Re-viewing the Long Fifties: Popular Genre Films and American Culture

By

Jared WalskeMay 2015

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for theMaster of Arts in History

Dual-Degree Program in History and Archives ManagementSimmons College

Boston, Massachusetts

The author grants Simmons College permission to include this thesis in its Library and to make it available to the academic community for scholarly purposes.

Submitted by

Jared Walske

Approved by:

______ Laura R. Prieto Katherine M. WisserProfessor Assistant Professor

© 2015, Jared Walske

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 1

Introduction 2

Chapter One: Gender and Masculinity 10

Chapter Two: Gender and Femininity 23

Chapter Three: Race and Race Relations 31

Chapter Four: Urban, Suburban, and Rural Life 40

Chapter Five: Society, Politics, and Authority 52

Conclusion 60

Appendix: Brief Summaries of the Films and Books 63

Bibliography 70

1

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Laura Prieto, my thesis advisor and first reader, and Katherine Wisser, my second reader, for all of the help, advice and support they gave me while working on this thesis. I enjoyed hearing and reading your thoughts on the topic and my writing and could not have produced this work without your help. I would also like to thank Richard Canedo for teaching the Cold War Culture class that helped inspire this thesis and for encouraging me to write the paper on film noir that became the basis for my thesis topic.

I would like to thank my friends, family, and Natasha, my girlfriend for supporting me through the writing process and listening to me babble about movies they were only vaguely familiar with and try to articulate a complicated topic in a succinate way. I love you all, you’re the best.

2

Introduction

The Long Fifties, the period in American history between the end of World War II and

the assassination of John F. Kennedy, was an era marked by widespread political and social

conservative in mainstream culture. Media that was perceived as critical of, or just different

from, the accepted norms of the period, whether they be music, television, or comic books, was

demonized in the eyes of the public. This could take the form of being denounced as corrosive

and dangerous by moral watchdog groups like the Legion of Decency, getting condemned in the

press for the ideology the media expresses, or having its advertising in wide-reaching venues like

national television pulled because of the media’s content. While there was media that allowed for

more freedom to openly critique the standards of the day, such as the theater, it was much more

difficult to include critical narratives within more mainstream forms of art and entertainment like

movies and books.

However, not all styles of media were given the same level of scrutiny. Genre movies,

such as science fiction, noir, and westerns, were seen by most of the public as only a form of

entertainment and not as a vehicle for deeper social or cultural commentary. As a consequence,

movies made in these styles could often include content and ideas that would have received more

negative public attention in a genre that were taken more seriously, such as straightforward

dramas.

This thesis will explore how genre films from the Long Fifties were able to use their

position as critically ignored cinema to comment on contemporary society without drawing much

negative attention. I will examine how these films presented their critiques of the culture of the

period and what kind of counter message they are trying to get across to their audience. This will

include examples where movies question gender norms about how men and women were

3

supposed to behave in American society and whether or not these norms were ultimately

beneficial to men or women; issues surrounding race and the relationship between members of

different races, especially between white American and Native Americans; portrayals of life in

population centers such as cities, suburbs, and towns, with an emphasis on the flaws and

corrosive elements that inherently are present within these place; and issues surrounding society,

politics and the role of authority and authority figures, particularly when these powerful forces

fail to behave in the way people expected them to do or abuse their power to their own ends.

In addition, I will also look at how these movies do not challenge the status quo of the era

and help reinforce the mainstream norms of American society during the Long Fifties. This will

illustrate how even these films, which wanted to illustrate the problems with the mainstream

attitudes of the day, were not necessarily interested in commenting on the exact same issues,

leading the multiple and often conflicting viewpoints seen within cinema from the period. I will

also make a distinction between films that seem to deliberately criticizing the standards of the era

and ones that can be interpreted as critical, but may have included these elements as a way to

progress the story rather than as a significant point in their own right. In addition, I will focus on

films that had been adapted from a preexisting written source, whether novel, serial, or short

story. By comparing the two versions of these stories, I can see what changed during the

adaptation process and how that affected the story’s critique of the Long Fifties.

I will also address why these films were able to make their critiques and not receive the

kind of attention that they may have otherwise. While not all of the films discussed here were

cheaply made or ignored when they came out, all of them belong to genres that were generally

perceived as being escapist entertainment without any redeeming social value or content. This

can be seen in reviews of the films from the period (assuming the film in question was reviewed

4

by any major newspaper or magazine in the first place), which often dismissed the films as being

pure entertainment, even if the reviewer felt the movie was good in other ways. Given the

predisposition to write off genre movies like westerns, noirs, and science fiction films as being

nothing more than their surface level elements, their genres provided a kind of cover for the

more troubling or subversive ideas that were often contained within these films. I will argue that,

as a result of this assumption, the filmmakers were able to get away with putting content into

their films that may have gained more negative attention if they were put into a more respectable

film genre instead. This shows that, far from being the monolithic and homogeneous culture seen

in common memory, the America of the Long Fifties did have a place for cinema that went

against the grain, even if it had to disguise this fact to do so.

Prior to more significant critical scholarship discussed below, the first critical pieces of

any kind written on these movies and books comes in the form of reviews written at the time of

their initial release. A common factor in these early reviews is the reviewer's assumption that

films will be, at best, entertaining, but lacking in any real significant themes or content worth

discussing in depth. Out of the nine movies discussed in this thesis, only High Noon received

reviews that mentioned any deeper themes that the movie might have, as the reviews it received

in the New York Times and Time magazine both address the themes of democracy and citizenship

that the film contains.1 Even in those cases, however, those elements are only mentioned briefly

and in passing and most of the review focuses on the acting and direction rather than major

themes. The rest of the reviews, whether positive or negative, usually just focus on how

entertaining the movie is and whether it is worth seeing in those terms. A telling example can be

seen in A. H. Weiler’s review of The War of the Worlds, which highlights how well made and

1 Crowther, Bosley, “A Western Legend,” New York Times (1923-Current File), August 03, 1952, http://search.proquest.com/docview/112464024; "The New Pictures." Time 60, no. 2 (July 14, 1952): 94. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.

5

entertaining the movie, but still concludes that the film is just “hokum of the highest order.”2 In

addition, a few of the films did not even merit a review in the eyes of some papers. Time did not

publish a review for The War of the Worlds and neither Time nor the New York Times found Kiss

Me Deadly or Invasion of the Body Snatchers worth reviewing. Reviews for the book versions of

these stories follows a similar pattern. Of the novels that were reviewed, they generally just

mention the plot and overall quality of the book and spend little time examining any deeper

themes the stories may contain. Beyond this, a few of the stories did not get reviewed, though it

is unclear if this was because of the newspapers deliberately ignoring them or simply an

oversight on their part.

This attitude towards these stories, however, did not stay this way indefinitely. While

film studies did exist during the Long Fifties, it was not identical to the academic field we are

familiar with today. The primary research and thinking on film was done outside of academic

institutions. This included a number of ambitious professional film critics, like auteur theory

creator Andrew Sarris, or by academics from outside of films studies, such as art historian Erwin

Panofsky. In addition, serious thinkers from the period had a generally negative opinion about

contemporary popular culture. At best, they saw film as a representative example of American

Cold War culture that they could get away with criticizing while still claiming that they were

loyal to America’s political status quo. One notable example of this is Hortense Powdermaker’s

attempts to apply dismissive ethnographic techniques to the population of Los Angeles, which

lead her to conclude that the city was too empty and fake to gather any useful information from.3

2 Weiler, A. H., "Scanning Some Small Wonders." New York Times (1923-Current File), August 23, 1953. http://search.proquest.com/docview/1125895643 Dana Polan, "North America," in The SAGE Handbook of Film Studies, ed. James Donald and Michael Renov (London: SAGE Publications Ltd., 2008), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781849200400.n1.

6

This attitude, however, began to change over the course of the 1950s and 1960s and by

the late 1960s and early 1970s, the modern academic form of film studies had taken shape. As a

consequence, scholars became more willing to reexamine films that had previously been written

off as nothing more than pure entertainment and seeing if they reflected the concerns of their age

or contained messages out that did not conform to the widely held opinions of their era.4 This

even extended to the often ignored or dismissed genre movies discussed in this thesis.

With this change, criticism about these films frequently focused on how the films

illustrated the anxieties and concerns of the Long Fifties and contained viewpoints critical of the

accepted values of the period. While there is a significant volume of writing on this topic in

general, not all of the films discussed here received the same volume of criticism. Some of the

films have received extensive analysis in multiple venues. For example, The Searchers has had a

significant amount of literature written about it over the years, often focused on the film’s

attitudes and portrayals of race. Invasion of the Body Snatchers has had extensive criticism

written about its portrayal of Cold War paranoia and the film’s aliens being a metaphor for a

variety of attitudes from the period by critics and writers such as Stuart Samuels, Barry Keith

Grant, and Stephen King.5 Kiss Me Deadly has received much analysis about the film’s portrayal

of Mike Hammer versus his book counterpart, and how that fits into its critique of Cold War

America, as well as the significance of the atomic bomb at in the film’s climax.

Conversely, other film have received much less critical attention. The Beast From 20,000

Fathoms and Asphalt Jungle get discussed in several articles and books, but are rarely the

primary focus, which is usually centered around either the genre of the films or a specific theme 4 Polan, "North America." 5 Stuart Samuels, “The Age of Conspiracy and Conformity: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1965),” in American History/American Film: Interpreting the Hollywood Image, ed. John E. O’Connor and Martin A. Jackson (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1979), 203-216; Barry Keith Grant, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Stephen King, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” in “They're Here…": Invasion of the Body Snatchers: A Tribute, ed. Kevin McCarthy and Ed Gorman (New York : Berkley Boulevard Books, 1999), 2, 4-5.

7

of idea with the films. Similarly, The Man from Laramie has received little critical analysis over

the years, despite being part of the well-respected series of westerns that Jimmy Stewart and

Anthony Mann made throughout the 1950s.

The amount of criticism on a given movie, however, does not guarantee that every work

discussing it has come to the same conclusions. While much of the writing on The Searchers

focuses on its presentation of race, there is not a unified opinion on what the film’s real view on

the subject is, even today. Some scholars, such as Robert C. Sickels, argue that the film seems to

share its characters’ racist attitudes.6 Others, like Martin Scorsese, believe that the film is trying

to illustrate how poorly Native Americans have been treated in both the real Old West and in

American films set there.7 A few, such as Jim Kitses, even conclude that the film does both,

decrying racism towards Native Americans while also embodying examples of that attitude at the

same time.8 Kiss Me Deadly has received a similarly divided reception. Much of the research on

it focuses on how Hammer was turned into a less noble character that undermines that attitudes

presented in the original Spillane novel. However, Max Allan Collins and James L. Traylor’s

Mickey Spillane on Screen argues that the film preserves more of Hammer’s original character

than many writers give it credit for.9 By comparison, the films that have received less critical

6 Robert C. Sickels, “A Politically Correct Ethan Edwards: Clint Eastwood’s The Outlaw Josey Wales” in Westerns: The Essential Journal of Popular Film and Television Collection, ed. Gary R. Edgerton and Michael T. Marsden (New York: Routledge, 2012), 161.7 “The Searchers: An Appreciation” on The Searchers, DVD, directed by John Ford (1956; Burbank, CA: Warner Bros. Entertainment, 2006).8 Jim Kitses, Horizons West: Directing the Western from John Ford to Clint Eastwood (London: BFI Publishing, 2004), 99-100.9 Kiss Me Deadly presents an interesting case, as assessments of the film seem to be informed by the writer in question’s opinion of Spillane’s writing and politics. Critics like J. Hoberman, who regard Spillane’s work as being subpar, tend to emphasize the negative attributes presented in the film, while writers such as Collins, a friend of Spillane and the current executor of Spillane’s literary estate, attribute a more positive outlook to the film’s take on the story. Max Allen Collins and James L. Taylor, Mickey Spillane on Screen: A Complete Study of the Television and Film Adaptations (Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2012), 50-51; J. Hoberman, An Army of Phantoms: American Movies and the Making of the Cold War (New York: The New Press, 2011), 297-298.

