LESSON MODULE on the 50s, 60s & 70s
By Nicholas Dollak
Dr. Jack Pesda
History of the 50s, 60s & 70s
March 7, 2001
A STUDY OF AMERICAN MOVIES FROM THE 1950s AND HOW THEY REFLECTED AND INFLUENCED THEIR TIME
Purpose: To get students to reflect on what the 1950s may have been like, and to make them aware of how current films, even of an historical nature, reflect current attitudes.
Grade level: Middle school (or high school, or really gifted elementary school)
Students will receive the following handouts, and will view clips from the films mentioned (if possible). They will learn which attitudes are "typical" of the 1950s, and compare them to those reflected in current films (For example, how would today's directors re-make High Noon? How would a 1950s director have made a film from the story of, say, The Matrix?)
Assignment: Two essays. In one, they’ll write about how a modern director would re-make a 1950s movie. In the other, they’ll write about how a 1950s director would re-make (pre-make?) a modern movie.
A STUDY OF AMERICAN MOVIES FROM THE 1950s AND HOW THEY REFLECTED AND INFLUENCED THEIR TIME
Part I - WHERE "THE '50s" CAME FROM
People often refer to certain styles, music, politics, attitudes, etc. as being "from the fifties" or "from the sixties," as if those time periods began and ended each decade, on the decade. Actually, like nearly all cultural events or trends, these things rarely if ever have distinct beginnings and ends. They seldom "pop out of nowhere," and it's hard to determine when or even if they ever actually die. History is a continuous process, and most people can only gain a perspective on it after a chain of events has passed. The awkwardness of using specific dates for everything has led to the practice of breaking time into decades and ascribing cultural/historical events to those decades, even if they spill over or overlap.
Here's a list of events commonly associated with the 1950s, in no particular order:
Rise in juvenile delinquency
McCarthy's communist "witch hunt"
Birth of rock 'n' roll
Civil Rights Movement
Cool cars
Sexual repression
"B"-grade sci-fi movies
Now, let's examine these things. Juvenile delinquency has "always" existed in one form or another, mainly because hormones are by nature "raging," and not "quiet & orderly." The only things that really change are the exact mechanisms by which teens get into trouble, and the sorts of punishments they may or may not receive. The "rise in juvenile delinquency" of the 1950s began in the 1940s, ostensibly as a result of American home life during World War II. It continued into the 1960s, and took on many forms. Some of these forms set later standards for social reform; most just remained... well... juvenile delinquency.
McCarthyism per se actually is a 1950s phenomenon. Senator Joseph McCarthy, two days after former Assistant Secretary of State Alger Hiss was convicted of spying for the Soviet Union, claimed that there were “205 communists in the State Department.” Although the figures he quoted changed, and these communists were never found, suddenly people were looking for communists everywhere. The fear of communist invasion in the United States actually seems to have begun in the 1920s, reached paranoic levels in the 1930s, dropped off in the 1940s (When the USSR became an Ally during WWII) and rose to ridiculously paranoic levels in the 1950s, when it became apparent that Stalin had signed a treaty with the Nazis (who later turned on the Soviets, forcing them to join the Allies), and when it became known that the Soviets had developed an atomic bomb. The Red Scare lasted well beyond the 1950s; I myself was hounded by radical anti-communists when I was in high school in the mid 1980s, despite the fact that I "was not, nor had I
ever been," a communist. (Of course, these accusations came from juvenile delinquents and a really sadistic gym teacher...)
As for rock 'n' roll... Well, Elvis Presley's career really took off in the 1950s. He mainly popularized for White audiences a musical form already well-known to Black audiences: rhythm & blues, which has the same roots as jazz, roots which include ragtime, which is a synthesis of traditional spirituals & social songs and European classical tradition... You can see that it's very difficult to pinpoint the exact origin of rock 'n' roll. It's equally difficult to tell when or if the musical form ever really ceased to be used in contemporary pop.
It can be argued that the Civil Rights Movement began centuries ago, when Quakers and other proto-Abolitionists would purchase African slaves specifically for the purpose of freeing them. And of course there were the Abolitionists of the Civil War. The Civil Rights Movement as we think of it today, began in 1955 with the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, and continued until after Martin Luther King's assassination in 1968. Some would say it continues to this day.
