Movie-Making in the 1950s

Ah, at last we have made it to the 1950's, my favorite movie decade.  I could never dispute that the Golden Age of Hollywood, the 1930's and 1940's, was the best that was ever served up and I said as much when those decades were highlighted.  But for me there's never been any that tripped my switches like the fabulous fifties.  There's a good reason.

It was the decade in which I discovered the movies.  I mean... really discovered them.  I had seen movies (at theaters only, mind you) for a few years but it was 1952 that changed everything.  I've mentioned in some other posts how my love of movies began but it bears repeating for a discussion of this decade.

My parents fought a great deal but especially on weekends.  What they fought about could be just about anything at all and never particularly got my attention.  Why they fought was the key... they both wanted to be captain of the ship.  Each cared far more about being right than happy.  My father's rages were fueled by his stupefying jealousy and the heathen brew and my mother's
came out of her total unwillingness to be controlled by him.

When things got physical (which was often), I was shipped off to the movies and out of harm's way.  Luckily a theater, the Beverly,
was just a few blocks away.  I went alone as early as eight years old.  I gave up some coins for popcorn and Milk Duds and sat in my seat and quietly watched a double feature and if I suspected the home front was still a war zone, I stayed and saw the first feature again.  

Movie-going that began as a refuge turned into an every weekend thing.  The old man didn't dig this movie obsession when I could have been in the backyard playing catch with him.  Uh-huh.  When their fighting got so bad at night, my mother, brother and I would go to a drive-in theater where they would usually fall asleep while I sat wide-eyed through (often) three movies.

Most definitely the movies shaped my young life and a very great deal of why that happened had to do with two movies that I saw in 1955.  The first was released in March and by the time the second came out in October, the transformation was complete.  We'll discuss this as the subject of its own posting before we leave the 50's.

In general the 1950's are considered a time of great optimism, although, clearly, non-whites viewed it differently.  Family values were not only celebrated but practiced.  Still reeling from the war years (and not paying much attention to that little skirmish in Korea), families spent more time together and enjoyed more leisure time than ever.  

The fifties saw the birth of lots and lots of babies, prosperity, fast food, drive-in theaters, credit cards, two-toned cars, television, TV dinners, rock and roll and gazillions of movies.  Despite the dark cloud of the studio blacklists which resulted from the HUAC witch hunt to rid Hollywood of Communists and other leftist leaners,  studios were still cranking out those movies.

Do you know how disheartening it can be for a movie lover to have his favorite decade get raked over the coals?  Movies of the 50's have been called too chaste, unrealistic, boring, cheap, formulaic, moral, mindless and well, crappy.  I admit there were lots of those but some might consider there were many very good and great films, too, and that more than a handful are some of the greatest movies of all time.  I think it's true and kinder to say that the 1950's, perhaps more than any other decade, produced a wide variety of films.

Part of that variety and part of the song of the naysayers, I think, comes from the fact that there were so many B films (and actors) in the 50's.  That gives some credence to cheap and formulaic in their minds and it is partly true.  The rub for me is I have always liked B films.  I ask that they not be confused with C or D films, a lot of which were made at Republic or Monogram... some cheesy stuff, indeed.  

But B pictures were necessary in at least a couple of ways.  One is that they served as a training ground for studios' neophyte actors.  If they performed well in Bs, they moved up to As.  If they didn't perform well in Bs, they moved back to Tulsa or Indianapolis or wherever.  Additionally, double features were the order of the day. Studios never had two newly-released A pictures on the bill so it was often an A and a B, although sometimes two Bs.  

 Simmons, Fontaine, Laurie & Dee of 1957's Until They Sail.  

The opposite is true today.  Studios or filmmakers cannot afford to intentionally make a B movie.  Now it's all about the bucks, more than ever.  Today it can be tough getting financing without the promise of a light saber.  If one wants to do a little B flick, it's good to go on TV but not the big screen.  Today a B movie might be called an independent film to some, many of which I continue to see, love and include in these pages.

