Death On The Cheap: The Lost B Movies Of Film Noir [Paperback]

Arthur Lyons (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 25, 2000

Robert Mitchum once commented to Arthur Lyons about his movies of the 1940s and 1950s: "Hell, we didn't know what film noir was in those days. We were just making movies. Cary Grant and all the big stars at RKO got all the lights. We lit our sets with cigarette butts." Film noir was made to order for the "B," or low-budget, part of the movie double bill. It was cheaper to produce because it made do with less lighting, smaller casts, limited sets, and compact story lines—about con men, killers, cigarette girls, crooked cops, down-and-out boxers, and calculating, scheming, very deadly women. In Death on the Cheap, Arthur Lyons entertainingly looks at the history of the B movie and how it led to the genre that would come to be called noir, a genre that decades later would be transformed in such "neo-noir" films as Pulp Fiction, Fargo, and L.A. Confidential. The book, loaded with movie stills, also features a witty and informative filmography (including video sources) of B films that have largely been ignored or neglected—“lost" to the general public but now restored to their rightful place in movie history thanks to Death on the Cheap.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Penzler Pick, September 2000: The past 20 years or so appear to have seen more books on film noir than any other movie genre. When people speak or write about film noir, they invariably invoke Laura, Double Indemnity, The Maltese Falcon, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Third Man, and a handful of other iconic examples of the popular genre. These are A movies, however, made with substantial budgets by the major studios and featuring the headline actors and actresses of the time. The B films, with a few notable exceptions, have largely been ignored. Arthur Lyons, who really knows his stuff, figured that the world didn't need to read again about Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain, or Humphrey Bogart and Lizabeth Scott. Instead, he devotes his intelligent pen to helping us rediscover the B films, the second features that helped keep movie theaters full in the 1940s and 1950s. Made for budgets that frequently fell short of $100,000, with cheap sets and costumes, these plot-driven movies had little in the way of special effects and nothing in the way of super-star actors and actresses. Republic was famous for its low-budget films and serials, as was Monogram, but even the major studios had B units.

Hugely fascinating information impossible to find without devoting an inordinate amount of your life to research, which is clearly what Lyons must have done, fills every page of this tome. In addition to an overview and chronological history of B films noir, Death on the Cheap has a comprehensive filmography with title, date, studio, running time, alternate titles, credits, plot outline, and critique for each film. There is also a chronology of every B noir film (Lyons credits 1939's Blind Alley as the first and reckons 1959 as the end of the genre). Although an unapologetic fan of B noir films, Lyons has no problem warning potential viewers from the really bad ones, and he doesn't exactly make his opinions known in a subtle fashion. Take this example, used to describe Hit and Run, a 1957 movie involving twins, produced, directed, written by and starring Hugo Haas: "Yet another smell-o by Haas.... Haas, of course, had to play the parts of both twins, doubling the pain for the audience."

Lyons, a well-known writer of the superb series of private-eye novels about Jacob Asch, demonstrates that his writing skills remain equally high whether he's writing fiction or nonfiction. Death on the Cheap is one of those rare pleasures, like a box of expensive chocolates that you can dip into any time and discover a genuine treat. --Otto Penzler

Review

"A great read." -- Sue Grafton

"A terrific piece of work, the definitive book on its subject, and a body slam of nostalgia that knocked me out of my chair more than once." -- Dean Koontz

"Most books on the subject of film noir cover only well-known movies in their filmographies, such as The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, Out of the Past, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and so on. But these were all A productions. What Mr. Lyons has done is dust off those B films that have been sitting on studio shelves, those which rarely, if ever, appear on television, even at three in the morning, and has some fun doing it. Thankfully, the terms 'mise-en-scene,' 'aesthetic reversals,' and 'rhetorical form' do not appear in his text." -- Gerald Petievich, author of the books To Live and Die in L.A. and Shakedown

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press; 2nd edition (October 25, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306809966
• ISBN-13: 978-0306809965
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,084,817 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Death on the Cheap: The Lost B Movies of Film Noir, December 10, 2001

By 

Marc Dolezal (Haight - Ashbury) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death On The Cheap: The Lost B Movies Of Film Noir (Paperback)

There's a raging battle going on in the world of film noir. One camp declares that noir is a genre into itself. The opposing forces adamantly defend their stance that noir is not a genre, but a style of filmmaking that can be found in many genres including, Crime, Westerns, & Melodramas. The smart bombs hurled by film noir fans during their debates are the classic dark thrillers from the 1940's and 50's. Rare and lost films noir from obscure studios are resurrected, researched, analyzed and debated. Then ultimately offered up by both sides as evidence that the understanding and classification of classic film noir is still a work in progress.