Cool cars! To tell the truth, most teens in the 1950s who drove cars, drove old jalopies that were hardly as stylish as the more pricey models we usually associate with the time. "Safe" designs were not a priority of auto manufacturers, and the chances of dying in an accident were much higher than they are now. The development of more powerful V-8 engines just made the situation worse.
Sexual repression. It's doubtful that the 1950s were much more repressed than most other decades when it came to sexual matters. However, changes did come about that, when contrasted with prevailing public attitudes toward sex, really show up the repression and ignorance that already existed. The rise of "juvenile delinquency," along with the relative privacy afforded by the increasingly-commonplace automobile, contributed to a rise in teen pregnancy and cases of venereal disease. Social guidance films, to be shown in classrooms, were made which provided a little sex education. However, none of them really came out and said exactly how those sperm find the egg, or how Johnny and Janey got VD, so they were not as effective as people hoped. Also, remember, words like "pregnant" and "diarrhea" were not allowed on television or in movies, making frank discussion of bodily functions difficult. There was a rise in anti-homosexuality that stemmed largely from the Red Scare; people were extra-sensitive to behavior considered "deviant."
And, of course, "B"-grade sci-fi movies! Actually, science-fiction movies date back to nearly the beginning of motion pictures, Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) and later Alexander (Zoltan) Korda's Things to Come (1936) being the two most famous examples. For every masterwork of speculative fiction, though, there are countless lackluster space operas that wind up forgotten in some film vault somewhere. This has held true ever since. In the 1950s, there was a rise in the number of sci-fi movies being made, mainly because they (or at least the space-opera type) appealed to the male teen-age audience, which increased at the time. Also, the genre lends itself easily to parables about the Cold War (1956's Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a shining example), which was in full swing.
Part II - GET YER POPCORN: AT THE MOVIES IN THE 1950s
This is divided into three broad categories: Society, Politics and Sex – three hot issues of the time. We'll look at them first within their historical context, then compare them to today's attitudes toward the same.
One thing that's very important to remember is that movies are products of their time. Even the most accurate "historical" movies contain embellishments to suit the preferences of the director or audience, who are usually more interested in making money or being entertained than in impartial historical veracity. The film Glory (1989) includes a bunch of inaccuracies that were thought to make it more entertaining, including modern-style slang used by the Black soldiers in the presence of Whites – apparently something that just didn't happen back in Civil War times, even in the North. Likewise, embellishments made in the 1950s tell us what was considered "marketable" at the time.
SOCIETY: Racism, Teens and The American Way
Racism: The 1950s witnessed several events that led to the Civil Rights Movement. However, Hollywood was not about to stand behind a movie in which Blacks and Whites (and other races) were treated as equals. Movies that dealt with racial issues were rare, and with the exception of Sidney Poitier, the main characters were almost always White. (See Appendix 1: Sidney Poitier in the 1950s) D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation (1915) had portrayed Blacks as downright evil, prompting the government to prohibit such depictions in the future, to prevent race riots. Ever since, Blacks were invariably shown either as servants, entertainers or comic stereotypes. Overt racism was not depicted, but the inequalities were there. Nowadays, this inequality would anger many viewers, of all races. Back then, though, racial segregation was a matter of fact, and such movies were not regarded as offensive, even by your "average" Black citizen.
Do we see such acceptance of racial stereotyping in the media today? To some degree, yes. Chris Rock and Eddie Murphy provide entertainment involving Black stereotypes that no White director would be able to get away with. The Simpsons' Apu is a stereotypical Indian convenience store clerk. Fortunately, Chris Rock's and Eddie Murphy's movies, as well as The Simpsons, contain a wide range of characters who are often as human as they are comic relief, and the buffoons come in all colors, sizes and shapes. In a context where no-one is held sacred, a modicum of racial typecasting is deemed acceptable by the target audience. People who are too easily bothered by racism find it offensive; racial bigots may find it too mild, or funny for the wrong reasons. And – I still often hear the expressions "gyp" and "Indian-giving" bandied about, both of which are negative actions attributed to ethnic groups (Roms, or Gypsies, and Native Americans).
