayzel, both (i) the unusual scope of this article vis-à-vis the existing literature and (ii) the fact that, at this point in Wikipedia's development, there simply don't exist the other detailed articles on cinematic topics that would allow this one to go regularly into summary mode. For example, when someone, someday writes a detailed article on History of U.S. film exhibition, that will be a big help in allowing B movie to compress. When someone, someday writes a detailed article on Series movies, that will also help. Et cet. Instead of blankly applying policy, think about the specific content: One could easily and justifiably write a substantial paragraph or more about the impact of Italian giallo on American B filmmaking, marketing, and exhibition. The topic is summarily dealt with in an image caption. I sure hope everyone sticks around to deal with the first Dario Argento fan who realizes his guy didn't even get mentioned in the article at its current exorbitant length...and the first Herk Harvey fan...and the first William Beaudine fan...and the first Peter Lorre fan...and the first Brigitte Nielsen fan...
P.S. On the crucial matter of fair use: The proviso that "The amount of copyrighted work used should be as little as possible" is clearly relative to the subject matter. This article covers eight decades' worth of commercially produced movies. What noncopyrighted matter might possibly be substituted for the current images? On what basis is 17 images, each of them of uniquely represented films, from 14 different corporate entities (there are two from AIP; one each from defunct Monogram and heir Allied Artists; one each from defunct Mascot and heir Republic), all with fully articulated fair use rationales, "unacceptable" given the subject matter and Wikipedia's non-profit educational mission? If not 17 movies spanning 76 years, what is the magic number? In sum, the article is on secure ground.—DCGeist 06:51, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
DC, I don't know why you are hung up on my "duped" comment. I'm sorry you are offended by the word, but it describes exactly how I feel. You have recently stated you expanded the article because you felt it wasn't complete. It would have been helpful if you had mentioned that during the article's FAC. As the main editor of the article you should have announced your opposition to it being given FA status if you knew very well you had planned to make a complete revision and massive expansion of the article. Additionally, it would have been a good idea to bring these radical changes to the article to the attention of those of us who had supported the article at our talk pages. It is because of these reasons I feel I was duped. I was totally shocked when I came back to this article. As for my statement the article was tripled in size, I will clarify myself. It was tripled in size from the time I gave the article my support. As for what to do with the article itself, we will discuss this at FAR. It appears many others agree with my opinion the article has issues to be resolved. I will thoroughly read the article tonight and give my ideas what to do with the article sometime in the next couple days. Regards, --Jayzel 13:45, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Wow, I just came here to put a maintained by tag on the talk page as I remembered how much work DCGeist had done with this article, however I have to say that I also feel the article is too long now and unfortunately would have to withdraw my support if asked to re-vote today. Try to find ways to split off the article into other articles, if at all possible. I feel very sorry to say it becomes boring after a certain point, I honestly don't feel the average reader would want to read this much about the history of the B Movie. Maybe I'm wrong. My advice would be to let it stay the way it is now and see how the review goes and then based on the consensus of other Wikipedians we will then know better what course of action to take. They may deem it's current length fine so perhaps DC will be justified in making his additions.Quadzilla99 20:39, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Importance rating

When you click to edit it you can see it's rated as high on the importance scale however it doesn't show and says unassessed. Quadzilla99 20:17, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

The Filmmaking banner doesn't have a parameter for importance, I've moved it to the Film banner. Doctor Sunshine 00:09, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion on how to split

I think everything can stay, but the sections 1.2 "B's in the Golden Age of Hollywood (1): 1930s" and 1.3 "B's in the Golden Age of Hollywood (2): 1940s" should instead be heavily summarized and link (with a "main article" tag) to a new article B movies in the Golden Age of Hollywood, where the full text can be reproduced. then, the sections 1.5 "The golden age of exploitation (1): 1960s" and "1.6 The golden age of exploitation (2): 1970s" can instead be heavily summarized and link (with a "main article" tag) to a new article B movies in the golden age of exploitation where the full text can be reproduced.

this will not only bring the article length down to normal length, it will create two new featured articles, and in one stroke reduce the number of fair use images.

if you can summarize those sections enough, you dont need to remove anything else. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.3.237.186 (talk) 14:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC).

