Poverty Row is a slang term for small Hollywood studios that produced B movies from the 1920s to the 1950s, typically with much smaller budgets and lower production values than those of the major studios. Although many of these studios were based in the vicinity of Gower Street in Hollywood, the term does not necessarily relate to any specific physical location. Many of the films produced by Poverty Row studios were those of series in the Western, comedy, adventure and crime genres.

Studios

While some Poverty Row studios had a brief existence, releasing only a few films, others operated in a manner similar to that of major film studios such as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures, but with a much smaller scale. The most successful and enduring Poverty Row studios maintained permanent lots and recognizable standing sets, had cast and crew under contract and produced a more varied output than did the smaller firms. The primary Poverty Row studios included:

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 exploitation films such as Hitler, Beast of Berlin to supplement their own limited production capacity. Producers would sometimes create a new studio when their former ones 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 rerelease older films from other studios before producing their own films.

Comparison with other studios

Decline

The breakup of the studio system (and its block-booking practice, which left independent theaters eager for content from the Poverty Row studios) 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 the traditional Poverty Row studios, although small and independent studios continued to exist through the present day.