The color barrier in effect in the 1950s, though largely broken down by Poitier and the Civil Rights Movement, was still standing even in 1968, when George Romero's Night of the Living Dead created a stir, not just for its then-graphic horror, but because its resourceful hero just happens to be a Black man. His skin color, furthermore, is not an issue at all – until the very end, when he's shot by a White posse out hunting for zombies, making the ending a weird sort of social commentary.
Teens: Being a teenager has meant different things at different times. Hormones, of course, are a constant, as well as adults' difficulties in coping with "kids these days." Some cultures would plunge children into adulthood at 12 or 13 (which is, biologically speaking, a good age for that – the childish behavior we see in American teens today is more of a cultural thing); some would send their teens on "walkabouts" or "vision quests" to initiate them into adulthood (if they survived). Most of Europe either sent their teens into trade or made them stay in school into their twenties at one time or another. America in the 1950s saw the start of the teenager as Americans view them today: minimal adult supervision, generally trying to either constantly have fun or do "adult" things, and usually getting in trouble for it. True, teens have always "been like that." But this fact became more visible and widely recognized in the 1940s and 1950s. A generalized overview of the previous few decades should help explain what teens had to deal with:
1900-1910 – End of child labor in the U.S..
1910-1920 – WWI; high-school age boys were sent off to fight; girls went to work for the Red Cross. So much for the teen years.
1920-1930 – The "Jazz Age." This was probably the first extended period of time during which teens had no forced labor or wars to occupy them. However, they were still treated for the most part as young adults; teenagers were not yet officially recognized as an entity unto themselves.
1930-1940 – The Great Depression. With money tight all around, teens had few of the previous generation's luxuries. The pressure to "get a job" was much higher.
1940-1950 – WWII; high-school age boys were sent off to fight; girls went to work for the Red Cross or in factories. So much for the teen years. However, for boys who failed the military's physical exams and girls who stayed home, it was the "start" of juvenile delinquency. (See Appendix 2: “Youth In Crisis” – page 236 of Mental Hygiene.)
1950-1960 – 1950-53 – Korean War, which ended in a stalemate. Afterward, there wasn't a war to preoccupy America's youth; their parents had grown up during the Great Depression and WWII, so 1920s hedonism just wasn't part of the culture; but the economy wasn't too bad and automobiles were becoming plentiful again. The independence the cars afforded encouraged teens to take risks – their home-town version of the previous decades' wartime shenanigans. Since many women in WWII had gone to work, a number of women in the 1950s held at least part-time jobs, leaving teens with less supervision than they'd otherwise have. Efforts to counter this included high-school home economics courses that encouraged young women to prepare themselves to become housewives. (This was also done because some people felt that allowing women to work was a threat to masculine "superiority." This imagined threat also extended to state-sponsored homophobia, epitomized by the McCarthy era. With the extra leisure time, young gays and lesbians were now able to enhance their own subculture, which really scared and infuriated homophobes!) Furthermore, the "juvenile delinquents" of WWII were still around, setting a new standard for teen misbehavior.
Of course, with teenagers starting to be recognized as a culture, it was inevitable that movies would try to cash in on their new target audience. Rock star Elvis Presley starred in one formula flick after another, drawing huge crowds of young fans who either wanted to see Elvis or be Elvis. The plots of these movies are nothing special; they are solely vehicles for the King to do his Thing.
Some movies were more serious. The other male teen idol, perhaps THE male teen idol, was James Dean. He's best known for starring as a misunderstood teenager in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). The movie, considered a landmark film, was probably the first to try to foster understanding between adults and teens. At least, it often seems that way. Modern audiences might find it a little heavy-handed, but it was considered quite remarkable in its time – heavy-handedness was not considered to be a problem in 1950s movies. James Dean's co-star in Rebel was Natalie Wood, who was probably closer to being THE female teen idol than anyone, although she hasn't inspired the near-cult-worship Dean commands. She lived longer, starring in several other important movies, including Splendor in the Grass and West Side Story (both 1961). She died
“Tonight… tonight…” Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer lip-synch in West Side Story.
in the very early 1980s of drowning. James Dean, however, went out in grander style, killing himself in a high-speed car crash in 1955, just prior to Rebel's release – and just after having filmed a “Kids, please drive safely” public service announcement as part of his community service for getting caught speeding! He has often been called "America's First Teenager," and in life and death he seemed to embody the recklessness that people of all ages began to associate with teens.