Actually, that which is split off from the main page does not automatically become a featured article.--Rmky87 22:34, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Quite right. And this one will definitely be reviewed as well. My current plan is to create four new articles: B movies (Hollywood Golden Age), B movies (Transition in the 1950s), B movies (The exploitation boom), and B movies (1980s to the present).—DCGeist 23:15, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Go for it! You don't have to wait for the FAR- it'll be reviewed anyway- and the longer the verylong tag is there the worse. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 00:04, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Blood simple

For one, the film is not mentioned in the article (fortunately), for another this film is like a fly in the milk here. A mention in the article that this film although low-budget went beyond B-movie standards would be by far more precise. Can't a more representative B-movie image be given in its place? People that haven't seen the film might get a very wrong impression from the image's description. Hoverfish Talk 00:11, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

B movie doesn't equal bad. It just means it was made on the cheap. There's tons of great B movies like Blood Simple. Doctor Sunshine talk 02:05, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edit Conflict in External Links

I noticed the BadMovies.org external link had been removed on 8 April, reinserted and re-removed. The second removal includes the comment "clearly personal website; evidence suggest's Irishguy's identification as linkspam is correct; reinserter associated with obvious vandalism." Though I have not done any of the edits under consideration, I would like clarification about why badmovies.org is unacceptable to the community but bmoviecentral.com, jabootu.net and stomptokyo.com are. All four sites are informative, provide reviews and a base for the bad and cult movie communities. It seems to me that badmovies.org is for some reason being singled out. Ulthar 21:21, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

You're right, this is not the most clear-cut of calls. I don't know what originally drew editor Irishguy's attention to this site, but I do give his perception weight over that of an anonymous user who committed obvious vandalism on another article within 20 minutes of restoring the link (see this article's edit history, and then that IP address's contributions). From my own reading, Badmovies.org, while fun and informative, is self-admittedly an individual fansite with self-admittedly low-quality writing (see here). While a case could be made against the inclusion of any of the three sites you mention, a stronger case is easily made against Badmovies.org.—DCGeist 21:34, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I should chime in, as I am Andrew, from Badmovies.org. The reinsertion of Badmovies.org was mine and that is my sole contribution to Wikipedia. The IP address you are identifying as a vandal must be the main USMC firewall. You will probably see a huge number of access and edits coming from it or other IPs close to it. To be clear, the only action I took was to reinsert Badmovies.org. I have never added any other information to Wikipedia in any way or shape. Later, having had some time to do research on how Wikipedia operates, I went back in to remove the link (having found the bit on conflict of interest), but it was already removed. My bit of humor in the FAQ is intended to keep in tone with the rest of the site. Perhaps reading a few of the articles would be best to appraise the quality of writing. I am also interested in the standard for linking to external sites. Andrew Borntreger.

Thanks, Andrew. Just to be clear, I think a lot of your writing on the site is quite enjoyable, and of a quality comparable to that on similar sites. As you say, your humorous FAQ (and identification on the homepage of the site as a personal one) is totally in keeping with the site's tone--it does, however, make it easier for Wikipedians to identify the site as not meeting the standard. The standard...oy...what is the standard. Your site would seem to fall short of clause 13 in Links normally to be avoided in Wikipedia's links policy: "Links to blogs and personal web pages, except those written by a recognized authority." However, I see a way to address this: you do include objectively informative interviews with a number of industry professionals. I'll include a link to Badmovies' Interviews portal. Best, Dan—DCGeist 22:14, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
"The standard....oy." Yes, that does seem to be central to issue. I cannot speak for Andrew, but my guess is that his use of the phrase "personal web site" was to distinguish from a purely commercial, for-profit site. Is that meaning of the usage of "personal" in the policy? Good to settle it now, for this page at least, since it may arise again in the future for other sites. John--- Ulthar 22:31, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
The Wikipedia:External links guideline statement (not technically "policy"—I misstated), as indicated above, links directly to the Wikipedia definition of personal web page: "World Wide Web pages created by an individual to contain content of a personal nature. The content can be about that person or about something he or she is interested in." Badmovies.org is clearly a "personal web page" under that definition. Among the standard exceptions to the "no personal web pages" guideline are (a) if the site is evidently (i.e., objective evidence shows that it is) the leading fansite in its field or (b) if it contains unique, informative, professionally derived content (as Badmovies' interviews do).—DCGeist 22:45, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Query

I am trying to edit the first few paragraphs of this page. At first I was successful, but now, I just get taken to an "archived version" of the page instead of the most recent version. Why is this happening? AlbertSM 18:00, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] An objection (1)

This (1) and (2) thing needs to go. Its completely unprofessional. Please either combine the sections so there are sections about 2 decades or find new titles. Atropos 20:18, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

No. About twenty-five reviewers in FAC, FAR, and FARC passed on those section titles without a single objection. Suggestion: In the future, when issuing a proclamation such as "Its completely unprofessional," you will avoid unintentional humor if you remember how to spell "it's."—DCGeist 20:30, 21 June 2007 (UTC)