Keep watching the skies - The New York Times looks back at 50s Sci Fi films in anticipation of Alien Trespass, the new film from X-Files veteran R.K. Goodwin. One or two of those classics haven't even been remade yet!
posted by Artw on Mar 28, 2009 - 19 comments

If you can make it through the glacially paced intro and can put up with the typically clunky, often laughable and jingoistic fifties-style narration, this 1958 film from Chevrolet, The American Look is worth viewing. Chock full of futuristic telephones, toasters, blenders, office machines, architecture and more, it's a mid-century design lover's dream. The film is visually striking and elegant, and presented in widescreen format. Here's part 2 and part 3. Or see it here in its entirety. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite on May 12, 2008 - 15 comments

The pictures that horrified America - how comic books tipped 50s America into a moral panic. [more inside]
posted by Artw on May 8, 2008 - 51 comments

50 years ago , it was the era of Sputnik, nuclear power, decolonisation, European vows of ever closer union, transistor radios, cars for the masses, and Hula Hoops. What better time to hold a damn big party? [more inside]
posted by Skeptic on Apr 17, 2008 - 9 comments

Hey daddy-o, when you hear that big brash horn section pump out that oddly familiar riff, only to stop cold and make way for that that prescient single note from an electric guitar, followed straightaway by a twangy voice in perfect rockabilly delivery proclaiming "well, she's got a dress that looks like a sack!", then brother, you're listening to the hoppin' boppin' sound of Wally Deane's Drag On. Once you hear it, you'll wonder why Quentin Tarrantino never put it in a movie. Wally Deane: one of the greatest rockabilly acts you never heard of.
posted by flapjax at midnite on Dec 8, 2007 - 21 comments

Scans from On Becoming a Woman by Harold Shryock, M.A., M.D. (1906-2004).
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Apr 7, 2007 - 24 comments

Spots Before Your Eyes, an award-winning series of animated shorts promoting tolerance and human relations, produced in the 1950s by the American Jewish Committee (at AJC Archives)
posted by LinusMines on Jan 6, 2007 - 4 comments

Alum Falls Ohio. 'An original comic about growing up in the Fifties.'
posted by plep on Nov 30, 2003 - 5 comments

Collection of retro pin-up art from the 40's and 50's.
posted by crunchland on Aug 2, 2003 - 4 comments