Rob,
As Bill says, back in the Thirties (and Forties), kids the age of Bill and I practically lived in our hometown theaters for Saturday afternoon matinees featuring Duke's B movies, and also those of Roy Rogers, Gene Autrey, Hopalong Cassidy, Lash Larue, Tom Mix and other "cowboy" actors. And for that time and place, we thought they were great. Of course back then, a lot of young kids spent much time playing cowboys and Indians. I doubt many modern youngsters even think of such things, much less play them. Video games are the thing now.
As time passed, movies of all genres got progressively better so that movie fans nowadays (including me) tend to think of old B grade films as pretty bad. I've mentioned this before and it's probably a factor in play here - we have a biiiiiig generation gap. Also, and this is important, tastes change.
Like Bill says though, if you don't like 'em, don't watch 'em.