What of pre-teens? Cable-TV junkies can tune in to Leave It To Beaver for a look at pre-teen stereotypes. However, we have little idea of how accurate a portrayal this is. Although Hollywood sometimes attempted to address issues in a more realistic manner (Sidney Poitier's movies, Rebel Without a Cause), young children were not regarded as subjects for that. In TV shows, and consequently most movies, families were almost invariably White, with a full set of parents and one or more children. Dad was the breadwinner who worked at the office all day; Mom was cheerful and pretty and stayed home all day keeping the house spotless; Junior & Sis never got into more trouble than they or their parents could get them out of. Of course, this was the ideal, and may or may not have reflected real life for most people.
However, there was at least one attempt made to give American movie audiences a child villain. In 1956, a film was made based on William March's book The Bad Seed, which is about a little girl who turns out to be a cold-blooded serial killer. The book is still quite frightening. The movie was considered frightening in its day, but nowadays is quite ineffective as a horror movie. It's not so much the lack of gore as the stiff direction, overall cheap look and the "toned-down" ending. I won't give away how the book ends (You'll enjoy reading it on your own – keep the lights on!), but the movie finishes with the girl getting "properly" destroyed by lightning for no good reason – and then "resurrected" for the end credits, where she receives the spanking she soundly deserves for being a murderer. (I kid you not! Believe me, the book is much better.) The girl's polite behavior around people she's not in the process of killing is supposed to be expected of little girls of that time period, which is probably what made the movie so effective in 1956. Nowadays, any kid who acts so polite in a movie is automatically suspect!
Young Patty McCormack as Rhoda plots to kill off Nancy Kelly as Mom in The Bad Seed. Spare the rod, spoil the child.
The American Way: Aside from a few attempts to address racism and teenagerhood, Hollywood rarely challenged America's cultural beliefs, which were: The USA was #1, new technology would make our lives ever easier and solve our problems, and the nuclear family was the way families should be. People who dared to announce that there may be more than one right way, or that technology might not always be our friend, were subject to ridicule or worse (More on this in the next section, Politics & Paranoia). If someone wanted to challenge the status quo in a movie, they had to do so in a subtle way. Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956) is an example of this.
Go down, Moses… Charlton Heston back in the days when he relied on God, not guns, to get his point across.
The Ten Commandments? What does a Biblical epic about Moses freeing the Israelites from bondage in Egypt have to do with the American Way in the 1950s? Few caught this, but the Egyptians' obsession with building and accumulating wealth at the expense of the Israelites parallels soulless consumerism in the 1950s. The Egyptians became American consumers, constantly adding to their collection of toys and ignoring the plight of the poor (or the impoverished foreigners who made those new toys). This is why the film begins with scenes of the Pharaoh's vast building projects, and ends with Moses condemning the Israelites for worshipping the golden calf.
POLITICS & PARANOIA
Politically speaking, the 1950s was a paranoid time. Stalin became the premier of the Soviet Union and decided to start invading other countries in order to support the USSR's shaky economy. The USSR had been America's ally during the later part of WWII; but now she was viewed as a potential threat. Thus began a long, long era known as the "Cold War," during which neither the USA nor the USSR trusted each other. The fact that the USSR developed the means to build atomic and hydrogen bombs (just as the USA had done) only increased the fear level in the USA. Communism was now viewed, not as simply another form of government, but as a menace to be feared. In 1950 Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy started the "communist witch hunts" for which he's now infamous.
Recognizing the power of movies to influence people, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) attacked Hollywood first, ruining or very nearly ruining the careers of many actors and directors. Hollywood "caved in" by turning out a lot of anti-communist movies, many not really worth watching except for an embarrassed chuckle. The best of the bunch were dressed as science-fiction or fantasy, such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. (1953). Body Snatchers is about aliens who invade Earth by stealing human bodies; their hosts then go through life devoid of any emotion (Part of the red scare was the belief that communists could invade the USA by disguising themselves as ordinary citizens, and that they were brainwashed tools of the USSR). In Dr. T., based on a story by Dr. Seuss, a young boy dreams that he's been imprisoned in a castle run by his piano teacher, who is going to force him and 499 other boys to play the piano against their will. Despite a lot of nifty touches, there's a definite touch of political paranoia running through the movie. The boy's mother has been hypnotized by Dr. T. into assisting with his diabolical plot; it was widely accepted that communists used hypnosis to subvert people, or were hypnotized themselves. (1962’s The Manchurian Candidate, in which hypnotism and post-hypnotic suggestion are tools used to turn a man into a killing machine for the Communist Party, is another example.) In actuality, hypnosis doesn't work that way.