8

attention tend to have a more unified interpretation across multiple articles and books, such as

how The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms reflects contemporary anxiety about nuclear power.10

Additionally, only some of the criticism spend time discussing the influence (or lack

thereof of) the original book on the final film. Those that do are usually limited to the film’s

whose book counterparts are already well known in their own right, such as Invasion of the Body

Snatchers or The War of the Worlds, while more obscure stories like “The Tin Star” (the short

story High Noon is based on) and The Asphalt Jungle have received no attention, even in

situations where examining the novel would strengthen the argument being made.

While this body of scholarship already has a rich and complicated history, it still has gaps

within it that leave room for further analysis and clarification. Several of these films remain

underrepresented in the wider literature, despite what they could bring to the discussion on how

these films reflected and contributed to Cold War culture. Additionally, much of the literature

ignores the influence that the original stories had on these films, as many of them maintain

concepts and themes that originated in the literary version of their stories. The literature also

does not address how the films that present a more critical view of the contemporary culture

were able to do so without drawing significant public attention or criticism. With this thesis, I

hope to expand on these points, giving the films in question the critical attention they had been

denied them in the past and to understand how they fit into the commonly held perceptions about

what kinds of media were and were not accepted during the Long Fifties.

My primary sources for this thesis will consists of nine films, with three representatives

of each of the genres I cover in this thesis. High Noon, The Man from Laramie, and The

10 Cyndy Hendershot, “Darwin and the Atom: Evolution/Devolution Fantasies in The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Them!, and The Incredible Shrinking Man,” Science Fiction Studies 25:2 (July 1998): 321-322; M. Keith Booker, Monsters, Mushrooms, and the Cold War: American Science Fiction and the Roots of Postmodernism, 1946-1964 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001), 41.

9

Searchers are westerns; The Asphalt Jungle, Kiss Me Deadly, and In a Lonely Place are film

noirs; and The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and The War Of

The Worlds are science fiction. Each of these films will be given a close textual analysis,

examining major themes and concepts within them and determining how they contradicted or

reinforced the mainstream ideals of the Long Fifties. I will supplement this analysis with a

reading of the original text source that each film was based on, to help show how changes made

in the adaptation process affected the final movie, as well as secondary critical sources about the

films in question, including both ones written contemporary with the films and more recent

criticism. These films will also be compared to each other to see what kinds of trends and themes

were prominent in genre films during the period and if certain ideas and concepts tend to be

more prominent within one film genre over the others.

Each of the chapters of this thesis will focus on how genre films from the Long Fifties

addressed a specific topic and how the norms related to this topic were either reinforced or

subverted and challenged by the films in question. Chapters one and two will both examine

gender, with chapter one focusing on masculinity and male behavior and chapter two focusing on

femininity and female behavior. Chapter three will look at presentations of and issues

surrounding race. Chapter four will examine portrayal of life in urban, suburban, and rural

population centers. Chapter five will focus on how society, politics, and authority and authority

figures are presented. This will be followed by the conclusion of the thesis and an appendix that

will summarize the films discussed in this thesis.

10

Chapter One: Gender and Masculinity

Gender roles during the Long Fifties, particularly within popular memory of the era, were

rigidly defined. Mainstream American society had clear cut ideas about what kinds of behavior

were appropriate for men and woman to perform. Men were supposed to be strong, tough, and

successful.11 They had to be able to provide for their family and put food on the table so they can

all be happy. Though these norms were widely accepted, there were voices that did not agree

with these strict gender roles and these ideals did not show what life was really like for all the

men living in the United States at the time. 12 There were, however, attempts made in American

cinema at the time to question these ideals about male behavior and illustrate the flaws in the

ideology and how men who did adhere to some of these norms did not always do so in way

beneficial to themselves and others. Appropriately, the films covered in this thesis also illustrate

a number of different gender roles for men, including ones that did not fit in with the accepted

norms as well as ones that do.

Of the three genres, noir films from the period mirrored normative attitudes towards

gender the closest. This includes both the book and film versions of The Asphalt Jungle. Many of

the male characters behave like the kind of lower class “tough guys” that were often at the center

of noir stories, independent agents who can take care of themselves, whether physically or

financially or both, and who are only subordinate to a few, if any, other characters. For example,

Dix, while usually just a minor component in other people’s organizations and plans, prides

himself on being able to pay back his debts in a timely fashion, even if he has to borrow money

from a friend to do so. There are also male characters who have distinctly middle class

11 Peter Filene, “‘Cold War Culture’ Doesn’t Say It All” in Rethinking Cold War Culture (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001), 160-161.12 James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 31-32.

11

characteristics despite being criminals. Bellini, for example, is the breadwinner for his family

and even goes so far as to keep a secret safety deposit box filled with money so his wife and son

will have something to use in place of his regular income if he dies prematurely.13 While

unusual, given Bellini’s career as a criminal, it still shows him as a responsible husband who has

the long-term welfare of his family on his mind. Only a few of the film’s male characters do not

conform to these idealized standards of masculine behavior. The most prominent example is

Cobby, who has enough talent to run the gambling operation by himself, for the most part, but is

also shown to be a nervous man who does not handle pressure well, as seen whenever he is

accosted and abused by the crooked Sergeant Dietrich. His nervous disposition prevents him

from avoiding his eventual fate, when he is unable to stop Dietrich from beating him up and

arresting him in order to appease Dietrich’s boss.14 This helps highlight Cobby’s personal

weakness and illustrates how, even in the tough, violent world of the criminal underground, there

were men who fell outside of the masculine ideals of the era.

The two versions of Kiss Me Deadly portray similar kinds of masculine behavior,

particularly with regards to how Mike Hammer acts, but present them from different viewpoints.

The book version of Kiss Me, Deadly has a more positive view of Hammer’s behavior. He is to

be an ultimately good-hearted and noble man trying to make the best of things in a dangerous

and unfair world. While he is prone to violence and involving himself situations where he is not

wanted, he can fix the problems caused by his mistakes and can still solve the mystery and defeat

his opponents by the end of the book. Even though Hammer can appear to be uncultured, mean,

and not especially intelligent, as illustrated by his lack of concern when he nearly runs over

13 W. R. Burnett, The Asphalt Jungle (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1949), 40-41; The Asphalt Jungle, DVD, directed by John Huston (1950; Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, 2004).14 Burnett, Asphalt Jungle, 211-214.

12

Berga Thorn, he still has a certain nobility about his actions and a clearly defined, if simple,

moral code that helps dictate what he does.15

Hammer is also portrayed as being incredibly macho, but still possessing a softer, more

emotional side to him. This character trait is most obvious during this interactions with Velda,

his secretary, partner, and girlfriend. Velda clearly means a great deal to Hammer and he states

that she is the only person who understands him and sees the good man underneath his ugly

exterior.16 This more emotional side can also be seen in his friendship with Captain Pat

Chambers. While Hammer often expresses a negative view about the overall effectiveness of the

police, he clearly views Chambers as a close and trusted friend and confidant. He frequently calls

Chambers to ask for information that the police have gathered about the case as well as to share

information that he has learned on his own. His relationship with Chambers makes him similar to

the kinds of spies that appeared in 1950s and 1960s televisions programs which, as television

historian Michael Kackman has noted, are men who are both a part of as well as independent

from a larger official organization, even if Hammer is distinctly more independent than those

agents ever were.17 Regardless, this allows Hammer to be both a proactive masculine individual

while still tying him to more traditional forms of law enforcement that have some kind of

authority behind them beside pure physical power.

The film presents a similar version of Hammer, but alters the way the audience is

supposed to view his actions and the reactions people have to what he does to highlight the

negative aspects of his behavior that the novel ignored or idealized. Unlike Spillane, director

Robert Aldrich and screenwriter A. I. Bezzerides do not have much affection for Hammer or the

15 Mickey Spillane, The Mike Hammer Collection. Vol. 2 (New York: New American Library, 2001), 349-350.16 Spillane, Mike Hammer, 349-350.17 Michael Kackman, Citizen Spy: Television, Espionage, and Cold War Culture (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 73-74.

13

kind of masculine behavior that he represents, as they made clear in interviews were they discuss

the film.18 They used their adaptation of Kiss Me Deadly to illustrate the negative aspects of

Hammer’s character that Spillane either ignored or idealized in his book and many of the

changes made in the adaptation serve to highlight Hammer’s flaws more prominently. Instead of

being a general private investigator, the film version of Hammer specializes mostly in divorces

cases, giving his job a seamier side that is not present in the novel. The film also has characters

who are supposed to be good, or at least on the side of the law, be openly disdainful of Hammer.

A scene early in the film features several police investigators interviewing Hammer and mocking

both him and his job, culminating in a demand to open a window once Hammer has left the

room. This disdain even extends to characters with whom the novel version of Hammer is on

good terms. The most prominent example of this comes from Pat, renamed Pat Murphy in the

film. While Murphy is, at the beginning of the film, still friends with Hammer, he is not as

tolerant of Hammer’s tendency to act outside of the law. This comes to a head near the end of the

film, when Murphy discovers that Hammer has inadvertently led his enemies to the nuclear

material, in part because of his refusal to work with the police or stay out of the investigation

entirely. Murphy makes light of Hammer’s intelligence and eventually leaves in disgust, clearly

having had enough of Hammer’s behavior. These changes serve to make Hammer a more

obviously flawed and even pathetic character, too arrogant to stay out of trouble and largely

incapable of fixing the problems he causes.19

The film also changes the kind of social class to which Hammer seems to belong. While

the novel never states his class identity outright, Hammer has a distinctly blue collar feel to him.

He lives in a modest apartment and states that he feels more at home in the rougher, poorer parts

18 J. Hoberman, “Thriller of Tomorrow,” Kiss Me Deadly booklet, DVD, directed by Robert Aldrich (1955; United States: Criterion Collection, 2011), 7, 9.19 Kiss Me Deadly, DVD, directed by Robert Aldrich (1955; United States: Criterion Collection, 2011).

14

of New York than in the more upscale sections.20 He is a reflection of both Spillane himself (or at

least the persona that he presented to the public) and the working class veterans who made up

much of Mike Hammer’s audience and fan base.21 In contrast, the film version gives a Hammer

more sophisticated appearance and style. He prefers to drive sports cars and is shown to live in a

neat, well decorated apartment complete with a fairly futuristic answering machine built into one

of the walls.22 Some critics have suggested the influence of Playboy on the look of Hammer’s

apartment, and it does seem to invoke the kind of sophisticated and luxurious, but still masculine,

look that Playboy discussed and advertised.23

Much as the film’s Hammer seems to belong to a higher social class than the novel’s

Hammer, the film presents a more nuanced and critical view of what kind of person Hammer is,

in contrast to the novel’s simpler, escapist, and generally more populist interpretation of the

character. Where Aldrich and Bezzerides want to analyze just what kind of person Hammer is

and what kind of results he would get acting the way he does, Spillane just wants to write about a

tough guy kissing women and beating up mobsters and other ne’er-do-wells. However, as much

as the film version makes Hammer an incompetent failure, some of the nobility of his book

version still makes it into the film. He selflessly helps an older man carry a trunk up the steps of

the building he lives in, he gives Christine a ride into town despite his irritation at her, and he

clearly has great love and affection for Velda, even risking his own life in order to save her.

While this does not excuse his behavior in the rest of the film, it does suggest that even this

version of Hammer has more nuance and redeeming qualities than he initially appears to and,

20 Spillane, Mike Hammer, 371, 418.21 Collins and Traylor, Mickey Spillane On Screen, 6, 12.22 Kiss Me Deadly.23 Jonathan Auerbach, Dark Borders: Film Noir and American Citizenship (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011), 196; Elizabeth Fraterrigo, “The Answer to Suburbia: Playboy’s Urban Lifestyle,” Journal of Urban History 34:5 (2008): 748, 752-761.

15

oddly, might be a better example of acceptable masculine behavior than his book counterpart in

some specific ways.

