Timeline
History of Motion Pictures
1950 – 1960

A Brief Overview of the Decade

The “Cold War” continued to chill the air in both hemispheres during the 1950s, while an array of former colonies forged new identities and created a non–aligned force dubbed, by the Marxist writer Frantz Fanon, the “Third World ”. As the decade began, however, the Cold War suddenly heated up on the peninsula of Korea when the Soviet–equipped North Korean People’s Army crossed the 38th parallel and invaded the Republic of South Korea . Lead by the U.S., the United Nations reacted by sending a multi–national force to repel the North Korean Army in what was nominally called a “police action”. The Korean War had started, and Dwight D. Eisenhower would be elected President in 1952 by promising to end it.

In the U.S. the Communist “Red Scare” was in full flower. Alger Hiss, a former State Department official, was convicted of perjury for denying he had once spied for the Soviet Union. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were convicted of organizing an international Soviet spy ring. Guy Burgess and Donald MacLean, officials at Britain’s embassy in Washington, escaped to Moscow when it was discovered they were Soviet spies. Then, when U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed that he had a list of 205 Communists who had infiltrated the State Department, he became an unstoppable anti–Communist crusader using his Senate committees to accuse, harass and often destroy many innocent people. (It wouldn’t be until 1954 that the Senate would censure McCarthy and end his Communist witch–hunt.) Meanwhile, in televised hearings, the Senate Crime Investigating Committee, chaired by Senator Estes Kefauver, began exposing America’s criminal underbelly and inaugurated what would become known as “electronic journalism”.

As the “Arms Race” escalated, the threat of a nuclear Armageddon became part of everyday life. The Soviet Union tested their own atomic bomb in 1950, and during the next few years both the U.S. and the Soviet Union developed and repeatedly tested the even more powerful hydrogen bomb. It didn’t take long for the hydrogen bomb tests to create a huge demand for underground fallout shelters and, along with the American family’s mass migration to the suburbs, these shelters came to symbolize the decade.

The ‘50s were the decade of the American Civil Rights Movement; the merging of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) into a labor superpower; the authorization by Congress of a massive 40,000 mile interstate highway system; and the launching by the Soviet Union of the first space satellite, Sputnik, which shifted the “Space Race” into high gear . This was also the decade when the structure of DNA was discovered; when the Salk vaccine proved to be effective against Polio; when the Census Bureau utilized the first computer to use magnetic tape instead of punch cards; when Fidel Castro assumed power in Cuba; and when white–collar workers outnumbered blue–collared workers for the first time in U.S. history. On the lighter side, this ten year span also gave us Elvis Presley, Rock ‘n’ Roll, and the Motown sound; the “I Love Lucy” TV show and Ed Sullivan; beatniks; McDonald’s; hula–hoops; the Barbie doll; Disneyland, Davy Crockett and the Mickey Mouse Club.

For the motion picture industry, this would be the decade of changing technology and competition from television. While the “studio system” fought for survival, foreign films, independent production companies and freelance movie stars undermined the very foundation and power of the old Hollywood studios. By the end of the decade, business executives and accountants had replaced the Hollywood “Movie Moguls”, and virtually all of the early motion picture pioneers had faded away.