Movies from the 1950s

The Caine Mutiny (1954)

There was a great deal of interest right from the start in making a film of Herman Wouk’s 1951 novel The Caine Mutiny. Several studios tried to get a project off the ground, but always came up against the same stumbling block: the US Navy.

Like a lot of boaty types, the US Navy takes a dim view of mutiny, and they demanded major changes to this story of a mutiny on board a Navy vessel. Without these changes, there would be no Navy approval of the film, meaning no help, and no access to ships or other equipment for filming.

It was only after the novel won the Pulitzer Prize that the Navy began to relent, and even then, the filmmakers had to agree to place a disclaimer at the start of the movie, making it absolutely clear that There has never been a mutiny in a ship of the United States Navy.

The Ladykillers (1955)

The original 1955 Ealing film of The Ladykillers featured Alec Guinness as the leader of a band of robbers who find their plans scuppered by Mrs Wilberforce, an elderly widow. Alec Guinness also appears in a second, minor role in the film.

There’s a photograph on Mrs Wilberforce’s wall of her late husband, a captain who went down with his ship 29 years before. The picture is actually of Alec Guinness in his role as The Admiral in the earlier film Kind Hearts and Coronets (see below)—although you’ll notice that they must have doctored the portrait in order to reduce his rank.

Tarantula (1955)

In the mid 1950s, the young Clint Eastwood arrived in Hollywood, where he signed a contract with Universal (then known as Universal-International). What followed was a series of bit parts: he played a scientist in Revenge of the Creature (the sequel to The Creature from the Black Lagoon), and again in Never Say Goodbye; and had the promising-sounding role of “First Saxon” in Lady Godiva of Coventry.

Also in 1955, he took to the skies in a brief appearance as a fighter pilot leading a squadron into battle with a giant spider in Tarantula, a take on the giant-creature-on-the-rampage genre that maybe suffers in comparison to the previous year’s Them!, but does have its fans, and some nice FX.

The Man in the White Suit (1951)

When Sidney Stratton (Alec Guinness) invents a seemingly indestructible fibre in Ealing’s satire The Man in the White Suit, he soon finds himself on the run from capitalists and workers alike. Finding himself locked in the attic of one of the factory owner’s houses, he makes his escape by lowering himself to the ground on a single strand of his special fibre.

You might think that this was done by rotating the set 90 degrees, Batman style, but you’d be wrong: this stunt was done for real, with Alec Guinness lowered down the side of the building on a length of piano wire.

He was none to sure about this, pointing out that out that the wire, normally strong, would break easily if it had a kink in it, quoting his naval training, and requesting something a bit tougher for what would be a considerable descent. His protests were ignored, the wire attached to his belt, and they began lowering him down the side of the building…

… the wire did break, although not until almost the end of the shot, and one of Britain’s finest actors plummeted the last four feet to the ground.

“No one apologised,” he remembers in his autobiography, Blessings in Disguise. “They rarely do in films.”

The Trouble With Harry (1955)

Hitchcock’s disarming comedy The Trouble With Harry is based on a novel by Jack Trevor Story, which was set in England.

Transposing the story across the Atlantic, Hitchcock wanted to set it in a rural New England community, complete with Vermont’s golden autumn leaves. However, no sooner had they filmed a few establishing shots, than said golden leaves all fell off the trees (I suppose that’s why the Americans call it “fall”).

The production company relocated to a studio in California, but not before they’d collected and boxed up Vermont’s golden leaves. They took them across America, and carefully attached them, one by one, to the model trees on the soundstage.