Like the film version of Kiss Me Deadly, both versions of In a Lonely Place illustrate

how aspects of acceptable masculine behavior from the Long Fifties could be corrosive and

destructive instead of ideal that one should aspire to embody. In Hughes’s novel, Dix Steele

appears to be typical veteran of World War II, but is also a serial killer who has been murdering

and raping women around Los Angeles. The first person perspective of the novel gives the reader

deep insight into Steele’s thoughts and reveal him to be a violent misogynist who gets a thrill out

of being friends with one of the police officers investigating the crimes he has committed.24 The

book also takes the concept of the man as breadwinner and turns it on its head. While Steele does

not have a family and only has to take care of himself, he refuses to get a job of any kind and

often tries to figure out how to get other people to pay for his lifestyle. Though he is clearly

physically capable of getting a job and paying for his own living expenses, his sense of

superiority causes him to avoid real work and try to get others to pay for all of his things. This

usually consists of asking for money from his Uncle Fergus, a businessman who believes in

working hard for one’s pay, and who seems to give Steele what money he does solely out of

familial obligation.25 It is also established that Steele is currently living in an apartment owned

by Mel Terriss, a friend from college who would finance Steele’s life in exchange for picking up

women for Terriss. While they both benefit from their relationship, Steele and Terriss hate each

other and Steele finds it demeaning that he has to be a subordinate to a pathetic alcoholic like

Terriss in order to survive.26 While Steele claims that Terriss is currently living in Rio and has

24 Dorothy B. Hughes, In a Lonely Place (New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2003), 13, 33-35.25 Hughes, In a Lonely Place, 111.26 Hughes, In a Lonely Place, 115.

16

allowed Steele to stay in his apartment and use his accounts while he is there, it is implied that

Steele may have killed Terriss and is just living off the belongings he left behind while he can.27

With both Fergus and Terriss, Steele takes advantage of the generosity of people he hates and

who hate him in return so he does not have to spend time to anything other than eating, sleeping,

trying to woo women, and, once a month, killing a woman as a way to cope with his mental

problems. This sets his apart from other male characters in the story, especially his friend Brub,

who are shown to better fit the Long Fifties’ masculine ideal of men who work hard to provide

from themselves and their families.

The film version made heavy changes to the story of In a Lonely Place, and Dix Steele’s

character in particular, but still managed to address the same themes. One reason for these

changes involved the limits on what kind of content could be portrayed in films during that era,

which was enforced by the Production Code Administration. The kind of violence towards

women that the novel depicts and suggests would have been difficult to film and get released

during the period, even if it was toned down and still portrayed in an unambiguously negative

light.28 As a consequence, a new version of the story was written for the film that keeps most of

the characters and the general plot of novel while changing other elements, such as Steele’s

occupation and behavior.

In the film, Steele is a Hollywood screenwriter, though one who is on bad terms with

most of the city’s filmmakers due to his short temper and history of violence against both men

and women. More significantly, the film changes the murder at the center of the film to a single

incident, rather than a series of murders, and has someone other than Steele commit it. While

some, such as film historians Alan Silver and Elizabeth Ward, argue that Steele’s innocence is

27 Hughes, In a Lonely Place, 222.28 Dana Polan, In a Lonely Place (London: British Film Institute, 1993), 55-56.

17

supposed to be ambiguous until the end of the film, it is also easy for the audience to assume that

Steele is innocent the entire time and that there is no doubt that someone else committed the

murder.29 This does not mean, however, that the murder does not play a role in Steele’s life.

While Steele is innocent, the idea that he could murder a woman in cold blood seems feasible,

given his bouts of rage and history of getting into violent altercations. Steele’s violent behavior is

so key to his character that the script was rewritten to make a violent confrontation the very first

thing that Steele does in the film.30 As a consequence, many of the characters suspect that Steele

may have committed the crime himself, including his friends and Laurel, the woman he loves.31

All of this illustrates how the kind of tough, macho behavior that was considered acceptable,

even normal in some situations, can be damaging to a person’s life even if they have not recently

done anything themselves. In its own way, the film is able to comment on the same kind of awful

masculine behavior that the book does while still working within the limits of 1950s film

decency standards.

Westerns from the period tend to hold attitudes towards representations of male behavior

that are similar to those in noir movies, both in terms of reinforcing the assumptions of the era

and critiquing those assumptions, depending on the movie. Male characters are portrayed as

tough, strong figures who can take care of others and themselves and rarely, if ever, give up on

the goals they set for themselves. In addition to this, each film has its own unique was of

portraying the masculine behavior of the Long Fifties in order to highlight the aspects that are

most important to its themes and story. For example, Ethan Edwards, one of the male leads of

The Searchers, is both an embodiment and a critique of many of the ideals and beliefs about

29 Alan Silver and Elizabeth Ward, ed., Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style, 3rd ed. (New York: Overlook Press, 1992), 145.30 William Hare, L.A. Noir (McFarland & Company, Inc.: Jefferson, NC, 2004), 90.31 In a Lonely Place, DVD, directed by Nicholas Ray (1950; Burbank, CA: Columbia/Tristar Home Entertainment, 2003).

18

masculine behavior from this period. Ethan is initially introduced as a typical John Wayne

character, a noble, and caring man who has the respect and admiration of his family and friends.

When shown meeting his brother’s family at the start of the film after having been away from

many years, it’s clear that Ethan remains the golden boy of the family whom everyone looks up

to and who can do no wrong. Ethan is shown to be tough and more than able to take care of any

situation he finds himself in and always willing to finish a job he starts, no matter what the cost

is.32

Ethan is not, however, just an embodiment of masculine ideals. The film also shows

negative attitudes and behaviors that come part and parcel with his positive ones. While Ethan’s

tough and determined demeanor has its benefits, it also means that he frequently acts in a brash

and rude manner and his behavior is shown have negative attributes as well. It often asserts itself

in violent and cruel ways, such as when his posse encounters the corpse of a Native American

early in the film. Once they uncover the dead man’s body, Ethan shoots its eyes out, asserting

that Comanche believe that this means that man’s spirit will be unable to rest and forced to

wander for eternity. A further example can be seen later in the film, after Ethan and Martin

discover that Debbie has become assimilated into the Comanche tribe that kidnapped her. Prior

to this, Ethan’s desire to get revenge on the Native Americans for killing his family was

displayed alongside his desire to rescue Debbie. Even though he indulged in excessively violent

acts just to hurt the Native Americans and their society, and occasionally seemed more interested

in fighting and killing people than anything else, it was seemingly done in the name of getting

Debbie back. Once he discovers, however, the Debbie does not want to be rescued by Ethan and

Martin, Ethan becomes consumed by his anger and his desire for revenge becomes even more

explicit. The ultimate symbol of this is his belief that it would be better for Debbie to die than to

32 The Searchers, DVD, directed by John Ford (1956; Burbank, CA: Warner Bros. Entertainment, 2006).

19

live as a part of Native American society.33 While Ethan does not follow through with this belief,

choosing to embrace Debbie and take her back home when he has the opportunity to kill her, it

remains unclear whether this is a sign of a sincere change in his attitude towards Native

Americans, though it does suggest that this attitude is not as entrenched as it appears. Taken

together, these events show how attributes that were seen as positive signs of masculinity at the

time could easily turn into something darker and more destructive.

The film further illustrates this negative view of stereotypical masculine behavior by

showing that, while Ethan has positive masculine traits that were admired during the Long

Fifties, he also has negative ones that would not have been acceptable within society or are

harmful to himself and the people around him. Throughout the film, Ethan is portrayed as a very

isolated character. While he is the first and last person the audience sees during the movie, he is

portrayed as being alone in both of these scenarios, either because he had deliberately separated

himself from his family in the past or because he chooses not to rejoin them in the present. This

stands in contrast with the values many people held during of the Long Fifties, which

emphasized how men should be the head and primary breadwinner for their household, and help

take care of their family in general. Even with all of his toughness, ingenuity, and independence,

Ethan does not fully measure up to the masculine ideals of the period, despite everything he

does.

This portrayal of masculine behavior stands in contrast with how other prominent male

figures are portrayed in The Searchers and other westerns from the period. Martin, the other

male lead in The Searchers, is not as explicitly masculine as Ethan. He is portrayed as being less

assertive, relatively immature, capable of making foolish decision, and is often shown to be

fairly naïve, such as when he accidently becomes married to a Native American and

33 The Searchers (film).

20

subsequently rejects her even though the situation is his own fault.34 He is not, however,

portrayed as being overtly unmasculine and the film suggests that his foolish behavior is a

function of his age and experience, rather than indictment of how little he adheres to expectations

of men within society. Given this, it is telling that Martin is more representative of the film’s

moral attitude than Ethan. What he lacks in assertiveness and worldliness, he makes up for by

being one of the only people in the film who does not give up on Debbie when it’s discovered

she has become a part of Scar’s Comanche tribe. This suggests that fitting all the ideals of

masculine behavior does not mean much if one does not have a firm moral grounding for these

ideals to rest on.

In contrast to the abrasive Ethan and the immature Martin, the male leads of the other two

westerns, Will Kane in High Noon and Will Lockhart in The Man from Laramie, are portrayed as

being upstanding examples of masculine behavior. Kane is portrayed as being a noble and loyal

man, willing to put his life on the line for the protection of Hadleyville, even though he is

technically no longer the town’s marshal and is not required to stay and deal with Frank Miller.

Even when he discovers that no one else in town is willing to help him fight Miller’s gang, he

remains because he believes it is the right thing to do. His willingness to defend the town from

Miller, even when the townspeople are more interested in avoiding trouble and making the town

look like a good place for commercial business to come to, underlines his strong character.35 As a

consequence, there is no question in the audience's mind that they should empathize with Kane

and his plight.

Lockhart, while not quite as idealized as Kane, is also portrayed as a good man trying to

do the right thing. While his primary focus is his investigation into who has been selling rifles to

34 The Searchers (film).35 High Noon, DVD, directed by Fred Zinnemann (1952; Santa Monica, CA: Lionsgate, 2008).

21

the Apache tribe, Kane also takes the time to help out some of the townspeople he encounters,

both to blend in with the locals and, it seems, because he thinks they are worth his time. He is

not, however, without his flaws, the most obvious of which is his obsession with getting revenge

on the man responsible for his brother’s death. While not as all-consuming as Ethan’s obsession,

Lockhart is still driven by his desire for revenge and, as the climax of the movie shows, intends

to kill the man responsible for his brother’s death in cold blood. In his case, however, when he is

given the opportunity to do so, he finds himself unable to. This further emphasizes that, while

not a flawless man, Lockhart has a firm moral compass that no amount of personal rage can help

violate.36

Unlike the noir and western movies, science fiction movies often had the least

complicated and nuanced view of male gender roles during the Long Fifties. This is partially

because the films in this genre tended to examine how the events of the movie’s plot affected

humanity in general and, as a consequence, the characters tended to be more generic stand-in for

generic human rather than unique characters who had their own personalities and beliefs.

Tellingly, many of the important characters in these movies have minimal backstory outside of

what is needed to explain how they became involved in the film’s plot. As a result, aside from a

portrayal of divorced people that will be analyzed in the next chapter, the presentations of male

behavior that do appear in these films tend to conform to the stereotypical assumptions of the

period. This is particularly true for male characters, who tend to be assertive and in control, even

in scenarios where their ability to affect the outcome of their situation is minimal, such as

Clayton helping the U.S. army fight the invading Martians or when Thomas tries to help deal

with the Beast.37

36 Of course, what else would we expect from a Jimmy Stewart character?37 The War of the Worlds, DVD, directed by Byron Haskin (1953; Hollywood, CA: Paramount Pictures, 2005); The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, DVD, directed by Eugène Lourié (1953; Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, 2003).