Facing a fetal Pod Person in Invasion of the Body Snatchers; the piano teacher of your nightmares in The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.; lovable Mrs. Potts (Angela Lansbury) as an evil mother in The Manchurian Candidate.
Some films inadvertently came across as pro-communist, or at least un-American, if one read too much into them. The classic Western High Noon (1952), starring Gary Cooper, based on the short story The Tin Star, is about a sheriff whose town fails to stand behind him when an outlaw calls him out for a showdown. (In the film, he's engaged to a woman who disapproves of his profession; in the story, his wife was murdered by the outlaw.) In disgust, and knowing that as sheriff he can't just have it out with the bad guy, he removes his badge and heads out alone to meet his nemesis. John Wayne saw this as the sheriff abandoning America and denounced the film as trash! That was not the director's intent.
Gary Cooper slugs it out in High Noon.
John Wayne, of course, usually played militantly pro-American types; in 1960 he was Davy Crockett in The Alamo, a simplistic, one-sided view of the event, which won 7 Academy Awards; and in 1962 (nearing the end of the Fifties) he starred in The Longest Day, about the D-Day invasion in WWII. Since over ten years had passed since the war, the film could feature real Germans playing German parts, and could portray them as humans instead of monsters. It could not do so with Russians, however, because the Cold War was in effect.
The Duke gets drunk in The Alamo, storms the beaches in The Longest Day.
Not all movies shared the red scare paranoia, however. Robert Wise's The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) is a still-relevant, if a little didactic, sci-fi parable about the need to set aside petty differences and realize that we are all human (and, hopefully, not alone in the cosmos). It makes no specific references to communists, and uses human paranoia sparingly enough to keep us from looking like complete idiots. Forbidden Planet (1956), an unusually grand space opera based on Shakespeare's play The Tempest, puts an interesting twist on the obligatory Bug-Eyed Monster (symbolic of alien threat) – the Monster in this instance is not from outer space, but from the subconscious of an otherwise intelligent man! In other words, our own paranoia is probably more dangerous than anything lurking beyond our shores. Rod Serling often made similar parables on his TV show The Twilight Zone, particularly in the episode "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," in which a small town is thrown into self-destructive chaos when a few lights go out (The fact that aliens are flipping the switches is somewhat irrelevant; they were added to make the lesson a little less un-subtle).
Gort & friends in The Day the Earth Stood Still; a young Leslie Nielsen defends Anne Francis with his naked gun in Forbidden Planet; the REAL monsters of Twilight Zone’s Maple Street.
In 1960, President Kennedy gave permission for the production of the film Spartacus, which had been blacklisted by HUAC for many years. Why ban an historical film about a slave revolt in pre-imperial Rome? HUAC had read the script and seen itself in the powerful, fearful Roman patricians. The Senator Crassus even sounds like Senator McCarthy listing his communists in the State Department: "Lists of the disloyal have been compiled!" Fortunately, by 1961, McCarthyism had been discredited, and it was a simple matter for Kennedy to give the movie an endorsement.
Kirk Douglas sports his cleft chin in Stanley Kubrick’s very un-Kubrickian Spartacus.
SEX!
Now that I have your attention... Well, suffice it to say that you'll see more nudity in films from the 1920s than from the 1950s; the Censorship Board was well-established, and the MPAA Ratings Board had yet to be established (Those are the folks who decide if a movie is rated "PG," etc.). Also, there were community standards to be met, and sex could only be hinted at in a mainstream movie. If teenagers "went too far" in a movie, their characters (especially the girl's) would suffer for it. Only married couples were supposed to have sex (but you couldn't show that in a movie, either, darn it).
