British Movies of the 1950’s

British movies of the 1950’s declined from the memorable prestigious war era movies, and started to swing to comedies. There were many films produced in the 1950’s and in the early part of the fifties post war movies were still being produced but they were aimed at a domestic audience and often based on true stories, such as The Dam Busters (1954), The Cruel Sea (1953) The Colditz Story (19955) and Reach for the Sky (1956).

The Rank organization was in deep competition against London Films. This competition produced many memorable films. In these years, the movie producers had to learn to make their movies appealing not only to British viewers but to other countries as well. The Rank Organization began their more memorable comedy series which included the St Trinians films and the Doctor series, which began with Doctor in the House in 1954. Dirk Bogard started in this movie and was probably the most popular British actor of the 1950’s, but was later replaced by Michael Craig and Leslie Phillips. This series continued until 1970.

The Rank Organization also produced other memorable comedies such as Genevieve in 1953. Competition from a

new medium was also on the rise. This was the coming of television. This changed the wide screen format to themes more appropriate for the home and family for a viewing time of thirty minutes or one hour. Proper pauses and cuts were also incorporated to allow for commercial and sponsor messages. It was during the 1950’s that British movie writer/director/producers made a string of successful satires of British Life and institutions. Private Progress(1956) was the first and then they went on to create Brothers in Law (1957) I’m all right Jack (1959). Ealing Studios closed its doors in 1958 after producing popular movies such as The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953) and The Lady Killers (1955) along with other popular dramas. Once Ealing Studio closed it’s doors the studios were taken over by BBC for their television productions.

Towards the end of the1950’s censorship was becoming less stringent this enabled B-movie producer Hammer Films to start their series of hugely popular horror movies, which started with the black and white The Quatermass Experiment (1955) and then Quatermass II (1957). Hammer quickly produced the color version of Frankenstein, Dracula and The Mummy. These were enormously popular and led the way to a string of horror movies made in Britain that continued until the early 1970’s. From this high demand began specific companies to meet this need such as Amicus Productions and Tigon British. British movies of the 1950's paved the way for the swinging sixties and the start of the sexual revolution in culture and the movie screen.