22

Cinema during the Long Fifties offered a surprisingly diverse array of masculine

behavior, with examples that were seen within the films as being both appropriate and

inappropriate. Some of the films portray men in ways that would have conformed to the most

widespread assumptions about how they should behave. Others begin with these assumptions,

but then use them to illustrate the flaws these beliefs have and the negative consequences that

can come from them. Finally, some of them reject these ideas about behavior totally and suggest

ways for men to behave that fall outside of the accepted norms of the era. This shows that, even

though there was little consensus within the film industry about what appropriate gender roles

were there were for men during the Long Fifties, there was still a place in American film culture

during the Long Fifties for these non-mainstream attitudes to flourish.

23

Chapter Two: Gender and Femininity

As noted in the previous chapter, gender roles during the Long Fifties were rigidly

defined and this was even truer for women than it was for men. Within mainstream American

society, women were supposed to aspire to be wives and, once married, stay at home to cook,

clean, and raise their children. Any interest women had in having a life outside of the domestic

sphere, while not impossible to have, was often discouraged or seen as a sign that something was

wrong with them, even by other women. Though there were voices that did not agree with these

strict gender roles, such as Betty Friedan, their opinions did not have the same reach or would

not be well known under the end of the Long Fifties. Those that did go against these roles would

often be demonized or portrayed in a negative light, as the noir character archetype of the

mysterious, independent, and dangerous “femme fatale,” who would bring trouble into the lives

of any men she associated with, often showed. 38 However, as with male behavior, there was a

place in cinema from the period to show women who could live outside of the domestic sphere

without raising the ire of society in some way. Suitably, the films covered here will portray a

number of different gender roles for women that both work around the ideology they had to

contend with and conform to the ideology.

The women in Asphalt Jungle also tend to conform to what could be seen as stereotypical

behavior at the time. Doll, Dix’s girlfriend, is portrayed as a fairly normal, if slightly dumb,

woman who loves her boyfriend and helps him when he is in trouble, such as helping him leave

the city towards the end of the movie.39 Despite this loyalty, Dix often finds her behavior

irritating and repeatedly considers breaking off the relationship. Similarly, Maria, Bellini’s wife,

is shown to be a normal and loving wife and mother, who loves her family dearly and is

38 Patterson, Grand Expectations, 31-32, 37-38, 361-369.39 Asphalt Jungle (film),

24

emotionally distraught when her husband dies near the end of the story.40 Angela, the women

with whom Emmerich is having an affair, is portrayed as a being a fairly normal, sweet young

woman who loves her boyfriend, even she knows how to manipulate men to her advantage to a

degree. In total, these woman are presented as being very typical for their age and situation and,

interestingly, none of them match the “femme fatale” archetype that appears in the other noir

stories and many other films and novels in this genre from the same time period. This may be

because the female characters play a much smaller role within the story overall, usually being

side characters that the male characters interact with rather than main ones who help drive the

plot in some concrete way.

In contrast, the film adaptation of Kiss Me Deadly is notable for the expanded role it

gives to women as compared to the original book. In the book, some of the female characters

have agency and take action, but it is always framed within what Hammer is doing at the time,

due to the novel’s first person perspective. The film, which switches to an omniscient, third

person viewpoint and even includes a few scenes where Hammer is not present at all, allows for

these women to have a larger role in the plot. This is most prominently seen in Lily Carver,

whose importance to the overall plot of the film is emphasized more than in the novel. While the

reader finds out about Lily’s betrayal of Hammer only in the final few pages, it happens slightly

earlier in the movie, giving Lily a more prominent role. The women in the film also have more

opportunities to be Hammer’s equal or superior, whether in the form of Christina making fun of

Hammer’s vanity or when Friday reveals that her apparent interest in Hammer was mostly an act.

These changes also alter the dynamics between some of the female characters and

Hammer, most notably with Velda. In the book, Velda is presented as being Hammer’s female

counterpart, a tough, confident woman who is more than capable of taking care of herself and

40 Burnett, Asphalt Jungle, 40-41, 219-220.

25

willing to put herself in harm’s way. She appears to be someone who could be a femme fatale in

another story, but is instead played as a loyal friend and lover to the main character. In contrast,

the film version of Velda is more passive and gentle and behaves more like a stereotypical

secretary character from the period, there to do what her boss tells her to do. This does make

sense; the book version of Velda would not mesh well with the movie version of Hammer due to

her less assertive and more agreeable personality. But it does take away something that made the

character stand out within the novel. Given that the film wants to undercut and refute the kind of

tough, violent masculine behavior that the novel’s version of Velda often indulges in, however,

this change is consistent with the other ones the filmmakers make to the overall story.

Women also play a significant role in both versions of In a Lonely Place that falls outside

of the Long Fifties’ typical portrayal of women as figures who only participate in domestic life

and are subordinate to the men in their lives. As noted in the previous chapter, Hughes uses the

novel to analyze and condemn the worst kind of masculine behavior of the Cold War period and

places a particular emphases on the effect that is has on women. The book also notes how central

woman are to Steele’s mental problems, both due to his intense love and intense hatred of

women, and the degree to which he swings between those two extremes. While women

themselves are never presented as the reason that Steele is a murderer, they are the focus of his

violence. This is contrasted with his love for Laurel; while he does seem to love her sincerely, he

also believes that possessing and never sharing her with any other person is the only way for him

to be happy. He grows increasingly agitated when Laurel disappears part way through the novel

and blames others, particularly Sylvia, for turning Laurel against him, unwilling to accept that

his own behavior was the primary cause for her absence.41

41 Hughes, In a Lonely Place, 220.

26

The film sets up a similar scenario, but presents it differently to work with the changes

made to Steele’s character. The film version of Steele is presented as violent but sane man who

wants more out of life than the marginal existence he currently has. He sees his relationship with

Laurel as a way to finally achieve happiness and improve his life. His hopes have a basis in

reality within the film, as Steele is more productive and happier once his relationship with Laurel

starts. This change cuts both ways, as Laurel sees her relationship with Steele as a way to express

love once again after a painful divorce and considers it a positive change to her life. The film

also makes it clear, however, that Steele will not be able to get rid of his violent streak that

easily, if he can get rid of it at all, and this ends up being the thing that brings their relationship

to an end. Even though Laurel loves Steele, she is afraid that being involved with him could lead

to her being attacked or killed by him in a fit of rage. While both Steele and Laurel are

heartbroken that their relationship fails, there is a suggestion that this conclusions may be for the

best for both of them, no matter how tragic it is.42 All of this allows Laurel’s feelings and

attitudes to be given equal weight with Steele’s, a notable change from many of the other stories,

where women are often secondary to men or largely exist to react against the actions that the

men take.

Just as with masculine behavior, westerns from the period often both reinforced the ideals

and stereotypes about women from the period and also showed women acting in a more

masculine manner. Women could be portrayed as having a more passive and domestic role as

compared to the male characters who were the leads of the story, but could also show ways that

women could operate outside of that sphere, sometimes using the same character to accomplish

both goals. One such character is Kate from The Man from Laramie. Kate is portrayed as being a

very masculine figure, both in terms of her position within society and her general behavior and

42 In a Lonely Place (film).

27

disposition. She is the owner of a prosperous ranch, an unusually powerful position for a woman

during the period, though not to the extent that any of the characters comment on it.

Additionally, Kate’s personality is show to be large, boisterous, and avuncular, in sharp contrast

to the more reserved personalities of other female characters in the movie. This masculine

depiction of her is even more pronounced in the original novel, which often used “mannish” and

similar adjectives to describe her being and actions.43 Interestingly, the novel does not seem to

use these terms in a pejorative sense, as the reader is clearly supposed to like Kate and find her

behavior endearing rather than repellant or laughable. Notably, none of this is ever portrayed in a

negative light. While Kate does supply some of the film’s humor, she is not a comic relief

character and her masculine attitude is not played for laughs. This suggests that, whether on

purpose or not, the film is arguing that there is nothing wrong with a woman behaving in this

way.

The other prominent female character in The Man from Laramie, Barbara, also has some

masculine characteristics, but more so in the original novel. In the book, Barbara is shown to be a

capable and active woman, trusted to deliver supplies for the Waggoman ranch and make her

own decisions about her life. Additionally, a major plot point in the story is that she will be the

heir to and future owner of the Waggoman ranch if anything happens to Dave and, according to

many of the characters, she would be better at running the ranch than Dave to begin with.

However, much of this agency is removed or lessened in the adaptation process. While Barbara

will still inherit the ranch if Dave is not able to, this is much less important in the film version of

the story. In addition, she is portrayed as being more of a stereotypical female character, there

primarily to be a love interest to Lockhart rather than have a character arc of her own. Whether

this change was made to make her character more palatable to audiences or just to simplify the

43 T. T. Flynn, The Man from Laramie (New York: Leisure Books, 2009), 28.

28

film’s overall plot is unclear, but it does mean the character loses some of her nuisance in the

film version regardless of the reason why.

A character that preforms actions that both reinforce and question ideas about appropriate

feminine behavior from the period is Amy Kane from High Noon. Like Barbara, Amy is

presented as someone who embodies many of the ideals about good feminine behavior from the

period, as the loving wife of the main character. She does, however, break from the mold in a

few ways. Her character is written as a Quaker; in accordance to her pacifist beliefs, she does not

approve of Kane’s decision to stay and fight Frank Miller. She even threatens to leave Kane if he

stays in Hadleyville and seems willing to make good on her threat, packing up and going to the

train station to leave the town before the violence begins. When the fight does begin, however,

she elects to go back into town and help Kane, making her the only person in town who actually

comes to his aid. In the end, she kills one of Miller’s gang before he can kill Kane and ends up

distracting Miller long enough for Kane to shoot him, ending the conflict. The culminate effect

of these beliefs and decisions give Amy a level of agency that female characters did not often

have in films from the period. Her actions, whether in support of Kane’s beliefs or against them,

are presented as being, if not the right thing to do, at least reasonable given the circumstances.

She is not demonized for choosing to not stay with her husband nor for changing her mind at the

last moment, consistently portrayed throughout the film as a reasonable woman trying to make

the right choice in a difficult and exceptional situation.

As noted in the previous chapter, science fiction movies usually had less complicated and

nuanced view of gender roles do to treating the characters as stand-ins for humanity in general

rather than as unique individuals. As a result, the presentations of gender that do appear in these

films tend to conform to the stereotypical assumptions of the period. There are some exceptions

29

to this, however. Sylvia, the female lead of The War of the Worlds, is portrayed as being the

equal of Clayton, the male lead. Like him, she is a scientist and the film primarily follows both

of them together as they deal with the invasion by the Martians. While not too out of the

ordinary, the fact that Sylvia is given more to do than just be the film’s love interest and is made

to have equal footing with her male counterpart does mean that she has more importance and

agency to the story than many other female characters from the period were offered.

A similar deviation from the norms of the period can be seen in Invasion of the Body

Snatchers. While neither Miles nor Becky fall too far outside accepted gender roles that men and

women had during the period, they do briefly discuss how both of them were recently divorced,

with each of them noting that they had recently “been to Reno,” a popular local for getting

divorced during the 1950s due to the laws about divorce in place there.44 While this is only

mentioned in passing and in euphemistic language, it is interesting that the film retained this

aspect of the characters from the original story. Unlike with Laurel in In a Lonely Place, where

her divorce is presented negatively and is tied to her poor emotional health, Invasion presents the

divorce as simply an aspect of the characters’ past that helps inform who they are in the present.

This suggests that, while divorce was still seen as taboo by much of mainstream America, as

suggested by both the oblique language used to discuss the divorce in the film and the sudden

drop in actual divorce rates between the end of World War Two and the mid-1960s, there was a

way to present it in a mainstream film that was, if not positive, at least neutral.45

Cinema and literature during the Long Fifties offered a surprisingly wide range of ways

to express femininity. This includes presenting women in ways that conformed to the mainstream

beliefs about how women should behave, films that use these assumptions to illustrate the flaws

44 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, DVD, directed by Don Siegel (1956; Hollywood, CA: Paramount Home Entertainment/Olive Films, 2012).45 Patterson, Grand Expectations, 360-361.

