50 Fun Facts About 1950s Movies

Which 1959 epic won a then-record eleven Academy Awards?

Its nine-minute chariot race used some of the 2,500 horses and 10,000 extras on the production.

Who co-directed and choreographed Singin' in the Rain with Stanley Donen?

MGM treated it as a routine musical and it was only a modest hit on release in 1952.

What transition in Hollywood history is Singin' in the Rain set during?

Producer Arthur Freed built it around his own back catalogue of songs written in that period.

Rebel Without a Cause was released how long after James Dean's fatal car crash?

It was the only one of his films in which he received top billing.

Which future Easy Rider star made his film debut in a minor role in Rebel Without a Cause?

He also appeared alongside Dean in Giant the following year.

Who plays the two musicians who disguise themselves as women in Some Like It Hot?

Wilder first wanted Sinatra for Jerry, and Jerry Lewis turned the part down because he would not do drag.

What is the famous final line of Some Like It Hot?

Osgood says it after Jerry finally admits he is a man.

Which 1958 Hitchcock film was the first to use the disorienting dolly zoom?

It conveyed Scottie's fear of heights and received mixed reviews before becoming Hitchcock's magnum opus.

In which city is Hitchcock's 1958 film about a detective with a fear of heights set?

Mission San Juan Bautista and the redwoods of Big Basin also appear.

Rear Window is shot almost entirely from where?

Made for $1 million, it grossed $27 million on first release.

Who designed the opening title sequence of North by Northwest?

It was the first film to make extended use of kinetic typography in its credits.

Which crime novelist's 1950 book did Hitchcock adapt as Strangers on a Train?

Raymond Chandler worked on the screenplay; the plot hinges on two men "exchanging" murders.

Dial M for Murder was originally intended to be shown in what format?

By its 1954 release interest in 3D had faded, so most cinemas showed it flat.

Sunset Boulevard stars Gloria Swanson as which faded silent star?

Cecil B. DeMille and Buster Keaton appear as themselves in the film.

What Oscar record did All About Eve set when it was nominated 14 times?

Bette Davis and Anne Baxter competed for Best Actress, Celeste Holm and Thelma Ritter for Supporting.

Which composer wrote his only original film score for On the Waterfront?

The film won eight Oscars, including Best Actor for Marlon Brando.

On the Waterfront deals with corruption among which workers?

It was inspired by a Pulitzer-winning New York Sun series on the Hoboken docks.

Who played Stanley Kowalski in the 1951 film of A Streetcar Named Desire?

He, Kim Hunter and Karl Malden reprised their Broadway roles; Vivien Leigh replaced Jessica Tandy.

What distinctive structural device does High Noon use?

Gary Cooper won Best Actor as the marshal waiting for a gang of killers.

Which film did the American Film Institute name the greatest American Western in 2008?

John Wayne spends years hunting for his abducted niece, played by Natalie Wood.

Shane is set during which real conflict between homesteaders and ranchers?

Alan Ladd's drifter turns out to be a gunfighter; Jack Palance plays the hired killer.

For The Quiet Man, John Ford won his record how-manyeth Best Director Oscar?

No other director has won more than three.

Seven Samurai's farmers hire the samurai to defend against whom?

At ¥210 million it was the most expensive Japanese film made to that point.

Rashomon's story comes from which author's short stories "In a Grove" and "Rashōmon"?

Several witnesses give contradictory accounts of a samurai's murder in a forest.

In The Seventh Seal, what game does the knight play against Death?

Max von Sydow's Antonius Block is returning from the Crusades to a Sweden ravaged by plague.

Who is the only actor ever to win Best Actor for The African Queen, his sole Oscar?

Katharine Hepburn co-starred under John Huston's direction in Technicolor.

Roman Holiday's blacklisted screenwriter only received full credit in 2011; who was he?

Ian McLellan Hunter fronted for him when the film won the Oscar for Best Story.

Which Frenchman who spoke no English won the screenplay Oscar for River Kwai?

The real writers, Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, were blacklisted and got their Oscars posthumously.

From Here to Eternity is set on which US territory in the months before Pearl Harbor?

Frank Sinatra and Donna Reed both won supporting Oscars, and the beach kiss became notorious.

Which 1955 Best Picture also won the Palme d'Or, a double matched only three times since?

Ernest Borgnine won Best Actor in Paddy Chayefsky's expansion of his own teleplay.

Gigi won all nine of its Oscar nominations; which film later matched the clean sweep?

The Return of the King beat both by winning all eleven of its nominations in 2004.

Which 1956 film saves its six-minute animated title sequence for the very end?

Mike Todd's production starred David Niven and Cantinflas and won five Oscars.

Who plays Rameses opposite Charlton Heston's Moses in The Ten Commandments?

The same year Brynner won Best Actor as the King of Siam in The King and I.

Which 1954 film was the first released in Paramount's VistaVision widescreen process?

The process used twice the surface area of standard 35mm film.

Who is the mysterious clown who never removes his makeup in The Greatest Show on Earth?

Cecil B. DeMille's circus drama won Best Picture over High Noon and The Quiet Man.

In Harvey, what is the title character?

James Stewart's Elwood P. Dowd insists the púca is real while his sister tries to have him committed.

Blackboard Jungle was the first film to use which Bill Haley song, sparking cinema riots?

Sidney Poitier had his breakout role as a rebellious but musically gifted student.

What is the name of Lee Marvin's rival motorcycle gang in The Wild One?

The film was inspired by a 1947 rally in Hollister, California that got out of hand.

Who made his feature directing debut with 12 Angry Men?

Henry Fonda co-produced and starred; it was adapted from Reginald Rose's 1954 teleplay.

Which real lawyer who faced down McCarthy played the judge in Anatomy of a Murder?

Duke Ellington scored the film and appears in it.

In which real London court is Witness for the Prosecution set?

Billy Wilder's film was the first screen adaptation of the Agatha Christie play.

Why could Stanley Kubrick not film Paths of Glory in France?

Douglas plays Colonel Dax defending soldiers who refused a suicidal World War I attack.

Who plays the murderous preacher Harry Powell in The Night of the Hunter?

It was actor Charles Laughton's only film as director.

Who starred as a disfigured sculptor in House of Wax, the first major colour 3D feature?

It was also the first 3D film with stereophonic sound shown in a regular theatre.

Which 1954 film was the first 1950s monster movie to feature giant bugs as the threat?

Irradiated ants from the New Mexico desert end up in the storm drains of Los Angeles.

What did effects artist Eiji Tsuburaya originally propose as the monster in Godzilla?

The filmmakers settled on a dinosaur-like creature and pioneered "suitmation" with a performer in a suit.

Which future star had his first leading role in The Blob?

The amoeboid alien lands near Phoenixville and Downingtown, Pennsylvania.

Forbidden Planet is often considered a loose adaptation of which Shakespeare play?

It was the first sci-fi film to show humans in a faster-than-light starship of their own making.

What was Disney's 1950 Cinderella credited with doing for the studio?

By 1947 the studio was over $4 million in debt after wartime losses and flops like Pinocchio and Fantasia.

Which 1959 Disney film was the first animated feature in Super Technirama 70 widescreen?

It took nearly a decade and $6 million, and its score was based on Tchaikovsky's ballet.