Speaking of television, that, of course, was the green-eyed monster in the Hollywood of the 50's.  It severely cut into the profits enjoyed by studios for 30 years and they were apoplectic over what to do.  To entice audiences they came up with Cinerama in 1952 and the following year Cinemascope, VistaVision and, of course, 3D.

If adults began staying home and watching their new black and white boxes, their teenagers were flocking to movie theaters like never before.  I don't think that's changed to this day.  As a result, movie-makers catered to them then and now.  The advent of rock and roll music meant rock and roll movies.  Teens liked science fiction, creature and monster movies and they came in droves... from Godzilla to The Blob on the low end, Bs like House of Wax and The Creature from the Black Lagoon and very good ones such as The Day the Earth Stood Still and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

One cannot forget the epic... although I would like to.  Geez, I've seen a number of them, too.  I think back to most of them from the 50's and wonder what motivated me to see this type of film.  I guess it's the star-laden idea that takes over me.  With that said, TV still didn't have the resources for something that had 10-12 name stars and the movies did.  So they came... Samson and Deliah (1950), David and Bathsheba (1952), The Robe (1953), The Egyptian (1954), Desiree (1954), Land of the Pharaohs (1955) The Ten Commandments (1956), Ben-Hur (1959)... to name a few.  Hmmm, wait a minute, that means Susan Hayward, Joan Collins, Hedy Lamarr, Gene Tierney, Yvonne de Carlo and in three of them, Jean Simmons... and all at their most alluring.   Ok, maybe that's why I went.

But I paid the price because, c'mon, after a while it feels like pulling away from the Thanksgiving table.  I felt stuffed on Greeks, Romans, apostles, beggars, temples, murder, treachery and adultery.  After but just a couple of these movies, I had had enough of the baubles, bangles, beads and belly dancers, too.  Just give me some guy on a horse or some tap dancers and I was far happier than with the constant baptism of these incredibly popular films. 

There were other types of spectacles as well and two of them need to be highlighted because they both unbelievably won best picture Oscars.  In 1952 it was The Greatest Show on Earth, which I loved and have always felt was too maligned (maybe the 8-year old me is writing this sentence) but it certainly should not have won that Oscar.  If passing over two classic nominated films like The Quiet Man and High Noon weren't enough, consider that Singin' in the Rain wasn't even nominated.

Another travesty came in 1956 when Around the World in 80 Days won.  I've always thought more of the vitriol heaped on Greatest Show should have been channeled to this over-produced, overblown, over-hyped piece of... of... celluloid.  It won because its big-mouthed, vulgar, carnival barker producer, Mike Todd, said anything that came into his head and sold a bill of goods to the public.  Had he lived, he probably could have been president today. 

I have always said I was raised on westerns and musicals and some film noirs.  Their extreme popularity throughout the 50's likely contributed to a near-demise by the end of the decade and forever more.  Bummer.  

Thelma Ritter & Richard Widmark in the noir Pickup on South Street (1953)

We'll pass on a lecture on westerns right now because-- hold on to your saddlehorn!-- we're gonna spend all of April in the Old West.  If you're a cowboy at heart, I think you're gonna like it.  The rest of you might find it a good month for a vacation.  I'm jus' sayin'.

Musicals proliferated in the 1950's, another ploy to get folks into theaters.  Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals were major pluses. MGM certainly had a handle on musicals with Kelly and Astaire, Sinatra, Debbie Reynolds, Jane Powell, Kathryn Grayson, Howard Keel and an actress who made some very unusual musical movies, Esther Williams.  Warner Bros. had Doris Day, Gordon MacRae, Gene Nelson and Virginia Mayo and teamed them over and over again in dance and songfests.  There was one film in which all four worked with Cagney... hmmm, what was the name of that silly movie?

