The Monogram Checklist

Back in the golden age of the movies (in other words the 1930s and 1940s) the movie industry was quite different to how it was today. People didn't go to just see one movie, they would be entertained for a whole evening with a main feature, a shorter B-movie and some short features like a newsreel. 

I am a fan of the B-movie which hit their heights in the 1930s. These were often great films too, made on a small budget and starring second tier stars - often up-and-comers or fading stars on the way down, plus the occasional A-lister just filling in a bit of time. The creation of these films was often fascinating, sometimes re-using the same sets of concurrent main features! 

While the major studios themselves created hundreds of B-movies, there were also smaller studios who specialised in churning these kinds of films out. One of the best known of these studios was Monogram who produced many films between 1931 and 1953 when they changed name to Allied Artists Pictures and moved into other areas of the market including TV. TV of course eventually killed off the B-movie.

This book lists every film Monogram released during those years (and that means hundreds of them) and is a great source of information. I watched many Monogram films when i was reviewing 1,999 films on my movie review blog, quite a lot of them are rather good. Though I have to admit, quite a lot of them were drivel too!