Sunday, September 28, 2008
THIS FABULOUS DECADE
Killed in his car at dusk on September 30, 1955, kids made James Dean the focal point of rebellion and fighting conformity. His most famous movie, "Rebel Without A Cause", summed up his image.
Deepies, Davy and Chalypso?
1952 - The movie industry lost half of their audience to TV.
The bait - 3-D or "deepies", three dimensional effect movies viewed through Polaroid glasses designed to refocus two impressions into a single object. The first full length "deepie" 'Bwana Devil', featured man-eating lions harassing railroad builders in Africa. Movie goers loved the optical illusion of beasts that seem to leap right off the screen. Premiering Nov. 26, 1952, it broke box office records and $95,000 in ticket sales the first week. The fad died within a year under the weight its own dreary movie plots.
Davy Crockett portraied by Fess Parker premiered Dec. 15, 1954 on TV's Disneyland to an audience of 40 million. A $100 million market for coonskin caps and 4 million records of "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" followed. An enterprising merchant stuck with 200,000 pup tents, stenciled Davy Crockett on them and sold out in 2 days. By July, 1955 Crockett items began to pile up in stores. One salesman moaned, "Kids are more fickle than women."
1957 "American Bandstand" premiered. Twenty million weekday viewers watched the latest dance crazes - the Hand Jive and Bop. The "regular" dancers invented three dances: the Stroll, the Circle and a modified cha-cha they called the Chalypso. Visiting dance couples were labeled "the amateurs."
Check back for a look at:
The "green" fad of '52,
Uranium,
Think Pink,
Top records of 1950
Deepies, Davy and Chalypso?
1952 - The movie industry lost half of their audience to TV.
The bait - 3-D or "deepies", three dimensional effect movies viewed through Polaroid glasses designed to refocus two impressions into a single object. The first full length "deepie" 'Bwana Devil', featured man-eating lions harassing railroad builders in Africa. Movie goers loved the optical illusion of beasts that seem to leap right off the screen. Premiering Nov. 26, 1952, it broke box office records and $95,000 in ticket sales the first week. The fad died within a year under the weight its own dreary movie plots.
Davy Crockett portraied by Fess Parker premiered Dec. 15, 1954 on TV's Disneyland to an audience of 40 million. A $100 million market for coonskin caps and 4 million records of "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" followed. An enterprising merchant stuck with 200,000 pup tents, stenciled Davy Crockett on them and sold out in 2 days. By July, 1955 Crockett items began to pile up in stores. One salesman moaned, "Kids are more fickle than women."
1957 "American Bandstand" premiered. Twenty million weekday viewers watched the latest dance crazes - the Hand Jive and Bop. The "regular" dancers invented three dances: the Stroll, the Circle and a modified cha-cha they called the Chalypso. Visiting dance couples were labeled "the amateurs."
Check back for a look at:
The "green" fad of '52,
Uranium,
Think Pink,
Top records of 1950
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