Two of the biggest movie stars of all time made their mark in the 1950's, Marilyn Monroe and John Wayne.  Wayne worked in a number of decades but he caught fire in the 1950s with films like The Quiet Man, Hondo, The High and the Mighty, Blood Alley, Rio Bravo and one that many western scholars would put at the top of the haystack.  We'll be discussing it in more detail later.  His anti-Commie rant made him popular with some and reviled by others. 

Monroe is a product of the 50s like no other movie star.   What is a marvel is that she sold sex in a decade when movies still had spouses in separate beds and screens that went dark at the mere suggestion of doing it.  Soon MM blonde wannabees popped up all over the place... Jayne Mansfield, Sheree North and Mamie Van Doren to name a few.  North, at least, went on to do good work as a character actress.  We will be throwing some sunshine on two of MM's films of the decade.

The sex aspect changed immensely in 1953 by director Otto Preminger and his otherwise unremarkable William Holden-David Niven comedy The Moon Is Blue.  He resisted the stuffy production code (wrap your brain around the fact that the word pregnant couldn't be said) that had been around in one form or another for 20 years and won his case, changing movies forever.  Now we have more sex, cursing and violence.  What a guy!

Another blonde who caused a great deal of attention for five years in the early 50's was Grace Kelly.  She was fortunate to have paired up with Alfred Hitchcock who certainly was enjoying his most notable decade.  When Hollywood's princess left to become Monaco's princess in 1956, I went into mourning.

Fortunately a brunette saved me.  Elizabeth Taylor's beauty had fascinated me since she was a wee lil thing in Lassie Come Home.  As a young woman in the first half of the 50's I had enjoyed her in such pleasantries as Rhapsody, Elephant Walk and The Last Time I Saw Paris but she began setting my world on fire in 1956 with Giant and then Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959).  When she was well-directed, she was an exciting actress.

Someone else joined the movie brigade in 1956.  The picture was Love Me Tender, a mediocre, black and white, Civil War opus that turned into THE teen movie to see because it featured the debut of Elvis Presley.  I recall standing in a long damned line at the Rialto Theater in Peoria, not because I was particularly whacked out about him but to see how he managed acting.  Olivier needn't have worried.  Although the singer was a definite 50's icon, most of his movies should be burned.

Two others who achieved iconic status were the comedy team of Martin and Lewis.  I would guess I saw all of their movies for which I am totally ashamed.  I know I laughed my ass off and yet I saw about 15 minutes of Scared Stiff (1953) a few weeks ago and thought I'm ready for my overdose, Mr. DeMille.

A new style of acting by a different breed of actor cropped up in the 50's that brought into the public consciousness three astonishing actors (but we'll mention four), Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando and James Dean. No one had ever seen anything like the three of them.  They brought into focus The Actor's Studio and its method acting.  

All were known for their pained moodiness and rebelliousness on the screen which was a part of who they were off the screen as well... with Brando and Dean being textbook.  Hollywood clamored to work with the trio and while they achieved great acclaim, they remained misunderstood by the Hollywood heavyweights and were not so well-liked.  

There was both a rivalry and idolatry among them... each was keenly aware of the others' work, job offers and personal lives.  All were gay or bi.  Into this group comes that fourth guy... Paul Newman.  He shares many of these same traits and history but he was smarter than the rest, more grounded and a survivor.  For your trivia files:  there's only one actress who has appeared opposite all four of them... Elizabeth Taylor.  And appearing with three of them  were Julie Harris, Eva Marie Saint and Jo Van Fleet. 

Like his buddy and three-time costar, Duke Wayne, Jimmy Stewart had been around since the 1930's and also had a very good decade with the 1950's.  The actor enjoyed playing affable characters that, in fact, matched his real-life persona.  In the 1950's he changed some things when he made a series of hard-boiled westerns, mostly directed by Anthony Mann, that saw Stewart explosive and vengeful.  Few actors have ever shown so abrupt a change in screen persona.  He also ushered in the age of the independent superstars by accepting a partial percentage deal instead of a full salary... revolutionary at the time.
  
