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--Te -- Foster Hirsch, Hardcover

A fascinating look at Hollywood's most turbulent decade and the demise of the studio system--set against the boom of the post-World War II years, the Cold War, and the atomic age--and the movies that reflected the seismic shifts

Hollywood in the 1950s was a period when the film industry both set conventions and broke norms and traditions--from Cinerama, CinemaScope, and VistaVision to the epic film and lavish musical. It was a decade that saw the rise of the anti-hero; the smoldering, the hidden, and the unspoken; teenagers gone wild in the streets; the sacred and the profane; the revolution of the Method; the socially conscious; the implosion of the studios; the end of the production code; and the invasion of the ultimate body snatcher: the "small screen" television.

Here is Eisenhower's America--seemingly complacent, conformity-ridden revealed in Vincente Minnelli's Father of the Bride, Walt Disney's Cinderella, and Brigadoon, among others.

And here is its darkening, resonant landscape, beset by conflict, discontent, and anxiety (The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Asphalt Jungle, A Place in the Sun, Touch of Evil, It Came From Outer Space) . . . an America on the verge of cultural, political and sexual revolt, busting up and breaking out (East of Eden, From Here to Eternity, On the Waterfront, Sweet Smell of Success, The Wild One, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Jailhouse Rock).

An important, riveting look at our nation at its peak as a world power and at the political, cultural, sexual upheavals it endured, reflected and explored in the quintessential American art form.

Author: Foster Hirsch
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Published: 10/10/2023
Pages: 672
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 2.25lbs
Size: 9.40h x 6.40w x 1.80d
ISBN: 9780307958921

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 05/01/2023 pg. 27
Kirkus Reviews 08/01/2023
Publishers Weekly 08/14/2023
Booklist 09/01/2023 pg. 23
Shelf Awareness 10/13/2023

About the Author
FOSTER HIRSCH is a professor of film at Brooklyn College and the author of sixteen books on film and theater, including Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King, The Dark Side of the Screen: Film Noir, and A Method to Their Madness: The History of the Actors Studio. He lives in New York City.