30

these beliefs have and the negative consequences that can come from them, and even ones that

reject these beliefs about behavior totally and suggest ways for women to behave that fall outside

of the accepted norms of the era. This shows that, even though there was little consensus within

the film industry about how exactly women should act, there was still a place in the American

film culture of the Long Fifties for these attitudes to flourish regardless.

31

Chapter Three: Race and Race Relations

During the Long Fifties, race relations in the United States were in a transitional period.

Though the modern Civil Rights Movement began in the mid-1950s with the Montgomery Bus

Boycotts, it would not reach its peak influence and visibility until the 1960s.46 While overall

quality of life for African Americans had been improving since the late 1940s, Jim Crow laws

still had power in the American South and similar, socially enforced examples of institutional

racism were common in the rest of the United States as well.47 Native Americans faced their own

distinct trials. The federal government spent much of the Long Fifties encouraging Native

Americans to assimilate into white American culture in order to receive better treatment from

society, though the government did begin to move away from this policy in 1958. Outside of the

federal government, most Americans were ignorant of or indifferent to the plight of Native

American, who had to contend with racism in most aspects of their lives and were often poorly

educated, poor, and lacking in real political and social power.48 What presence they did have in

the public mind was usually as villains in westerns, where they would be the enemies of the

white heroes and were frequently played by white actors in makeup rather than actual Native

Americans.49 Other cultures were often marginalized in comparison to white middle-class culture

and did not receive the same level of attention during the period.50 Thus, while the view of cold

war culture as an utterly white culture is not strictly accurate, it does reflect what many

Americans experienced during the period and, to at least some extent, how the era has been

remembered in popular culture. It is clear, however, that even within this white-dominated

46 Patterson, Grand Expectations, 400-405.47 Matthew Costello, “Rewriting High Noon: Transformations in American Popular Political Culture During the Cold War” Film & History (03603695) 33:1 (May 2003): 30; Patterson, Grand Expectations, 380-382.48 Patterson, Grand Expectations, 375-377.49 Kitses, Horizons West, 32-33.50 Douglas Field, “Introduction,” in American Cold War Culture, ed. Douglas Field (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), 7; Patterson, Grand Expectations, 376-381.

32

culture, there was a place for discussion about race that did not conform to the common ideals

and assumptions of the period.

Of the films covered in this thesis, The Searchers has the most to say about race, both

within the actual Old West of American history and within the western as a film genre. Like the

film’s arguments about masculinity, many of its ideas about race are explored and defined

through Ethan Edwards. While Ethan is often portrayed as being a kind and compassionate man,

he is also shown throughout to movie to have a significantly racist attitude towards Native

Americans. While part of this stems from his anger at the Comanche tribe that killed his

brother’s family early in the movie, it is clear that he already held this attitude before that event

occurs in the film. For example, in one of the film’s first scenes, Ethan meets the partially-Native

American Martin and immediately notes how he looks like “a half-breed” in a tone that clearly

indicates his negative view of anyone who has any kind of Native American ancestry. This

attitude appears again and again throughout the film, as Ethan disparages Native Americans in

conversation with other characters or goes out of his way to perform actions that would be

harmful to Native Americans or their society. Prominent examples of this include desecrating the

corpse of a Native American man, slaughtering herds of buffalo so that Native Americans won’t

be able to hunt them in the future, and stating that some apparently mentally disturbed women he

encounters at a camp are like that because they became “Comanch” after being captured by

Native American raiders.51 This explicitly racist attitude presents a shift from the way the

character is portrayed in the original novel. While Ethan (named Amos in the original novel) is

not any more progressive than any of the other characters in the novel, he lacks the ingrained

hatred of and rage towards Native Americans that his cinematic counterpart has. This suggests

51 The Searchers (film).

33

that the change to Ethan's character was made in order to emphasize the film’s overall message

about race, which was not a major theme in May’s original novel.

Despite this, Ethan’s attitudes towards cannot be reduced to one-note bigotry. He

occasionally shows sympathy and empathy for Native American characters. After Ethan and

Martin discover the dead body of Look, a Native American woman that Martin was accidently

married to, Ethan chooses to cover her up, suggesting that he may feel responsible for her death,

despite his feelings about her race. After all, she would not have been killed at that particular

camp if she had not come with Ethan and Martin and later run away from them after Martin

rejected her. A further example can be seen in the ways that Ethan interacts with Scar towards

the end of the movie. While he does not vocalize it or make it very explicit, Ethan does seem to

have a certain begrudging respect for Scar, another tough and crafty individual who embodies

many of the same masculine traits, both positive and negative, that Ethan does. Additionally, it is

shown that Ethan understands at least some aspects of Native American culture, such as their

language and their beliefs about the afterlife, showing that his ingrained racism has not stopped

him from learning from that Native Americans he has interacted with. This complicated attitude

eventually culminates in his last minute decision to bring Debbie home rather than kill her, going

against the claim he had been making for a significant portion of the film.52 While this does not

prove that Ethan has shed the racist ideology he previously expressed, it does suggest that said

attitude was not as ingrained in him as his actions suggested and, at least in exceptional cases,

could be overcome. In this way, Ethan seems to represent a cautiously hopeful attitude about

how white America should treat Native Americans in the future, as Ethan’s racist attitudes are

show to be more destructive than helpful in most situations and, in the end, incompatible with his

other moral aspects of his character, such as his love for his family.

52 The Searchers (film).

34

The film’s attitudes about race are also defined and explored through the character of

Martin. While it is only suggested as a possibility that his counterpart in the novel is of Native

American descent, the film version of Martin is explicitly stated to have Cherokee ancestry. This

is an interesting change, as Martin is both the more sympathetic and likeable of the film’s two

leads, as well as the character who acts as the film’s moral center.53 Martin consistently adheres

to his belief that Debbie can be brought back home, even when every other character in the

movie claims that she too entrenched in Native American life to return to white society and death

would be a preferable option. Given his presence as one of the only major representative from

white American culture who does not share the ingrained racism towards Native Americans that

the society portrayed in the film has, and the only white character besides Debbie who has any

connection to Native American society, it suggests that the audience should share his attitude

towards Debbie’s fate and his qualms about how Ethan and other characters behave towards

Native Americans.54 Tellingly, of the two main characters, the more caring Martin is the one who

has a happy ending, while Ethan ends the film alone and personally estranged from his friends

and family.

The film presents a similar attitude with regards to Scar and Look, the two most

prominent Native Americans characters. The book version of Scar is written as being obnoxious,

arrogant, and childish and generally behaves like a straightforward, unlikeable villain.55 This

contrasts with the portrayal of this character in the film, who is more sympathetic and nuanced.

While still clearly the villain of the film, this version of Scar is portrayed as a counterpart of

Ethan’s with equivalent complexity, someone who is driven by his own inner nobility and moral

53 “The Searchers: An Appreciation.”54 While Martin’s Native American ancestor means that he is not entirely “white” in the same way that the film’s other white characters are, he is still clearly aligned with white society, rather than Native American society, throughout the entire film.55 Alan LeMay, The Searchers (New York: Leisure Books, 2009), 245-260, 296.

35

code, even if it is not one shared by the protagonists. While he commits too many horrible acts to

be completely sympathetic, especially with the revelation that he was involved in the death of

Martin’s mother, his portrayal seems more complex and even handed than one would expect

from a western from the period, when using Native American as interchangeable stock villains

who terrorize white settlers and heroes in low-budget westerns was still common.56

Look is presented in a similarly sympathetic and complex fashion that seems out of place

against the usually shallow portrayal of Native Americans in 1950s westerns. Unlike Scar, the

book and film versions of Look are almost identical, with the real exception being that the film

plays up the comedic aspects of her situation more than the book does and that film version of

the character is explicitly shown to have died.57 Though her presence is played for some comedic

value, Look is still portrayed as being a sympathetic character. Her decision to leave Martin and

Ethan and the discovery of her dead body at a Comanche camp that had been attacked by

American soldiers are portrayed as tragic events. These scenes are scored with somber music and

Martin expresses outrage that an innocent woman like Look had to die just for being in a

Comanche encampment. The implication is that Look’s death could have been avoided,

particularly since she was only at the camp as a result of Martin’s careless actions earlier in the

movie.

The film also addresses the issue of race by highlighting how helpless the characters are

and how little they can do about the racist climate they live in. Both the novel and the film

suggest that the animosity between the Native Americans and the white settlers, while a very real

part of both groups’ lives, is also something they have no real control over. It’s a conflict that

was started long before anyone in the movie was born and will continue long after they are all

56 Kitses, Horizons West, 32-33.57 LeMay, The Searchers, 129-134; The Searchers (film).

36

dead. While these characters help perpetuate this cycle of violence, it’s also clear that they are

not in a position to stop or lessen it, if only because of the society they were brought up in and

are a part of. This scenario is presented as a tragedy that the characters must contend with and

reinforce, even if deviating from it would make their quest easier in the long run. This point is

emphasized even more in the novel, which occasionally takes time to point out that many of the

white characters have ingrained, hypocritical attitudes about race. This is particularly illustrated

by ones where certain actions are evil if performed by Native Americans, but are morally fine

when done by whites.

The film also changes some of the book’s plot points to emphasize how poorly the Native

Americans within the movie are treated by the United States. Both versions of the story conclude

with an assault on Scar’s camp by Ethan, Martin, and a group of US soldiers and rangers. While

the book presents this event as a reasonably fair fight between two prepared forces, the film

changes it into a slaughter of the unsuspecting Native American camp, whose inhabitants barely

stand a chance against the more organized American forces.58 While the Native Americans are

technically the villains of this scenario and the troops technically the heroes, it is hard not to feel

sympathy for the Native Americans, many of whom are completely innocent of the crimes Scar

has committed and who have done nothing worse than set up camp with a violent leader like

Scar. The film strengthens this impression portraying many of the attacked Native Americans as

innocent non-combatants killed in a battle they have little stake in and by scoring the attack with

music that sounds dramatic, but does not have any real feeling of triumph or righteousness within

it. While the film does not portray this message on the same level as later, more explicitly anti-

racist westerns would, it is clear that the film represents a step forward in the portrayal of Native

58 LeMay, The Searchers, 291-301; The Searchers (film).

37

American characters and the relationship between white and Native American characters in

popular westerns.

While not as central a theme as it is in The Searchers, the issues surrounding race do

appear in the other westerns discussed here as well. High Noon does not address race in a

significant way, but it is brought up briefly by Helen Ramírez, a former lover of both Will Kane

and Frank Miller, partway through the movie. At one point, Helen mentions that it is difficult for

her, as a Mexican woman, to live in a small, predominantly white town like Hadleyville. Though

only mentioned once, it is implied that Helen is poorly treated by some of the town’s other

citizens at least partially because of her race, and that this ends up informing her decision to

leave Hadleyville and avoid the violence that Frank Miller will cause when he arrives.

The Man from Laramie also takes an interesting view of race that is reminiscent of the

one presented in The Searchers. An example of this can be seen in Charley, Lockhart’s friend

and sidekick. In both the novel and the film, Charley is a biracial man of both white and Native

American ancestry; though the book version is described as being a Native American man with

red hair, the film version is played by a white actor. Both versions, however, take advantage of

the racial heritage to help Lockhart on his journey. In particular, both version of Charley take

trips to their Native American relatives to inquire about who is selling guns to the Apache tribes.