However, before you decide that folks in the 1950s were all a bunch of repressed eunuchs, ponder this for a while: reported cases of VD rose sharply during the 1950s, despite the availability of penicillin. "Shotgun weddings" (situations where a guy is forced to marry a girl he's impregnated) were also more common than most people cared to admit. Extramarital sex was a problem, and, according to the Kinsey Reports (1948 and 1953), quite common. (The Kinsey Reports were two studies conducted by Prof. Alfred Kinsey, who interviewed "average" Americans about their sexual practices – he assured them of total anonymity, of course!) These reports also revealed that there was a larger homosexual population than previously thought. In an era of Red Scare paranoia, the thought of a "spread of homosexuality" didn't seem too far-fetched.
And "community standards" still exist today. Some subjects are still so taboo that it's illegal to show them in movies (although they may be mentioned in some contexts).
(Incidentally, there was pornography in the 1950s. It didn't become mainstream until Playboy magazine hit the newsstands in 1953 – but it would be many years before you could see that sort of thing in a movie at your local theater.)
Okay... how sexy could movies get, then? They could get quite sexy, actually, once you accepted certain cultural beliefs prevalent at the time. Doris Day starred in numerous trivial movies as the woman every man wants, and who promises everything – but only to the man who marries her. (Doesn't sound too bad to me!) Despite her sex symbol status, her characters were virginal until married; any woman character who was otherwise was regarded as "fallen."
Near the end of the 1950s, and into the early 1960s, there was Marilyn Monroe. At first she was cast in Doris Day-type roles, but as her career skyrocketed, she demanded – and received – more substantial parts. When Playboy magazine published some nude pictures of her, there seemed to be no point in pretending she was "virginal." However, her innocent and intelligent demeanor helped her to rise above the scandal one would expect. My personal favorite movie of hers is Some Like It Hot (1959); but it is the least characteristic of her movies. Tragically, her life was a horrible mess, and she died in 1962 of an overdose of barbiturates and alcohol. (There are rumors of a conspiracy to murder her, but they are probably just that: rumors.)
“I wanna be loved by you – just you, and nobody else but you…”
A few 1950s movies did attempt to discuss sexual topics. Tea and Sympathy (1956) is the story of a young man who is variously called "sensitive" and "sister-boy" for refusing to behave like a "regular guy." (The word "homosexual" was still taboo in movies.) Our only clues that he might be different are his introverted nature, neat habits and preference for poetry and classical music – something that may be uncharacteristic of most boys, but hardly a sign of homosexuality! He is pressured from all sides to conform, to act "regular." This is typical of 1950s movies. However – and this is the interesting bit – the guys who torment him are all portrayed as real jerks, who ultimately seem to be more interested in "male bonding" rituals than in spending time with their wives or girlfriends! Therefore, the audience sympathizes with our sensitive hero. Ultimately, he is proven to be "straight" when a married woman offers herself to him sexually, and he accepts. That may seem like a really weird (and to anyone with a shred of decency to them, kinda sicko) ending; but at the time it was more acceptable to prove him "straight" in this manner (after all, the woman is ignored by her macho husband) than to allow him to actually be homosexual and accept him like that. In the 1950s, homosexuality was still seen as a disease, and gays were subjected to all manner of indignities. This film attempts to make us feel sympathetic of the "different" guy – but not the gay guy... not just yet.
Deborah and John Kerr commit adultery to solve his problem in Tea and Sympathy.
In the film’s epilogue, the boy is happily married; the woman’s life was ruined by the affair.
Straight sex was the hot topic of 1961's Splendor in the Grass, which starred Natalie Wood. It's a now-tame movie about two teens who fall romantically in love but can't hold it all together in the face of parental pressure and "bad friends" who lead them astray. Pretty depressing subject, to be sure, which is probably part of what made it so controversial on its release. No-one had made a film like that in decades.
PART III – WHERE IT ALL WENT
SOCIETY
Racism: After 1965, Civil Rights became a given, and movies began to take a new direction as far as race was concerned. From 1965 through the mid-1970s, Blaxploitation movies became increasingly popular. The dignity imparted by actors like Sidney Poitier was supplanted by movies in which the Black man was an angry hood fighting White mobsters or authority figures.
However, Nichelle Nichols broke the color and gender barrier as Star Trek's Uhura – and enjoyed TV's very first interracial kiss (with William Shatner as Captain Kirk)! She was the first Black woman on TV who wasn't somebody's maid.