There were those who thought there was an awful lot of goody-two-shoeing on the screen by people who were far more unsavory in their real lives.  Out of that came the first real scandal rag, Confidential Magazine. The magazine helped sell the salaciousness of the Lana Turner-Johnny Stompanato-Cheryl Crane murder case in 1957.  Hollywood hadn't seen the likes of this in many a moon.  Lemme tell you, one cannot do a tribute to the 1950's without a little something on this magazine.  You sit tight now, you heah?

That same year an icon died of cancer at age 57, Humphrey Bogart.
It seemed inconceivable that this quiet intellectual who thrived on playing edgy characters was no longer with us.  Since the early 40's he was regarded as a very fine actor who made some amazing movies.  The truth, however, is that whatever iconic status he enjoyed while alive tripled after his death.  One of the upcoming postings will review his films of the 50's.

The following year one of Hollywood's most popular stars ever died at the even younger age of 45... Tyrone Power.   A heart attack felled him doing something he had become famous for--- sword-fighting (George Sanders in Solomon and Sheba).

Times were changing by the late 50's and with television hammering away at the movie industry, the studio system went into decline.  MGM set free nearly all of its legendary contract players (Robert Taylor was its last major star) and studios began selling off some of its value real estate.  The one studio that seemed to thrive throughout the 50's and is still going strong today is Universal.  It was not only the king of B movies (which kept it floating) but was one of the first to enthusiastically see television as the key to the future. 

The first film to be sold to network television for prime-time airing came in 1956 with 1939's The Wizard of Oz.  Also in 1956 Hollywood lifted its ban on movie actors appearing on television.  The first big star to make the crossover was Charlton Heston.  Gene Autry was the first movie star to sign for his own TV series although Groucho Marx had earlier hosted a game show (You Bet Your Life).

When I begin writing about a new decade, I look over all that I have planned and see where it might be going.  I perused the 30 good 50's films that are coming up for the actors we'll be mentioning the most.  Monroe, Clift, Deborah Kerr, Agnes Moorehead and Ward Bond's films will clock in at three each while  one of my favorite actresses ever, Gloria Grahame, will be in four.  There will be three musicals, four westerns and five film noirs among the 30 discussed.  

For directors there will be pair of films for John Ford, Otto Preminger, George Seaton, George Stevens, Fritz Lang, Nicholas Ray and Vincente Minnelli.  The winner with three films is Fred Zinnemann and we're going to do those postings as the first three films we discuss.  Who knows what they are?

Rock Hudson & Jane Wyman in Douglas Sirk's All that Heaven Allows (1955) 

The films that won best picture Oscars in the 1950's are: All About Eve, An American in Paris, The Greatest Show on Earth, On the Waterfront, Marty, Around the World in 80 Days, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Gigi and Ben-Hur and one that is going to get its own posting.

Here are some 1950's films titles to digest if one feels an inclination to kvetch about the work from this decade.  Consider A Star Is Born, Bad Day at Black Rock, Sweet Smell of Success, The Naked Spur, Picnic, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Man With the Golden Arm, Sunset Blvd., On the Beach, Heaven Knows Mr. Allison, Pillow Talk, Some Like It Hot, Auntie Mame, An Affair to Remember, Sayonara, The Band Wagon, Battle Cry, The Bad and the Beautiful, The Diary of Anne Frank, Lust for Life, Summertime... to name a few.

Movies of the 50's I have already written about are Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Giant, East of Eden, Old Yeller, Home Before Dark, South Pacific, Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, To Catch a Thief, A Summer Place, The Big Country, The Greatest Show on Earth, Forbidden, Jubilee Trail and All About Eve.

I expect many of you will agree with some of my choices for good 50's films, particularly those that were bigger, more important movies.  But there are certainly some that I must chalk up to being  childhood favorites and their worth in the universe may be questionable but my tender feelings for them are unshakeable.  

Oh what a decade.



Next posting:
Short career, big fame