Best Of

Bruce said:

When I wrote " the vast majority of even Poverty Row 1940s U.S. movies" I meant that I can see how they would possibly release just about all the major U.S. studio product in Australia, but why would they bother with all the product from Poverty Row studios when so many of those were much lesser movies without big names?

Thanks for clarifying this for me Bruce.

 Yes you are correct in thinking that almost all the product that was available from the major studios was released in Australia. The exceptions  being those titles that were refused classification.

You are also correct in querying that all the poverty row studio films would have been released here due to the reasons that you mentioned. The quality of a good deal of these films was certainly sub standard. Let's look at the three biggest of the poverty row studion operating in the 1940's.

Republic Pictures product was released in Australia in the 1930's and 1940's by BEF then through 20th Century Fox in the 1950's.

Monogram, then Allied Artists product was released in Australia  in the 1930's and 1940's by British Empire Films (BEf), then United Artists in most of the 1950's and followed by Paramount Pictures in the very late 1950's and 1960's. Also some AA product in the mid to late 1960's obtained Australian release by Blake Films.

Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC), the very much smaller poverty row U.S. distributor's product was released in small numbers of titles in Australia by an unknow to me Australian distributor, possibly Hoyts but not confirmed.

Product sourced from Republic, Monogram/Allied Artists ad PRC was up to the Australian distributor to secure or reject.

Most of the low budget westerns were a major genre rejected for release in Australia and films across the board in all genres of poor quality were also not picked up. Series such as The Bowery Boys and Bomba were no longer released here in the 1950s.  

Now to return to my original question regarding missing poverty row horror film daybills. For reasons of either being banned by the Australian Film Censor or just being rejected by the Australian distributors. a large number never made it to our shore.

I will include below some of the known horror titles that are confirmed as being released here that are missing daybills images.

The following four films The Black Raven, Bluebeard,The Devil Bat and Dead Men Walk are from PRC. I have included some U.S. poster artwork to show what the Australian artwork may have looked like.

 

The above Australian published ''Talks On The Talkies inclusion is interesting as it talks about the quality of PRC product.














All the above included newspaper inclusions are courtesy of Everyones/Trove/NLA).

Love to see the Australian daybills. Interestingly i have never sighted a PRC film  daybill of any genre whatsoever, I am sure the PRC product from what I have found had mainly very limited distribution here. Thinking that the left over posters quickly were destined for the dump.

Love the posters, I wish I had more of that vintage.