Pine and Thomas struck up a partnership and swapped theories about how films could be produced for lower budgets.
[6] Pine and Thomas talked with Richard Arlen, who had become famous with Wings (1927) but whose most recent films had been lower budgeted productions.
Pine and Thomas selected three titles, Power Dive, Forced Landing and Flying Blind, and wrote scripts around them.
Paramount were looking for some low-budget action movies and agreed, enabling Pine and Thomas to gain loans from the bank to finance the films.
[8] Power Drive (1941), starring Arlen and Jean Parker was made in ten days at a cost of $86,000 under the auspices of "Picture Corporation of America".
[12] Morris' first film for the company was No Hands on the Clock (1941), based on a novel by "Geoffrey Holmes" (Daniel Mainwaring).
According to The New York Times: "The plots were usually built around a hazardous occupation, like deep-sea diving parachute jumping or auto car racing - and someone was always killed doing that particular job in the first reel to get the idea across.
[17] Pine-Thomas made four propaganda shorts including A Letter from Bataan (1942), which featured Arlen and a young Susan Hayward.
[24] This meant the company moved into comedies for the first time with Take It Big (1944), followed by One Body Too Many (1944) with Bela Lugosi, Scared Stiff (1945) and People Are Funny (1946).
Other stars for the company included Byron Barr (Tokyo Rose (1946)), Richard Denning (Seven Were Saved (1947), Caged Fury (1948), Disaster (1948)), William Eythe (Mr. Reckless, Special Agent (1949)).
Pine Thomas decided to make a film based on the radio show Big Town.
In a 1947 interview, Pine said, "We're not geniuses by a long shot and we don't propose to tell the industry how to make pictures.
We're just a couple of businessmen who've learned by long experience how to put pictures together to achieve what we consider a maximum amount of entertainment at a minimum cost.
Background footage was important - they would often film this with a skeleton crew and using doubles which could substitute for the main cast.
They made Shaggy (1948) with Brenda Joyce and Adventure Island (1947) with Rory Calhoun and Rhonda Fleming, both borrowed from David O. Selznick.
On the cheapies the salesman has to beat harder to sell and the cost of distribution is no less than on the more expensive product ... We compared our profit on the basis of per dollar invested and came up with a finding that it would pay to spend more on each film ...
[30] Pine-Thomas' first million dollar movie was the Western El Paso (1949) starring John Payne, Sterling Hayden and Gail Russell, and directed by Lewis R.
[31] "We've got people working in this one who two years ago wouldn't have been caught dead in a Pine-Thomas picture," said Thomas.
[32] Pine-Thomas put Payne in two more films directed by Foster: Captain China (1950) with Russell, and The Eagle and the Hawk (1950) with Rhonda Fleming.
In May 1951, Pine-Thomas signed a two-year extension on their Paramount deal, to make a minimum of eight films over 1952 and 1953, including three in Technicolor: High Tension, Gentleman of the Jungle and The Rebel.
In March 1952, Pine Thomas claimed they read around thirty stories a week in order to find the four they made for Paramount annually.
They also had a policy to introduce one new player per film, such as Susan Morrow in Blazing Forest and Danny Chang in Hong Kong.
[37] Ray Milland starred in Jamaica Run (1953) and Fernando Lamas and Fleming in Sangaree (1953) and Jivaro (1954).
[38] Stories they bought but did not make around this time include The Rebel, High Tension and Command Decision.
[42] In December 1954, after making Lucy Gallant, Pine-Thomas announced the end of their relationship with Paramount after 77 films over 14 years.
"[43] Pine said the company's new method of operation would be to set the screenplay, stars and director before seeking finance.
[43] In 1955, Paramount sold 35 Pine-Thomas films to Associated Artists Productions for showing on American television.
[44] In January 1955, Pine-Thomas signed a contract with United Artists to make three films, The Big Caper, Lincoln McKeever and The Mountains Have No Shadows.
[46][47] Pine-Thomas-Shane made several films for United Artists: Nightmare (1956), a remake of Fear in the Night with Edward G. Robinson; The Big Caper (1957) with Rory Calhoun; and Bailout at 43,000 (1957) with Payne.
[50] In 1956 the Dollar Bills produced three unsuccessful television pilots; Outpost a Western about the U.S. Cavalry starring Lex Barker, Johnny Pilgrim, a private eye show starring William Bishop and Court-Martial featuring recreations of actual military judicial proceedings.