The 1950s mark a significant change in the definition of the
B movie. The transformation of the film industry due to court rulings that brought an end to many long-standing
distribution practices as well as the challenge of
television led to major changes in U.S. cinema at the exhibition level. These shifts signaled the eventual demise of the
double feature that had defined much of the American moviegoing experience during
Hollywood's Golden Age of the 1930s and 1940s. Even as the traditional bottom-of-the-bill second feature slowly disappeared, the term
B movie was applied more broadly to the sort of inexpensive genre films that came out during the era, such as those produced to meet the demands of the burgeoning
drive-in theater market.