poverty tier

Poverty Row is a slang term used to refer to Hollywood films produced from the 1920s to the 1950s by small (and mostly short-lived) B movie studios. Although many of them were based on (or near) today's Gower Street in Hollywood, the term did not necessarily refer to any specific physical location, but was rather a figurative catch-all for low-budget films produced by these lower-tier studios.
The films of Poverty Row, many of which were Westerns (including series like Billy the Kid, starring Buster Crabbe from Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) or comedy/adventure series such as those featuring the Bowery Boys (Monogram Pictures) and detectives such as The Shadow, were characterized by low budgets, casts made up of minor stars or unknowns, and overall production values betraying the haste and economy with which they were made.

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