The Screen Writers Guild has called for a strike. It is demanding that its members receive a percentage of the television rights for films.
The “King of Hollywood”, Clark Gable, has died at the age of 60 after suffering a heart attack. Gable had just finished filming John Huston’s film “The Misfits”, and had recently learned that his wife, Kay Spreckels, was pregnant and that he would be a father for the first time.
Universal–International, and Columbia Pictures, have defeated the government’s lawsuit charging them with price–fixing on films sold to television.
The Screen Actors’ Guild of America is demanding a raise in minimum salaries as well as a share in TV residuals.
Dalton Trumbo, author of the screenplays for “Exodus” and “Spartacus”, is the first blacklisted writer to receive screen credit under his own name.
The “Hollywood Walk of Fame” has been inaugurated. The sidewalk is studded with bronze stars celebrating actors, directors, and other entertainment personalities.
Robert Gottschalk, the founder and president of the Panavision Corporation, has introduced a variable prismatic lens that enables Panavision’s 35mm anamorphic process to considerably reduce the distortion inherent in all of the other competing widescreen processes.
Most movies are now exhibited in the “standard widescreen” aspect ratio of 1.85:1 in the U.S., and 1.66:1 in Europe.
Significant Films:
Federico Fellini’s Italian film “La Dolce Vita” is released starring Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, and Anouk Aimée. Fellini wins the “Golden Palm” at the Cannes Film Festival, and is nominated for an Academy Award. The film, however, causes scandal and division among critics, audiences and churchmen in its native Italy and throughout Catholic Europe.
Universal–International releases Stanley Kubrick’s “Spartacus” starring Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Tony Curtis, Jean Simmons and Peter Ustinov. The movie is nominated for five Academy Awards and wins three.
Alfred Hitchcock releases his film “Psycho” starring Anthony Perkins, John Gavin, and Janet Leigh. Made for very little money by a TV crew, Hitchcock called this “my first horror film”. The film was enormously successful, and is now considered a classic.
United Artists releases Billy Wilder’s “The Apartment” starring Jack Lemmon, Fred MacMurray, and Shirley MacLaine. The movie wins five Academy Awards including the Oscar for “Best Motion Picture”.