Howco later Howco International was an American film production and distribution company based in New Orleans specialising in low budget B pictures

B pictures

In the field of video compression a video frame is compressed using different algorithms with different advantages and disadvantages, centered mainly around amount of data compression. These different algorithms for video frames are called picture types or frame types. The three major picture...

 designed for double feature

Double feature

The double feature, also known as a double bill, was a motion picture industry phenomenon in which theatre managers would exhibit two films for the price of one, supplanting an earlier format in which one feature film and various short subject reels would be shown.The double feature, also known as...

s. In 1951 Joy Newton Houck Sr. (born 10 July 1900, Magnolia, Arkansas

Magnolia, Arkansas

Magnolia is a city in Columbia County, Arkansas, United States, that was founded in 1853. At the time of its incorporation in 1858, the city had a population of about 1,950. The city grew slowly as an agricultural and regional cotton market until the discovery of oil just east of the city in March,...

 died 8 July 1999, Texarkana, Texas

Texarkana, Texas

Texarkana is a city in Bowie County, Texas, United States. It effectively functions as one half of a city which crosses a state line — the other half, the city of Texarkana, Arkansas, lies on the other side of State Line Avenue...

) an owner of 29 Joy Theatres in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi teamed up with producer/director Ron Ormond

Ron Ormond

Ron Ormond was an American author, showman, screenwriter, film producer, and film director of Western, musical, and exploitation films. Following his survival of a 1968 plane crash, Ormond began making Christian films.-Films:...

 and J. Francis White owner of 31 cinemas in Virginia, North and South Carolina to contract with independent film producers to create product for their combined theatre chains. Their initials HOW provided the name of the COmpany.

Initially Howco released Western

Western (genre)

The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...

s from Ron Ormond

Ron Ormond

Ron Ormond was an American author, showman, screenwriter, film producer, and film director of Western, musical, and exploitation films. Following his survival of a 1968 plane crash, Ormond began making Christian films.-Films:...

's company featuring Lash LaRue, but moved into monster, science fiction and exploitation film

Exploitation film

Exploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex,...

s. In 1954 Howco started a television distribution company called National Television Films. Howco released Roger Corman

Roger Corman

Roger William Corman is an American film producer, director and actor. He has mostly worked on low-budget B movies. Some of Corman's work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and in 2009 he won an Honorary Academy Award for...

's Carnival Rock (paired with Teenage Thunder

Teenage Thunder

- Cast :*Chuck Courtney as Johnnie Simpson*Melinda Byron as Betty Palmer*Paul Bryar as Bert Morrison*Tyler McVey as Frank Simpson*Helene Heigh as Aunt Martha Simpson*Robert Fuller as Maurie Weston*Bing Russell as Used-car salesman*Gil Perkins as Sgt. Benson...

), Ed Wood Jr.'s Jail Bait

Jail Bait

Jail Bait is a 1954 American crime film directed by Ed Wood, with a screenplay by Wood and Alex Gordon. The film stars Timothy Farrell as a gangster who undergoes plastic surgery to elude the police. Famed bodybuilder Steve Reeves made his first screen appearance in the film.-Plot:Don Gregor, the...

) (paired with The Blonde Pickup a reissue of 1951's Racket Girls) and double features such as The Brain from Planet Arous

The Brain from Planet Arous

The Brain from Planet Arous is a 1957 science-fiction film that features the theme of alien possession.-Plot:An outer-space terrorist from a planet named Arous - a brain-shaped creature named Gor - arrives on Earth and possesses young scientist Steve March...

and Teenage Monster

Teenage Monster

Teenage Monster is an independent science fiction, horror film, premiered December 25, 1957 and released by Marquette Productions Limited in 1958. Directed by Jacques R. Marquette, the film starred Anne Gwynne and Stuart Wade. The film combined the elements of science fiction and westerns, both of...

(1957), and Lost, Lonely and Vicious

Lost, Lonely and Vicious

Lost, Lonely and Vicious is a 1958 American film directed by Frank Myers.- Cast :*Ken Clayton as Johnnie Dennis*Barbara Wilson as Helen Preacher*Lilyan Chauvin as Tanya Pernaud*Richard Gilden as Walt*Carol Nugent as Pinkie*Sandra Giles as Darlene...

and My World Dies Screaming (1958). Houck Sr.'s son Joy N. Houck Jr. directed two of the company's final double bills Night of Bloody Horror and Women and Bloody Terror (1970).