Film Forum

The 1950s were a time when Congress held hearings on Communists in the movie industry; when left-leaning writers, directors, and actors were blacklisted; when the major studios were divested of their lucrative theater chains; when the studio system began to crumble; and when the movie industry faced its biggest threat of all: TV. In high-defense mode, the majors ballyhoo-ed new technologies (3-D and CinemaScope chief among them), a whole new generation of actors and icons, and even a new acting style, the Method, along with new, more adult subject matter, sometimes re-inventing the melodrama, comedy, Film Noir, the movie musical, and the historical epic, and filtering political allegories through Westerns and science fiction.

The festival is programmed by Film Forum's Repertory Artistic Director Bruce Goldstein and film historian Foster Hirsch, author of the new book Hollywood and the Movies of the Fifties: The Collapse of the Studio System, the Thrill of Cinerama, and the Invasion of the Ultimate Body Snatcher — Television, which will be published by Knopf on October 10). Mr. Hirsch will appear for several introductions and special events during the festival.  

With support from the Robert Jolin Osborne Fund for American Classic Cinema of the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s

Films in this Series