Lights, Camera, 50's!

By Jeff Little

The 50's frightened Hollywood. The advent of television and its eventual popularity was viewed as a threat to the film industry…and it was.

Millions of Americans abandoned the movie theater in favor of TV and the future of the film industry was in doubt throughout the decade. Hollywood studios feared the worst as the New York-based television industry endangered the silver screen's very existence.

But, as we all know, the movie business did survive. And during the 50's it even managed to ignore the latest in electronic competition long enough to produce some of the finest films of all time.


The beginning of the decade saw the usual variety of film fare as Hollywood went about its business in 1950. Movie-goers could spend time with femme fatales (Sunset Boulevard, All About Eve), explore the still popular noir genre (The Asphalt Jungle, Panic in the Streets) or perhaps choose to take the whole family out to see the year's #1 film, Cinderella.

Disney followed the success of Cinderella with 1951's Alice in Wonderland. The animated feature became the second most popular film of the year as more adult-themed pictures like Quo Vadis (#1 in 1951), A Streetcar Named Desire and A Place in the Sun were among the year's top grossers which also included The African Queen and Strangers on a Train.


In 1952, Hollywood intentionally marketed sprawling spectacles that were more specifically geared to the big screen in order to better compete with television. The year's top films were This is Cinerama (#1), The Greatest Show on Earth (#2) and The Snows of Kilimanjaro (#3).

Disney was back in 1953, once again capturing the #1 spot with Peter Pan. And following its usual eclectic pattern, the film industry also released From Here to Eternity, Shane and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in the same year.


1954 saw a White Christmas (the year's #1 film) and a view through Hitchcock's Rear Window. Meanwhile, Disney ventured 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to produce the year's #2 box office hit.

Becoming redundant in its hit-making, Disney again topped the cinematic hit list in 1955 with Lady and the Tramp. And trailing a distant second was another big screen "event" called Cinerama Holiday.


Still convinced that big screen epics were the best defense against TV, Paramount and United Artists released a pair of whoppers in 1956. The Ten Commandments and Around the World in 80 Days were #1 and #2 in the same year that Elvis Presley made his film debut in Love Me Tender.

In 1957, filmmakers once again traveled the big screen epic film trail to #1 with Bridge on the River Kwai. And where was Disney? In the top 10 again with the year's #4 film, Old Yeller.


Musicals showed the world that they still were a crowd draw in 1958. The year's #1 film was South Pacific. And on the other end of the genre spectrum, the legendary Alfred Hitchcock returned in '58 with the legendary Vertigo.

Surviving the decade in grand style, Hollywood served-up Ben-Hur as 1959's #1 offering and proved that it could not only compete with television, it could best it. And best it it does…time and time again.

 

 

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