Good morning, digital neighbors! Happy Tuesday to all! There was a time when our lives weren’t filled with glowing screens and viewing them was more of a collective or communal experience for our grandparents or great-grandparents. Now, with smartphones in everyone’s hands, we stare in isolation at a world controlled by the swipe of a finger and limited by our ever-shorter attention spans.

Mom and Dad would talk about going to the movies on Saturdays in the days before television had even invaded our lives. The Saturday matinee and serials were part of their weekly entertainment—mostly limited to one day a week in front of the hypnotic screen that now commands our constant attention. The double feature was one of those classic Saturday experiences, and it gave us the advent of the B movie. In my day, 1970s B movies were often the cheesy films that appeared on non-network stations late at night or on weekends. Today’s phrase of obscurity comes from Endangered Phrases: Intriguing Idioms Dangerously Close to Extinction by Steven D. Price:

B movie: the low-budget second part of a movie theater’s double feature. Back in the days of double features, movie houses showed two very distinct types of films. A movies were the hits—“Gone With the Wind,” “Casablanca,” “Citizen Kane,” “The Wizard of Oz”—the ones that drew patrons to the movie houses.

Then there were Westerns, horror flicks, and science fiction movies that didn’t cost very much to make (they were often in black-and-white). These B movies tended to be shown before the main feature; otherwise, people would leave after the A picture and feel they hadn’t gotten their admission money’s worth. As double features disappeared and the cost of filmmaking grew, the curtain went down on the B-movie genre.

The historic 7th Street Theatre in Hoquiam (Seattle) - Julie Rajcich Photography