Nichelle Nichols as Lt. Uhura. She and Bill Shatner as Capt. Kirk made TV history in the classic Star Trek episode “Plato’s Stepchildren” with their interracial kiss. The viewers’ response? Overwhelmingly positive! Say what you will, Trekkies are by and large an enlightened bunch. Live long and prosper.
Teens: A plethora of "B"-grade teen flicks continued to be made, some didactic, some "relevant," most just exploitative.
The American Way: The Ten Commandments challenged materialism in a really subtle way. As movies that challenged racial stereotypes became more frequent and daring, it became more acceptable to openly question, examine and even reject societal values. In the 1950s, the automobile grew as a status symbol (It has regained this prominence in recent years); yet 1972's Harold and Maude ends with the young hero destroying his beloved car and embracing a value system based not on things, but on ideas and relationships. (The last great "car going over a cliff" scene in movies had been in Rebel Without a Cause, in which James Dean's rival / potential friend drives off a cliff and dies for exactly the opposite reason: to expose the folly of teen recklessness – and because his cool leather jacket gets caught on the door handle.) Of course, in later years, 1991's Thelma and Louise drove into the Grand Canyon to escape their male oppressors and a system that just doesn't understand. My personal favorite, though, is a jeep in 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark, which signifies nothing, but is just so much fun to watch!
Cliff-drop matte painting from Raiders of the Lost Ark. There’s something you don’t see every day!
POLITICS & PARANOIA
As it became fashionable to challenge "the establishment," the Cold War itself fell under scrutiny. Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (1964) lampoons the Cold War and comes to a terrifying conclusion: we could really destroy ourselves if we don't grow up a little. The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! (1966) makes a similar statement but ends happily, with the two factions putting aside their differences and working together to save a child's life. (1999's The Iron Giant has a similar theme, and even has almost identical scenes near the end. The book on which it's based was written in the late 1960s.)
The "mod" movement in Britain, coupled with the acceptance of a modicum of socialism there, and the subsequent "British Invasion" of America's pop culture during the late 1960s and early 1970s, allowed for a number of movies to appear that would have been banned as "un-American" in the McCarthy era.
SEX!
Movies became increasingly raunchier, leading to the MPAA ratings. The 1960s and 70s saw the end of homosexuality as a public menace, but did little to foster public understanding of it, making it a regular source of low-brow comedy. Movies treating homosexuality seriously and in a rational manner didn't appear until the 1980s.
As drugs, rock 'n' roll and Women's Liberation changed the way teens (and some adults) thought about "proper behavior" of ladies and gentlemen, movies began to reflect this change. Teenage sexuality became less a source of shame in movies, and more either matter-of-fact or a "fun thing to do." (It was rarely, if ever, regarded as the correct thing to do.) The oldest movie I can think of that says exactly what movies of the 1950s were wanting to say (that teen sex might not be such a good idea) is Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), in which a girl winds up pregnant and relationships fall apart over sex.
APPENDIX 1: SIDNEY POITIER IN THE 1950s
(NOTE: Mr. Poitier was born in the Bahamas in the late 1920s, the youngest child of tomato farmers. Although the Bahamas were ruled by a British colonial government, young Sidney knew nothing of racism until he went to Florida, USA to seek his fortune. He worked menial jobs, always pursuing an acting career despite having had no formal training. He mimicked radio stars’ voices in order to cover his Bahamian accent. As a young adult, he often ran afoul of the law because he was forever finding out about racial segregation the hard way. Ultimately, he landed an acting job, and went on to star in movies. His overall good looks and self-confidence made him ideal for directors seeking to make a positive statement about the Black condition.)
1950 – Poitier stars as Dr. Luther Brooks in No Way Out, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. The doctor struggles against racism on both a public and professional level. Although Black doctors had existed for many decades (though few and far between), this may have been the first time one was portrayed in a serious movie – and operating on a White person.
1951 – He plays Reverend Msimangu in Alexander (Zoltan) Korda’s British-made Cry, The Beloved Country, an indictment of South Africa’s apartheid (racial segregation) system, filmed in South Africa! In order to enter the country, he had to sign a paper indicating that he was Korda’s servant. Korda, also disgusted by racism, assured him that this was just a formality, and treated Poitier as an equal despite the fact that they were now “legally” master and servant.
