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Original Message
Yeah, the 50's were booming, but mostly for TV.
Posted by Audiophilander on May 15, 2019 at 00:59:50:
B&W movies were still much cheaper to produce especially with theater attendance dropping. To save production costs most studios opted for B&W over color except for the most prestigious budgeted productions, but that was more of a band-aid.
TV had the greatest impact on dwindling theater attendances. The number of local movie theaters fell dramatically in the 1950's. Most families found it more convenient and much cheaper ...after the initial cost of buying a television set... to stay at home and let TV programming entertain the family. The biggest accomplishment filmmakers concocted to bring folks back to the cinema were various widescreen technologies along with science fiction & horror films that teenagers could groove on.
Studios successfully marketed films that appealed to younger audiences who wanted to get out from under their parent's watchful eyes. This is also why drive-in theaters were the rage in the 50's for dating.
I'm assuming that many/most filmmakers ...even today... are generally influenced to make movies with some degree of nostalgia for the classic films they watched in their youth or grew to appreciate through festivals and film school classes. But you're right, the nuclear scare throughout the 1950's and paranoia about external threats to democracy played heavily on folk's minds and are reflected in the films that were made then.
Cheers,
AuPh