Interestingly, the film version of Charley seems to have more existential issues with his heritage

than the book version. He tells Lockhart at one point that his mixed background, rather than

making him feel like he has “two places to come home to” just makes it “seem like [he doesn’t]

have any,” too Native American to be accepted in white society and too white to be accepted in

Native American society.59

59 The Man from Laramie, DVD, directed by Anthony Mann (1955; Culver City, CA: Columbia TriStar Home Video, 1999).

38

Some of the film’s characters also show a surprisingly progressive attitude towards

Native Americans, at least for time the movie was set and made. Notably, Alec Waggoman

mentions that “[He respects the Apache]. They were here first. Whatever I got from them, I

bought, I didn’t just take it.”60 Given that Alec is portrayed as being a fair and reasonable

businessman, especially in comparison to his ne'er-do-well son, and he says this during a scene

that highlights his evenhanded personality and beliefs, it suggests that the film feels that being

fair to Native Americans is an admirable trait and a sign of good moral character. It is interesting

that a film made during a period when Native Americans were being told to assimilate into white

culture contains a white character who seems more than willing to meet Native Americans on

their own terms. This film also makes an effort to distinguish between different Native American

tribes, rather than lumping them all together into a single homogeneous group. At one point,

Lockhart and Barbara have a conversation with a local priest where the priest notes that the

Pueblos he interacts with are generally a peaceful group, in contrast to the more hunting and

fighting focused world of the Apaches. Whether or not this distinction is a sign that the friendly

Pueblos are better than the Apaches is unclear. It can be argued that the Pueblos only gain this

distinction because they have accepted the white settlers and are “playing nice” with them, rather

than pushing against their actions. On the other hand, the Apache tribe, while responsible for the

death of Lockhart’s brother, are presented less as straightforward villains and more as a part of

the natural world that Lockhart and the other characters have to deal with. At worst, the film

suggests the Apache tribes are just taking advantage of the opportunity presented to them by

Dave and Vic, who are the true villains of the story.

The film’s attitude towards races also appears with regards to one character whose race

was changed during the adaptation to film. Frank Darrah, who is the primary antagonist and

60 The Man from Laramie (film).

39

romantic rival for Lockhart in the book, has most of his traits given to other characters and is

rewritten as a Native American store clerk in the movie. While his reduced role is brief, mostly

limited to acting in a vaguely suspicious manner and reporting the fight between Lockhart and

Boldt to the authorities, he remains important for a different reason.61 Across the three western

movies discussed in this thesis, Darrah is the only named Native American character who is

played by an actual Native American actor. While some minor, uncredited Native American

characters in The Searchers seem to be played by actual Native Americans, most of the major

characters, such as Scar and Look, are played by white actors.

This awkward way of addressing and dealing with race also presents itself in the other

films discussed in this thesis in another way. With the exception of the examples in the westerns

above, along with a few minor African American characters in Kiss Me Deadly and a brief scene

set in India in The War of the Worlds, none of the films feature non-white characters in any

significant fashion. Almost all the main action and events of these films are driven by and

centered on white characters. For some of the films, non-white characters may as well not exist.

African American characters have virtually no presence and there do not appear to be who are

not white, Latino, African American, or Native American. This shows that limits of what was

possible for films and filmmakers during the period and what they were prepared to do in these

films. Even these films, which had at least some interested in going against the norms of the era,

were only willing or interested in going so far with regards to race. Even The Searchers, which

has the most radical attitude towards race of the films discussed here, was only willing to go so

far, avoiding any definitive discussion of race relations and issues surrounding race during the

period it depicts. However, despite these flaws, it does show that there was a place for

discussions of race in mainstream popular media, even if it did exist in a limited form.

61 The Man from Laramie (film).

40

Chapter Four: Urban, Suburban, and Rural Life

During the Long Fifties, the role of population centers like cities and towns was changing

in American. While still seen as major economic and power centers, cities were no longer as

central to American society as they had been in the previous decades. A major reason for this

shift came from the mass exodus of people from the city to the suburbs, which had been

increasing in popularity since the end of World War II. This was particularly true among the

growing white middle class, many of who could now afford to move to the more upscale housing

that was available in the suburbs. Other the course of the 1950s, the eleven of the twelve largest

cities in the US saw their overall population go down, primarily due to people and families

moving to the suburbs.62 Suburbia itself had its critics, who often claimed that encouraged

conformity and middle-of-the-road consensus about political issues and downplayed individual

thought.63 Despite these claims, however, many still saw the suburbs as an ideal place to live and

raise one's family and seemed preferable to the city. Cities still had a certain draw to them,

especially among younger, unmarried people who were not interested in starting a family yet, but

they no longer dominated the culture landscape like they had in the immediate past.64 The

importance of American population centers of any kind, no matter what their size or

geographical location was, plays an important role in the stories discussed in this thesis, even

though the shift in dynamics that affected population centers so much during this period is not a

central part of these stories.

A major theme that appears through most of the noir films and books is the role of the

modern city. In particular, these stories often depict the city as a dark, damaging place that

corrupts the people who lived there, an environment that encourages crime and other unethical 62 Patterson, Grand Expectations, 333-334.63 Patterson, Grand Expectations, 337-338.64 Patterson, Grand Expectations, 73-74; Fraterrigo, “The Answer to Suburbia,” 748, 752-761.

41

behavior without any external prompting, and is generally an unpleasant place to live.65 The

Asphalt Jungle, in both its written and filmed versions, provides an excellent example of this

attitude towards the city. The role of the city in the story is apparent from the title alone. Simply

calling the book “The Asphalt Jungle” highlights Burnett’s view of the city as a wild, dangerous

place far removed from the kind of safe and civilized world that people may expect and presume

it to be.66 The book goes on to illustrate the kinds of problems that plague the unnamed

Midwestern city in which The Asphalt Jungle takes place. The first chapter deals with a press

conference held by Theo Hardy, the city’s police commissioner, who argues that the department

does help the city even with the flaws and corruptions within it.67 While the chapter itself, and

the pro-police newspaper reporter from who’s perspective the chapter is told from, support the

commissioner’s beliefs and portray him as an ambitious, noble, and capable man who is up to the

task he has set for himself, it still shows how serious the city’s crime problem is.

The city is thus presented as a place where crime is rampant and few, if any, good things

happen. While Burnett does not describe the city itself in much detail, not even giving it an

actual name, the characters’ descriptions of what goes on there give a clear enough picture. For

example, a truck driver eating at Gus’ hamburger joint brags about running over cats because he

does not like that people feed them.68 Later, a police officer who Dix and Doc encounter

complains about how young gang members are fighting and injuring police officers.69 The end of

the novel, which sees all of the criminal characters either dead or in jail and “good” characters

happy, is set in contrast to a “chill, numbing blast [that] blew in from the cold, dark streets of the

65 Joseph Paul Moser, “From 'Hard-Boiled' Detective to 'Fallen Man': The Literary Lineage and Postwar Emergence of Film Noir,” in Crime and Detective Fiction, ed. Rebecca Martin (Ipswich: Salem Press, 2013), 164.66 Burnett, Asphalt Jungle, 1.67 Burnett, Asphalt Jungle, 3-9.68 Burnett, Asphalt Jungle, 60.69 Burnett, Asphalt Jungle, 196.

42

sleeping city.”70 All of these events serve to illustrate how grim and hopeless the unnamed city

is, where even the happy endings seem almost inappropriate within the location they occur in.

The seedy, crime-ridden nature of the city is developed and explored further via the

characters and their interactions with each other. With a few exceptions, such as Hardy and the

reporter Lou Farbstein, all of the story’s characters are involved in criminal, illegal, and/or

morally and ethically dubious behavior. “Doc” Riemenschneider is a recently released convict

who is famous in the criminal underworld for the heists he plans. Dix Handley works as a goon

for criminals in order to help feed his racetrack gambling habit. Louis Bellini is a safe cracker.

Alonzo Emmerich is a shady lawyer who helps organize an illegal betting operation and has

spent almost all of his money on a much younger woman with whom he is having an affair. This

leads him to agree to act as the fence for the heist so he can take the jewels for himself and start a

new life in Europe. Cobby runs Emmerich’s gambling ring. Those characters who are not

involved in the heist itself are often just as bad. Bob Brannon, a private detective that Emmerich

hires, tries to kill Dix and Doc so he and Emmerich can have the stolen jewels before being

killed by Dix. One of the city’s police officers, Sergeant Dietrich, takes bribes in exchange for

not reporting on Emmerich and Cobby’s gambling organization, though he later turns Cobby in

so he can please his superiors. Even Doll, Dix’s girlfriend, works at an illegal club and loses her

job near the beginning of the novel due to a police raid. Even the most apparently innocent

member of society in the city can be just as corrupt and awful as its worst criminals.71

Both the film and novel also emphasize the corrupting nature of the city by showing how

several of the characters want and try to leave the city, as they see escaping it as a way to obtain

happiness and gain a new lease of life.72 Emmerich, now bankrupt and no longer interested in

70 Burnett, Asphalt Jungle, 271.71 Silver and Ward, Film Noir, 15.72 Edward Dimendberg, Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 233.

43

staying with his wife or his mistress, believes that stealing the jewels for himself and moving to

Europe will allow him the freedom and money he longs for. Instead, his involvement in the heist

leads to his potential arrest and his decisions to kill himself rather than be taken to jail. Similarly,

Riemenschneider intends to take his share of the haul and go to Mexico, where he will be able to

live out the rest of his life in relaxation and pleasure. He decides, however, to waste time at a

diner by giving money to a teenage girl there and watching her dance. This delays him long

enough for the police to find him, discover the stolen jewels hidden in his coat, and arrest him.

Their attempts to free themselves from the city’s corrupting influence are defeated by their own

personal involvement in the crime that the city seems to naturally attract.

The best illustration in The Asphalt Jungle of this contrast between the city and the world

outside of it comes from Dix. Dix frequently mentions the Kentucky farm that his family used to

own and his happy childhood memories of it. These memories are set in contrast to the miserable

existence he has in the city. Some changes made to the story while adapting it to film end up

making this contrast even more prominent. In the novel, Dix does not find out that his family

sold their farm until the very end of the novel, right before his death. In the film version, Dix

already knows that the farm has been sold when the story begins and his primary motivation for

participating in the heist is to make enough money to buy back the farm from its current owners.

This further reinforces the contrast between the city and the natural world of the farm, which

becomes a not just a happy memory for the often angry and miserable Dix but also a symbol of

all the good aspects of life that he cannot have while he lives and works in the city. This also

gives his actions a certain level of irony, as his involvement in the largest criminal act in the

story is motivated by desire and need to return to the idyllic farm of his youth. This desire to

return or escape to a natural world away from the corrupting influence of urban spaces was a

44

common motif in noir films from the period, often highlighting how cities failed to live up to the

expectations that people had of them.73 This kind of longing gains additional poignancy in the

film’s final scene, where a dying and delirious Dix races to the farm and manages to get into one

of the fields before collapsing and, presumably, passing away.74 Compounding the earlier irony,

the actions he took to try to buy back the farm end up killing Dix, denying him any chance he

might have to regain it. This further highlights both the contrast between the hellish city and the

Eden-like farm and how the corrupting and damaging nature of the city cannot be escaped just by

leaving the city’s physical space.

The city takes on a similar role in Kiss Me, Deadly, where the urban environment plays

an even more prominent part. Unlike in The Asphalt Jungle, Kiss Me, Deadly features several

explicit descriptions of what the city is like, both in terms of physical features as well as in the

mood that it projects over its inhabitants. Hammer calls the city a “monster,” describing it as “a

sprawling octopus whose mouth was hidden under a horribly carved beak.” He goes on to say

this monster “made sounds out there, incomprehensible sounds that were the muted whinings of

deadly terror. There were no spoken words, but the sound was enough. The meaning was

clear.”75 Spillane also emphasizes how normalized the people of New York have become to the

seamier side of the city, noting that “A gun shot, a backfire, who can tell the difference or who

cares. A drunk and a dead man, they both look the same.”76 In contrast to Burnett’s portrayal of

the unnamed city in his novel, however, Spillane seems to have a certain amount of affection for

the city despite his horrific description of it. Hammer mentions that the kind of humble and

73 Dimendberg, Film Noir, 7.74 Asphalt Jungle (film).75 Spillane, Mike Hammer, 496.76 Spillane, Mike Hammer, 433.

45

poorer citizens that he thinks of as “his kind of people” are afraid of the dangers in the city, but

still like it despite that.77

The film version of Kiss Me Deadly shifts the setting from New York to Los Angeles,

which changes the film’s mood and atmosphere. The New York of the book has certain bleak

quality to it that the L.A. of the film does not share.78 New York is frequently described as being

rainy and grey and it gives the impression of a city where it always feels like it is night, even

during the middle of the day. L.A., on the other hand, has a much brighter tone to it. Even during

its grimmest scenes, the film has a sunny and bright quality that often stands in contrast to the

gritty action taking place within it. Film historians Alan Silver and Elizabeth Ward even

highlight how the film captures the “the frenetic, post-atomic-bomb Los Angeles of the 1950s

with its malignant undercurrents.”79 This shift in scenery, however, does not change the overall

mood of the story. Much of the film still takes place in dilapidated buildings that give off an air

of desperation or weariness. While this change is notable, it does not alter the overall mood of

the story in a significant way and often lends a certain ironic counterpoint to the actions

happening on screen.80

These two depictions of cities stand in contrast to the way Los Angeles and its suburbs

are portrayed in the novel and film version of In a Lonely Place. Outside of general descriptions

of where the characters are, the city is not given much attention and does not play a prominent

role in either version of the story. The city’s effect on the people who live there also is not given

much attention, aside from some correlation given between where characters live and their

position in society and life. Instead, more attention is given to the characters themselves and how

77 Spillane, Mike Hammer, 418.78 Collins and Taylor, Mickey Spillane on Screen (Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2012), 45.79 Silver and Ward, Film Noir, 157.80 Kiss Me Deadly.