The by-product of all this frenzy has been that the canon of noir has expanded to include many titles that haven't been seen in 50 years. 'DEATH ON THE CHEAP: The Lost 'B' Movies of Film Noir' by Arthur Lyons is absolutely the best and most up to date reference material on those obscure films that are now at the vanguard of the debate,"what is this thing called film noir". Lyons' list of movies includes dates, run times, directors, production staff as well as actors. A short review is given about each film and the author is realistic about the qualities of the B films listed in his book. He separates the gems from the turkeys and explains why. In several chapters the book follows the evolution of the "B' movie and the studios that cranked them out. This background is essential in understanding why the classic noir looks like it does.

While Lyons topic is the stuff that film academics ponder, 'DEATH ON THE CHEAP' is far from being difficult to read. This book actually is pure entertainment and Lyons' sense of humor fits right in place as he reminds us that after all, we are talking about films with titles like 'Blonde Ice', 'The Man Who Died Twice' and 'Please Murder Me' .

'Death On The Cheap' IS A MUST READ if you love vintage film noir or want to know more about it!

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Much needed history of the forgotten B movies of film noir!, November 17, 2005

By 

Dave (Tennessee United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death On The Cheap: The Lost B Movies Of Film Noir (Paperback)

For film noir addicts like me who just can't get enough, this book by Arthur Lyons is a definite must for your film noir reference shelf. It is not only very informative but also humorous and entertaining. This awesome book helped me discover many forgotten film noir titles, and for that I'm very grateful to Mr. Lyons.

Both the introduction and the first chapter "Film Noir: It's All in the Story" provide the reader with the characteristics and typical themes of film noir. Private eyes, femme fatales, brave or crooked cops, psychotic killers, and tough gangsters are what make these classic movies so enjoyable today.

Chapter 2 "Roots: The Boys in the Back Room" focuses on the origins of film noir such as pulp magazines and the many crime novels by authors like James M. Cain, Dashiell Hammett, Cornell Woolrich, Raymond Chandler, and many others, all the way back to the first detective story, "The Purloined Letter," by Edgar Allan Poe. This chapter also explains why films noirs became so popular (and increasingly darker) in post-WW2 America.

Chapter 3 "Attack of the Killer B's" discusses the B units of the big studios that saw crime movies as the perfect choice when working on a tight budget. It also provides an overview of the history of B movies, from the first ones during the 1930's, to their peak in the 1940's, and the steady decline throughout the 1950's.

Chapter 4 "The Emergence of the B Noir" briefly summarizes early years of film noir and why during World War Two the studios turned to low budget crime movies in order to save money. It also mentions several pioneers of film noir techniques, like Orson Welles and Val Lewton, who could create unforgettable classics on very small budgets.

Chapter 5 "Poverty Row: The B Factories" provides an excellent summary of the role played by Poverty Row studios in making films noirs. These studios, Republic, Monogram, Eagle Lion, and PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation), made nothing but B movies, and surprisingly many of these are now respected classics. It was the Eagle Lion studio that released such films as "Hollow Triumph" (aka The Scar), "Raw Deal," "T-Men," "Ruthless," and "The Spiritualist" (aka The Amazing Mr. X). Edgar G. Ulmer's cult classic "Detour" was released by PRC.

Chapter 6 "The Final Decade: The Demise of the B" explains why the amount of films noirs made throughout the 1950's became less and less each year. Chapter 7 is a long filmography which gives the cast/crew info plus detailed plot summaries (including the endings unfortunately) of dozens of obscure B noirs, many that even I had never heard of.

After the filmography there's two long list of B films noirs, first listed by year and then by studio. This section is very helpful when doing any kind of research on this subject. Plus there's a section called "Film Noir Sources" that provides info on where you can find copies of very rare film noir titles. Overall, this is an excellent book on a very neglected subject, and any serious film noir buff should buy it. By the way, that's Leslie Brooks on the cover in a scene from "Blonde Ice."

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, but..., March 2, 2001

By 

Susan D Earle (Cambridge, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death On The Cheap: The Lost B Movies Of Film Noir (Paperback)

While Lyons has clearly done a mind boggling amount of research, I can't help wishing he'd done a bit more. I caught a couple of big mistakes, and there may well be yet more I'm not aware of. The ones I did get: in the review of The Sign of the Ram, he claims that this was Susan Peters "first and only film." In fact she made several films and was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Random Harvest! And in the review of Spectre of the Rose, Lyons misidentifies the leading actor: it's Ivan Kirov, not Michael Chekhov. (Chekhov does also appear in the film.) I found the book very interesting, but it would be a better book if Lyons had taken the time to get his facts straight.