Unfortunately, Hollywood still wasn’t “ready” to portray Blacks as people; Black actors could only get roles that had to be played by Blacks (butlers, chauffeurs, gardeners or maids). Poitier became outspoken about the unfair treatment. At Actors’ Equity meetings, he demanded that Black actors be given equal rights. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) placed a suspicious eye on him, but fortunately did not succeed in labeling him a communist.
1954 – Like all movie stars during HUAC’s witch-hunt, Poitier was asked to sign a “loyalty oath” saying he had no intentions of overthrowing the US government, before he could accept a role in Blackboard Jungle. He refused to sign the oath, but a compromise was reached enabling him to star in the film as high-school student Gregory Miller. (He was now in his early to mid-twenties; but the practice of having twenty-to-thirty-year-olds play high-school students in movies and on TV continues to this day, believe it or not.)
The State Department tried unsuccessfully to block the film’s distribution overseas, saying that it showed America in a bad light.
1955 – The Alabama bus boycott begins, and, under the auspices of Dr. Martin Luther King & Co., the Civil Rights Movement gets underway!
1957 – Poitier stars in a televised production of a Robert Alan play called A Man is Ten Feet Tall. It’s a story about two dockworkers, one Black, one White, whose friendship is threatened by a bullying bigot. Many enraged viewers protested after it was shown, complaining not about the play’s theme, but that Poitier’s character has a White girlfriend. (She was actually a light-skinned Black actress named Hilda Simms.)
1958 – He stars with Tony Curtis in The Defiant Ones, directed by Stanley Kramer. This is a racially-charged movie about two Southern convicts, one Black, one White, who escape but are chained together and have to rely on each other to survive.
1964 – His triumph as Homer Smith in Lilies of the Field, directed by Ralph Nelson. Poitier wins an Academy Award for his portrayal. Now he would begin to receive roles not specifically tailored for Blacks.
Despite playing Dr. John Prentice, who is engaged to a White woman in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? (1967), he did not get a romantic role (with kissing) until 1968 in For Love of Ivy – opposite Black actress Abbey Lincoln.
Alas, the only picture of Sidney Poitier I was able to lay my hands on is this still from Uptown Saturday Night (1974), which he also directed. Poitier is on the right; on the left is Bill Cosby!
APPENDIX 2: “YOUTH IN CRISIS”
Copied from the book Mental Hygiene: Classroom Films 1945-1970
By Ken Smith
This, as you can see below, dates back to 1943-44.
THE ASSIGNMENT: TWO ESSAYS
ESSAY #1
Watch a movie from the 1950s (1950-1965), paying close attention to the subject matter, dialogue, presentation and resolution. Look for things characteristic of the 1950s.
Then, write an essay, at least two pages long, telling how a director today might re-make the movie. What would remain the same? What would be changed to meet the expectations of today’s audiences – or to challenge those expectations? Who would you pick to direct the remake? Who would star?
Note: Be sure to start the essay with the name and release date of the original film! Tell us who directed and starred in it.
ESSAY #2
This will be the opposite of Essay #1. Identify a movie from the past few years – one that you saw and enjoyed, giving us the title, release date, director and starring actors. Then tell us how a director in the 1950s would have made this film. What would be different? What would remain the same? (Again, at least two pages long.)
You don’t have to name a 1950s director or actor, unless you know of someone who would be good for the job.
Good luck! J
SOURCES
Bergman, Carol. Sidney Poitier, Actor. Chelsea House Publishers, 1988
Carnes, Mark C. et al. Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies. Agincourt Press, 1995
Cotta Vaz, Mark and Shinji Hata. From Star Wars to Indiana Jones: The Best of the Lucasfilm Archives. Lucasfilm, Ltd., 1994
Giannetti, Louis. Understanding Movies, 5th edition. Prentice-Hall, 1990
Pesda, Dr. Jack. Lectures, 1-31-01 – 2-28-01
Smith, Ken. Mental Hygiene: Classroom Films 1945-1970. Blast Books, 1999
Star Trek: 30 Years. Paramount Pictures Corp., 1996
TV Guide: Star Trek Collector’s Edition. News America Publications, 1995
Vankin, Johnathan et al. The Big Book of Scandal. Paradox Press, 1997
Zicree, Marc Scott. The Twilight Zone Companion. Bantam Books, 1982
…and, of course, my vast, vast personal film library.