46

their own history and personality contributes to their situations, rather than the influences of

external forces like the city they live in. When those outside influences are addressed, they

usually take the form of modern society at large, rather than the specific circumstances that come

from living in Los Angeles.

Cities are also important within the science fiction genre, but for different reasons. In

contrast to the noir movies, science fiction movies often represented both the future and the most

advanced and important aspects of contemporary American society. As a consequence, the

destructive forces in these movies, whether they be invading aliens or mindless monsters, center

their attacks on major human cities. In some cases the explanation for event within the film’s

plot has nothing to do with the current importance of the city. For example, in The Beast from

20,000 Fathoms, the film states that the monster returns to New York City because that

happened to be the place it lived in the prehistoric past.81 This conveniently allows the film to

justify why the beast would come to, and subsequently cause death and destruction in, a major

modern urban center that it should not know about. In turn, the destruction caused by the monster

becomes more horrifying and real for the audience, since it is happening to a real, recognizable

place, like the Cyclone rollercoaster on Coney Island, rather than a more generic city or in a non-

urban area like a forest.

The other two science fiction movies, however, say within the film’s story that the reason

major cities are being attacked is because of their importance to contemporary human

civilization. Both The War of the Worlds and Invasion of the Body Snatchers are, as their names

suggest, invasion movies. Humanity being overcome by a malicious outside force is a central

point in both stories. In The War of the Worlds, the invasion begins (from the audience’s

perspective) in a small Californian town before moving on to larger population centers. A

81 The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.

47

montage in the middle of the film shows the Martian ships attacking all over the world, including

India and England. This helps emphasize both the destructive power and nature of the Martians

as well as highlighting the breadth of their actions, showing that what they are doing is not

limited to the relatively limited geographical area that the main characters spend their time in.

These scenes also serve to amplify the horror the audience feels about the invasion, as the

destruction of these recognizable international landmarks and places gives the movie a certain

verisimilitude that it would not have if the scenes of destruction were set in a non-urban area or

in a generic, fictional city. This tactic was also employed in the original novel to similar ends,

where the protagonist’s exploration of a devastated London serves as the climax of the story, the

place where the Martian’s destruction is the most potent and horrifying, as even the most

important city in England falls to their machines.82 This shows that, even though cities had

become less important to many Americans as a place to live, their importance within society and

the cultural landscape was still prominent enough that seeing their destruction would be

perceived as a horrific act.

The horror of the movie’s narrative is also emphasized via the effect the Martian invasion

has on smaller towns. First contact with the Martian ship is made in the small California town of

Linda Rosa, whose population are completely unprepared for dealing with the new threat,

initially treating the crashed Martian rocket as a potential tourist attraction and generally

continuing on with their lives as normal. This event also has its roots in the original novel, where

the crashed rocket is treated as an interesting, but harmless curiosity, with the realization of what

82 H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds (New York: Bantam Classics, 2003), 175-183; On a similar note, several unauthorized reprints of The War of the Worlds published in America in 1897 and 1898 rewrote the story to take place in New Jersey and Massachusetts. While considered to be inferior in quality, the changes did allow American audiences to experience the same feeling of terror that English audience did of seeing familiar place being destroyed by the invading aliens (David Y. Hughes, “The War the Worlds in the Yellow Press” in A Critical Edition of The War of the Worlds, ed. David Y. Hughes and Harry M. Geduld (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), 281-289).

48

it actually is coming too late for anyone to do anything proactive or useful. Beginning in a small

town is also useful from a narrative perspective, as it allows the creators to show the escalation

of the damage caused by the invasion, starting with a small and fairly isolated location before

moving on to larger cities that have a greater population and more political and social importance

in the eyes of the characters and the audience. This tactic was also employed in the original novel

to similar ends, where the devastation caused by the Martians becomes more overt and terrifying

as the protagonist moves from rural towns like Woking towards more populated areas, eventually

culminating in the final scenes set in London.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers also has cities and small towns as an important part of the

invading alien’s plans, but in a different manner. While The War of the Worlds shows the

audience the invasion of the cities as it happens, Invasion of the Body Snatchers presents it as the

next step in the alien’s plan. Late in movie, while Miles and Becky are hiding in Miles’ office,

they watch a meeting the aliens hold in the town square. Each of the aliens is given a number of

pods with instructions of deliver them to near-by towns and cities, including major ones like San

Francisco, so that the aliens’ influence can be spread.83 For the aliens, spreading to the city

represents the next major step in taking over humanity, now that they have proven they can take

over a smaller urban center like Santa Mira.84

Small town life is also an essential part of Invasion’s story. Much of the horror and

impact of the story stems from how the events onscreen are occurring in a quiet prototypical

semi-rural town like Santa Mira. In both the original story and the film version, Santa Mira is

described as being an idyllic small town, where everyone seems to know everyone else and

places like Miles’ doctor’s office are institutions that almost everyone in town uses on a regular

83 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (film).84 On a separate but related note, it is telling that the more pessimistic adaptation of Invasion of the Body Snatchers released in 1978 begins with the aliens already infecting people in major urban centers.

49

basis. The early scenes of the film establish this by showing how friendly everyone is with their

fellow townspeople and how willing they are to ask each other for help, as Wilma does when she

comes to Miles to talk about her concerns regarding her Uncle Ira. This makes the eventual

betrayal by the infected citizens of Santa Mira all the more powerful, as it illustrates just how

significant the changes made by the aliens are. In this situation, even the people who you trust

the most could be helping to make you one of the aliens, all without you knowing. These events

can also be read as a condemnation of the kind of cultural consensus that was encouraged within

American culture during the Long Fifties. A distinct parallel can be drawn between the kind of

bland, in-offensive political convictions that suburban life seemed to encourage and the overall

attitude of the aliens, who believe that their identical society-wide beliefs and complete lack of

human emotion is preferable to the messier ideology and feelings that human beings hold. Not

surprisingly, this death of individuality is portrayed in the film as being almost an equivalent to

death and the reveal of any character being a pod person is always portrayed a shocking and

horrific event.

Rural towns, another example of a small, tight-knit community that has some parallels

with suburbs, also play a role in westerns, though it is a comparatively less important than in noir

and science fiction films. While those films usually focus on how being in an urban center

changes the story and characters, the westerns focus on how being away from major population

areas affects the action in the story. An example of this can be seen in High Noon. One of the

reasons that the return of Frank Miller causes so much duress in Hadleyville is because of the

town’s comparative isolation. With the exception of the local sheriff and whatever posse he can

pull together from the town’s population, there is little organized law in the town and no one that

the town can call on to help them with their problems. This issue can also be seen in the release

50

of Frank Miller. The implication is that the distant court of law that freed him is either ignorant

of or does not care about his relationship with Hadleyville and what he will do there if he returns.

Taken with the community’s unwillingness to stand by Kane when he needs them, this makes the

movie a surprising example of a work suggesting that both major urban centers like cities and

more remote population centers like rural towns are both flawed and are not a great as they seem

to be.

A similar perspective can be seen in The Man from Laramie. Coronado, the town the film

is set in, is shown to be a small and isolated town, even more so than its book counterpart, which

at least has another small town within a day’s ride of its location. As in High Noon, this means

that many of the assumed power structures and similar norms associated with living in a

populated area do not exist on the frontier. The people living in Coronado are controlled more by

the whims of wealthy ranchers who live near the town than by any of the larger social ideas that

might direct their actions and beliefs if they were living in a less isolated setting. Though the

citizens of Coronado do not specifically violate any given social norms, with the exception of the

spoiled Dave Waggoman, it is clear that the desire and whims of the Waggoman family hold a

stronger sway over the town than any other influencing force. This aspect is taken even further in

The Searchers, where Ethan and Martin often spend years away from any significant form of

civilization. As a result, the characters are able to get away with more or less anything they want

to do. While some of their actions do result in them getting in trouble with authorities, that often

happens years after the events took place, and Ethan and Martin themselves usually receive little,

if any, punishment for what they have done. It seems unlikely that they would be able to get

away with as much as they do if their quest took them closer to major population areas. Of

course, their relative isolation also causes them to go on their quest in the first place, as it is

51

unlikely that the attack on the Edwards’ home would have happened if they were not so far away

from civilization.

Overall, the films discussed here show both the importance of urban centers, especially

when one is geographically distant from them or when they are under attack, and how they can

be harsh, damaging places that do not help the people who live there. Interestingly, these

attitudes seem to fall along the lines of the genre of the each movie. The noir films tend to

highlight the ways that urban centers can be harmful to their populations, a surprisingly cynical

observation given the time period. The westerns have a more neutral view of urban centers, often

using them to contrast the more wild and lawless aspects of the old west or how distance from an

urban center with real power can make lives more difficult in a smaller town. In addition, smaller

towns can have their own locally defined sources of power that operate independently of larger,

but more geographically distant power structures. Science fiction movies show that cities are

important, but also portray them as target for outside forces to attack, especially in a way that can

cause panic among the population. Similarly, while smaller towns do not receive this kind of

scrutiny, they can become a place for subtler maleficent forces to gather and strengthen their

control. This results in the odd overall impression that urban centers, whether they be large cities,

smaller towns, or isolated rural communities, always have a negative side of some kind, no

matter how good or important they may be otherwise.

52

Chapter Five: Society, Politics, and Authority

The Long Fifties are heavily associated with a certain mentality with regards to society

and authority, including places where the two concepts meet like politics. The American society

during the Long Fifties tended to be fairly conservative, encouraging people to follow the

accepted norms of society and demonizing, whether actively or passively, any people or groups

who fell outside of these norms, such as communist and similar left-leaning political groups.85

The most prominent example of this was the “Red Scar,” where several public bodies, most

notably the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and Senator Joe McCarthy,

would investigate or publicly accuse people that they suspected of being communists or

sympathetic to communist interests. Notably, these accusations often had little to do with the

accused’s actual political beliefs and would be directed at people or groups that the accusers did

not like for any number of reasons, ranging from political ideology to ethnicity and class.

Though not a unified effort perpetuated by any particular body in American politics, the scare

did serve to heighten the conservatism of the period and played on the public’s concerns about

communism within the United States.86 Even public figures who held more liberal political

beliefs would downplay them for fear that they would be accused of being “pink” or disloyal to

the United States, which could severally harm their public reputation and image.87 These

accepted norms extended to most facets of society, including politics, religion, and the belief that

science would make the world a better place. The Long Fifties also saw an increasing social trust

in the opinions of “experts,” whether actual or self-appointed, on a large number of topics,

ranging from the childrearing advice of Dr. Benjamin Spock to Rev. Norman Vincent Peale’s

85 Peter J. Kuznick and James Gilbert, “U.S. Culture and the Cold War,” in Rethinking Cold War Culture (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001), 7-8.86 Patterson, Grand Expectations, 187-190, 196-205.87 Patterson, Grand Expectations, 204.

