Al Jolson
https://youtu.be/KD_YRnuuKyY Al Jolson, born Asa Yoelson, was an American singer, comedian, and actor who lived from 1886-1950. In the 1920s, Jolson was immensely popular as America's highest-paid entertainer. In 1927 Jolson starred in The Jazz Singer, the...
read more
King Solomon’s Mines
https://youtu.be/tmXgC7k-QB0 King Solomon's Mines was a popular novel written by the English adventure writer Sir H. Rider Haggard in 1885 that is often considered to be the origin of the lost world literary genre. The 1950...
read more
Marilyn Monroe
https://youtu.be/SKhyLCjIpvw SOURCE: Wikipedia Born Norma Jeane Mortenson in 1926, she began working as a model in 1944 using the name Jean Norman. By 1946, she had appeared on 33 magazine covers for publications such as Pageant, U.S. Camera, Laff, and Peek. In 1946...
read more
Father of the Bride
https://youtu.be/ok7pNklkNhA IN 1950 director Vincente Minelli's comedy Father of the Bride (adapted from a book of the same title by Edward Streeter) told the story of a man (Spencer Tracy) dealing with his daughter's upcoming wedding. The cast...
read more
R.I.P. Doris Day
https://youtu.be/D0MtzQDltr0 Doris Day, the freckle-faced movie actress whose irrepressible personality and golden voice made her America’s top box-office star in the early 1960s, died on Monday at her home in Carmel Valley, Calif. She was 97. ~ NY Times May 13, 2019...
read more
Review of The Year
https://youtu.be/9RIJ4HkAaeg This interesting review of the year 1949 seeps Cold War energy. Cost of Living 1949 Average Cost of new house $7,450.00 Average wages per year $2,950.00 Cost of a gallon of Gas 17 cents Average Cost of a new car...
read more
First North Korean Movie
https://youtu.be/Y-UPCSf6WkQ In 1949, with Soviet financial and technical assistance, Kang Hong-sik directed My Home Village, the first film made in the new Democratic People’s People’s Republic of Korea. Gwan Pil, a poor farmer is deprived of his land by an...
read more
Death of a Salesman
#Death of a Salesman, a play by Arthur Miller, won the Pulitzer prize for drama in 1949.
read more
Bollywood
https://youtu.be/o7A16HvlbQw This clip is from Barsaat, a 1949 Bollywood film directed by Raj Kapoor. The film stars the famous duo of Kapoor and Nargis as well as Prem Nath. Barsaat, one of the first major hit films directed by Kapoor,...
read more
Casper the Friendly Ghost
Casper, The Friendly Ghost, a fascinating post-WWII cartoon creation, first appeared in a 1939 children's book and several animated cartoons in 1945. In 1950-59, he was serialized in theatrical shorts before Harvey Comics bought the rights...
read more
Drunken Angel
The 1948 Japanese film Drunken Angel (醉いどれ天使), about and alcoholic physician and his yakuza patient, was the first collaboration between the director Akira Kurosawa and actor Toshiro Mifune. Released during the American occupation in Japan, the screenplay was...
read more
Superman
The first live-action Superman movie serial, released in 1948 was the most profitable movie serial in history. Created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, Superman first appeared in Action Comics in 1938. Paramount Pictures released...
read more
Tales of the South Pacific
In 1948 James Michener won the Pulitzer Prize for his series of short stories entitled Tales of the South Pacific. Derived from his experience with the US Navy in the New Hebrides Islands during the Pacific Campaign of World War II, the fascinating stories focus on...
read more
Miracle On 34TH Street
Miracle on 34th Street was a 1947 film written and directed by George Seaton and based on a story by Valentine Davies. It stars Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, a very young Natalie Wood and Edmund Gwenn as the charming Kris Kringle. The heartwarming story, about a...
read more
Brigadoon
Brigadoon, a musical by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, premiered on Broadway in 1947 and ran for 581 performances. A 1954 film version starred Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse, and a 1966 television version starred Robert Goulet and Peter Falk. In the show,...
read more
Kon-Tiki
Inspired by reports from Spanish Conquistadors of Inca rafts, native legends and archaeological evidence suggesting contact between South America and Polynesia, the Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl. made a balsa wood raft journey across the Pacific...
read more
Hollywood Black List
In October 1947 the House Un-American Activities Committee (created in 1938) re-convened in Washington D.C. for public hearings on alleged communist infiltration within the American motion picture industry. 50 top Hollywood executives decided to suspend those who...
read more
Post-WWII USSR
Here is an optimistic view of postwar relationships between Great Britain and the USSR. To get a sense of life in the USSR in 1947 it's worth fast forwarding through these interesting, rather upbeat color scenes of everyday life. You don't need to...
read more
Mickey Spillaine
Frank Morrison Spillane (March 9, 1918 – July 17, 2006), better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American cartoonist turned crime novelist, who wrote from the point of view of a private detective named Mike Hammer. "Bestselling writer of shoot-em-up crime novels" is...
read more
It’s A Wonderful Life
After a series of populist films in the 1930s (It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and You Can't Take It With You), Frank Capra read a forgotten story entitled The Greatest Gift written by Philip Van Doren Stern and...
read more
Song of the South
Song of the South was produced by Walt Disney in 1946 as a live-action/animated musical based on African-American folktales compiled by Joel Chandler Harris in 1881 in the book Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings: The Folk-Lore of the Old Plantation. The...
read more
Postwar Hiroshima & Nagasaki
This home movie really took me there. Although grainy, watch this short film clip of 8mm home movies taken by U.S. Army Major Morris Hall during a 3-month tour of Japan less than a year after surrender. Filming with an 8mm home movie camera, Major Hall...
read more
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Best Years of Our Lives was a 1946 film directed by William Wyler that starred Myrna Loy, Fredric March, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo, and Harold Russell. The film tells the story of three United States servicemen readjusting to civilian life after...
read more
The Great Glinka
The Great Glinka (Глинка) was a 1946 Soviet film directed by Lev Arnshtam. Awarded the Stalin Prize, the film depicts the life of Mikhail Glinka, a Russian composer of the 19th century. Incorporating Russian folk songs into his compositions, Glinka, despite...
read more
Cannes Film Festival
Although originally scheduled to be held in Cannes in 1939, the outbreak of WWII delayed the opening of the first International Film Festival until September 1946 when twenty-one countries presented their films. Held on the French Riviera, the festival was...
read more