A decade of contrasts: the 1950s in cinema At a time when people were terrified of UFOs and Communism, the movie industry was busy producing movies that ranged from film noir to suspense to grandiose musicals; apparently the paranoid public in the 1950s wanted family entertainment and dark, brooding pictures in equal doses. The result is a decade's worth of truly monumental cinema, from Hitchcock masterpieces (Vertigo, Psycho, Rear Window) to comedy classics (Tati's Mr. Hulot's Holiday, Billy Wilder's Some Like it Hot) to groundbreaking nouvelle vague films (Godard's Breathless, Truffaut's The Four Hundred Blows) and profound, innovative dramas such as Antonioni's L'Avventura, Fellini's La Strada, John Huston's Misfits, and Kubrick's Paths of Glory. Though censorship kept sex safely off-screen, sexy stars such as James Dean, Marion Brando, and Marilyn Monroe provided plenty of heat in Rebel Without a Cause, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes respectively. This survey of the most important films of the 1950s covers all the wholesome, subversive, artistic, thrilling, and mysterious trends in cinema worldwide.
100 A-Z film entries include: Synopsis Film stills and production photos Cast/crew listings Box office figures Trivia Useful information on technical stuff Actor and director bios Plus: a complete Academy Awards list for the decade ( )