Ben+Tom+Billy-PopCuture

POPCULTURE Music Music from the 1950s featured singers such as Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. The Four Lads,The Platters and The Ames Brothers are also very popular groups from the 1950s. Jazz included of Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Billie Holiday. Through the middle of the decade rock and roll started to rise with Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley.Doo Wop was also very liked.

FILMS For some reason the 1950s have slipped past our consciousness. They exist in a limbo between the focused efforts of Americans to win World War II and the disappointments and cynicism of the 1960s (the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Vietnam, the Civil Rights Movement, and the deaths of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy). What happened to the 1950s? They were an era of economic growth for the "haves" in America, and an era of renewed separation of the races in this country. Brown vs. the Board of Education (1954) signaled the beginning of a new era in race relations in this country. But that act was again only prelude to the tumultuous 1960s. Where were the 1950s? With the 1950s came the advent of television sets in every home, cinemascope and VistaVision as a desperate attempt by studios to lure viewers back to theaters, drive-in movies, science-fiction films that featured aliens who were substitutes for the Communist menace to the East, and the gradual dissolution of the famed Studio System that had fueled the economy of Hollywood for the past thirty years. Several directors who made their reputations during the Studio Era in the 1940s (Billy Wilder, John Huston, Elia Kazan, Alfred Hitchcock, and John Ford) continued to make good films (as well as mediocre ones). But you won't see their names on the next page (The 1960s, Rise of the Director as Auteur). The last vestiges of the Studio System dissolved in the face of new directors, new approaches to acting, and new ideas about the depiction of the real world in films.


 * The 1950s--Focus on American Films**|| YEAR || FILM || DIRECTOR ||
 *  ||  ||  ||
 * 1950 || All About Eve || Joseph Mankiewicz ||
 * 1950 || Sunset Boulevard || Billy Wilder ||
 * 1951 || An American in Paris || Vincent Minnelli ||
 * 1952 || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">Singin' in the Rain || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">Stanley Donen ||
 * <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">1952 || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">The African Queen || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">John Huston ||
 * <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">1952 || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">High Noon || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">Fred Zinnemann ||
 * <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">1953 || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">From Here to Eternity || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">Fred Zinnemann ||
 * <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">1953 || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">Shane || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">George Stevens ||
 * <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">1954 || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">The Caine Mutiny || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">Edward Dmytryk ||
 * <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">1954 || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">On the Waterfront || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">Elia Kazan ||
 * <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">1954 || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">Rear Window || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">Alfred Hitchcock ||
 * <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">1954 || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">A Star is Born || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">George Cukor ||
 * <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">1955 || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">Marty || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">Delbert Mann ||
 * <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">1955 || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">Rebel Without a Cause || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">Nicholas Ray ||
 * <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">1956 || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">The Searchers || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">John Ford ||
 * <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">1957 || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">The Bridge on the River Kwai || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">David Lean ||
 * <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">1957 || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">Paths of Glory || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">Stanley Kubrick ||
 * <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">1957 || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">12 Angry Men || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">Sydney Lumet ||
 * <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">1958 || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">Separate Tables || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">Delbert Mann ||
 * <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">1958 || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">Vertigo || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">Alfred Hitchcock ||
 * <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">1958 || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">Witness for the Prosecution || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">Billy Wilder ||
 * <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">1959 || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">North by Northwest || <span style="font-family: comic sans ms, arial, helvetica;">Alfred Hitchcock ||

Comedies/Comedians
 * Comedy** and variety shows were popular. Comedy stars with their own shows included: Milton Berle, Jack Benny, Bob Hope, and Groucho Marx who starred in his quiz show //You Bet Your Life.// Dinah Shore, Perry Como, Eddie Fisher, Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, as well as other stars had popular weekly musical variety shows. The Ed Sullivan Show showcased many famous acts during the decade.

__Toys__ Popular toys of the 1950's included Wham-O's Hula Hoop and its flying disc Frisbee, both introduced in 1957. Kids got around on Schwinn bicycles and Radio Flyer wagons. Girls wanted Ohio Art Company's tin lithographed tea sets and Little Chefs Stoves, Ideal Toy Company's diaper-wetting Betsy Wetsy, and Mattel's 1959 adult-bodied fashion doll Barbie first produced on March 9,1959. Boys wanted Daisy BB guns, Lincoln Logs, and miniature Matchbox vehicles. In 1955, Walt Disney's Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier saw the production of 'coonskin caps' and other frontier-themed toys. View-Masters, Silly Putty, and Slinky were bestsellers. Mr. Potato Head, a toy of plastic face parts that could be stuck into a potato, was the first toy to be advertised on network television, and in its first year of production made over $4 million. Television shows and films generated show-related toys and books. Popular board games included Milton Bradley's Candyland, and Chutes and Ladders.