53

ideas about positive thought.88 This attitude however, was not always reflected in films made

during this period and would even be actively criticized in some cases.

Generally, the international and political side of Cold War culture in the Long Fifties is

absent from the noir books and films. These stories each take place in one American city, such as

New York or L.A., and rarely make mention of events that happen outside of United States. A

few of the characters are foreign born, like Riemenschneider in Asphalt Jungle, or fought in the

Second World War, like Dix from In a Lonely Place. While Mike Hammer often fought

communists and makes a point of noting that the mafia originated overseas, the novel version of

Kiss Me, Deadly does not dwell on it. None of the three noir novels, and the film versions of The

Asphalt Jungle and In a Lonely Place, refer to the international aspect of the Cold War in any

significant degree, preferring to stick to the local side of the issues, if they mention it at all. Some

of this may be because of the scope of these particular stories, as noir stories in general tend to be

far more concerned with local issues than national or international ones. Spillane did often

address the Cold War in his Mike Hammer novels, usually by making Hammer’s enemies

communist spies, but 1952’s Kiss Me, Deadly contains few mentions of the wider issues

associated with the Cold War.

The exception to this trend is the film version of Kiss Me Deadly, which came out in

1955. In the original novel, the package that all the characters are trying to find is a case of

smuggled narcotics. While the film’s screenplay was originally written with this unchanged, the

Motion Picture Association of America rejected this version of the script in part because of how

it treated drugs.89 In his rewrite, A. I. Bezzerides swapped out the narcotics for nuclear materials,

taking the form of a box that contains a blinding white light that burns and destroys everything

88 Patterson, Grand Expectations, 339.89 Hoberman, “Thriller of Tomorrow,” 9.

54

around it.90 In doing so, the fear of nuclear annihilation becomes a part of the film’s commentary

on modern society. It also raises the stakes involved in the mystery at the center of the film, as

the destructive power of an atomic bomb easily outstrips the damage that illegal drugs can ever

possibly do.

The film also uses its subversion of the right-wing attitudes of Mike Hammer to comment

on another major conservative figure of the era: Joe McCarthy. Critics such as J. Hoberman have

argued that the film version of Hammer’s particular brand of single-minded determination and

brutality was meant to invoke McCarthy and to illustrate the futility of this kind of behavior and

how ultimately destructive it was. The film suggests that Hammer’s motivation is born out of

egotism and greed, rather than the moral reasons he has in the books. He is, at best, a lesser evil

that is only tolerated because he can be used to fight something even worse.91 Film historian

Janet Staiger states that the filmmakers were able to get away with this satire of such a well-

known figure, even a recently disgraced one, by carefully hiding these parallels in the film in a

way that was readable, but not too obvious. While this parallel was not commented on at the

time, the satire remains potent and damning even to this day.92

The science fiction stories covered in this thesis often focused on ways that society can

be threatened and how it can breakdown given the right external pressures. A prominent example

of this is seen in The War of the Worlds. As in the original book, a significant portion of the

movie is used to show how humanity at large responds to the invasion. The results show huge

sections of civilization blindly panicking, attempting to flee the invading Martians as their

governments and military forces are unable to stop the onslaught. The most prominent example

90 Kiss Me Deadly.91 Hoberman, “Thriller of Tomorrow,” 7.92 Janet Staiger, “Kiss Me Deadly: Cold War Threats from Spillane to Aldrich, New York to Los Angeles, and the Mafia to the H-Bomb,” in New Directions in American Reception Study, ed. by Philip Goldstein and James L. Machor, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 283-285.

55

of this comes towards the end of the movie, when Clayton has been separated from Sylvia and is

searching for her in Los Angeles. During this, Clayton encounters a horde of people who are

fleeing the city, committing acts of violence, and looting everything they can. This horde ends up

stealing the truck Clayton is driving and either ignoring his pleas for help or actively refusing to

help him.93 Though humanity is redeemed, to an extent, at the end of the film with the death of

the Martians, it does not eliminate the evidence that modern American society will easily fall

apart and Americans will degenerate into their worst basic behavior when they are confronted by

a strong external force.

The film’s view of authority figures is more positive, but still distinctly dour. Military

leaders, though competent and well meaning, are unable to think of a way to combat the

Martians. The military’s tactics start at a fairly small scale before growing more and more grand,

eventually culminating in the use of an atomic bomb against the Martians. Even this, the most

powerful weapon humanity has, proves to be ineffective against the Martian threat. Scientific

authorities fare better, as they are able to explain how the Martians function and, in the end, what

caused their deaths, but they are unable to offer any ways to stop the invasion or better protect

humanity from the aliens.94 Though the film often has a positive outlook in many other respects,

its view of the power of human society and authority is fairly dim. Even if these structures and

institutions are trying their best, they are unable or incapable of functioning in the capacity that

they are supposed to.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers presents a similarly negative view of society and

authority but on a much smaller scale. While The War of the Worlds focuses on a national and

international level, Invasion of the Body Snatchers sets its critique at the level of a small,

93 The War of the Worlds (film).94 The War of the Worlds (film).

56

enclosed community. Through its story, the film is able to show how the trust that you places in

the society can be used against you if you get on the wrong side of the people in charge. The

characters put their trust in others that are close to them, whether they be family, friends,

coworkers, or just people they know around town. This ends up being the downfall of many of

the characters, as their trust allows the invading aliens to move, plot, and infect new people

without receiving any scrutiny. Even the authority figures willing to help Miles at the end of the

film only do so because his story is show to be true via a coincidental off-hand remark by a

hospital staff member.95 While not necessarily the intended message of the film, it does seem to

argue that the blind faith that people from the period were encouraged to put in others, whether

they are close friends or trusted authority figures, can become a problem if those people no

longer have your best interests in mind.

This also ties into the film’s attitudes towards national and international politics. As many

critics, such as Stuart Samuels, J. Hoberman, and Stephen King, have noted, Invasion frequently

reads like a metaphor for communist infiltration into the United States.96 The aliens act like the

stereotypical Red Menace, quietly taking over the country, inflicting normal, everyday people

with their ideology and beliefs and either converting or suppressing anyone who does not agree

with them. Though basically ignored by critics at the time, it is now often taken as a given that

the aliens represent communist forces trying to undermine the American way of life. Counter to

that argument, other recent critics have also noted that the aliens could be interpreted as a stand

in for another group who were active in the United States at the time: anti-communists.97 Like

McCarthy, HUAC, or other anti-communist organizations operating during the Long Fifties, the

95 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (film).96 Samuels, “The Age of Conspiracy and Conformity,” 206-207; Hoberman, An Army of Phantoms, 311; King, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” 2, 4-5.97 Hoberman, An Army of Phantoms, 306, 311.

57

aliens are interested in making everyone see that their view of the world is the correct one. If

they cannot change people's minds, the aliens will discredit and destroy them, whether literally or

metaphorically, so they cease to be a threat.

Beyond the anti-communist metaphor, the aliens can also be viewed as agents of small

town conformity, where anyone who does not fit in with the accepted norms of the area is

persecuted and punished.98 Even before the film was released, Walter Wagner, its producer, gave

an address at the American Booksellers Convention where he stated that the film would be about

the problems with conformity, showing that this aspect of the film was deliberate.99 The ability to

read the central metaphor of Invasion in multiple distinct, even contradictory ways is what helps

give the film its power and makes it an interesting example of the complicated mentalities that

existed within the Long Fifties.

The western genre also deals with issues of society and authority and how they affect the

people that have to deal with the effects of these larger institutions. A prominent example of this

can be seen in High Noon. Much of the conflict in High Noon is caused by the unwillingness of

the society and authority figures in Hadleyville to function in the way that they are supposed to

by the standards of the Long Fifties. Instead of banding together with Kane in order to drive out

Frank Miller and save Hadleyville, the people of the town decide to ignore Kane and let Miller

do whatever he wants. Some do it out of fear of Miller and his gang, while others are

sympathetic to or are friends with Miller and are looking forward to his return. This even extends

to some of Kane’s closest allies, such as Martin, his childhood hero, and the close friends like

Sam, Joe, and Herb, who initially promised to support him, but backed out when they learned

just how small Kane’s posse is.

98 Those might, presumable, include divorced people like Miles and Becky, although this particularly idea is not strongly emphasized in the movie itself.99 Hoberman, An Army of Phantoms, 306.

58

Authority figures in High Noon are equally unhelpful. With the exception of Kane, who

technically has no authority as he is not the marshal anymore, none of the authorities in town are

willing to help stop Miller and his gang. They are either too afraid of Miller to do anything and

end up leaving town or have other interests on their mind, such as making the town

commercially attractive, that make them want to avoid the commotion and negative attention that

would be caused by having a battle on the streets. These decisions allow High Noon to show the

limitations and flaws in authority, where the power authority figures wield is only as useful as

their willingness to wield it. It is telling that Kane’s final action before leaving town for good is

to throw down his marshal badge, a sign of the disgust he now has for Hadleyville and its people.

This attitude towards authority and society was not present in the original short story, but

was influenced by real life events that Carl Foreman, the screenwriter, experience while writing

the movie. During this period, Foreman was served a subpoena to appear before HUAC. As a

consequence, he became persona non grata in Hollywood and good friends and acquaintances of

his began avoiding him in public, as they did not want to be associated with someone who might

name names.100 Given this information, it is easy to see where Foreman’s frustration with his

situation influenced the resulting script. Most of the trouble and stress that Kane experiences

could be avoided if the trust he clearly places in the society he lives in and the authority figures

he is surrounded by was reciprocated. Instead, the very people he need to rely on in a crisis like

this turn away from him for various, usually selfish, reasons.

Collectively, this group of films and novels present a surprisingly negative view of

society, politics, and authority. Many of the films show society in a negative light, highlighting

the ways that society can fail its citizens and act against people’s best interests. These films also

take a dim view of politics, whether local, national, or international, and have an equally poor

100 Hoberman, An Army of Phantoms, 174, 207.

59

view of authority figures. Given the political climate of the era, which encouraged people to trust

in the government and listen to what the authorities told them to do, these films are unexpectedly

subversive. This suggests that even in the politically conservative 1950s, there was a way for

people to criticize the culture and political climate surrounding them without drawing too much

negative attention.

60

Conclusion

The films and books discusses in this thesis represent a wide range of genres, styles, and

attitudes, with little consensus between all of them on any given topic. Each of them covers a

number of topic and themes, including gender roles, race relations, and the attitudes towards

urban, suburban, and rural population centers. Whether or not a film reinforces the accepted

norms of the Long Fifties or critiques those norms or propose alternative ones cannot be

determined by just by looking at the film’s genre or a summary of the plot. Each film depicts a

complicated and often unique view of Cold War culture and the issues surrounding it.

The three westerns covered in this thesis present three different views of the state of

American during the Long Fifties. While all three make use of the assumptions of the period

about how men and women should respectively behave, they do not use those assumptions to the

same end. The Man from Laramie shows the advantage of men behaving in an acceptable

masculine fashion, but also show that there is a place for women to act in a masculine way and

not be limited by the period’s standards of feminine behavior. High Noon explores how society is

willing to turn away from a good man if his attitude and beliefs become inconvenient for the

group, while The Searchers illustrates the dark side of acceptable masculine actions and how

they can become more destructive than anything else. The films’ view of society and authority is

similarly mixed, ranging from the fairly accepting portrayal in The Man from Laramie to the far

more cynical and downbeat tone that High Noon takes. The only aspect that all three westerns

seem to share is an at least mild belief that non-white racial and ethnic groups, such as Native

Americans and Mexicans, have not been treated well by white society in the past or the present,

but even that attitude is not completely consistent across all three films. While westerns do seem

61

to attract a certain conservative or traditional ideology in their stories, that does not always mean

the movie will support those ideologies or depict them in a positive light.

The noir movies cover a similarly wide and nuanced area. Both version of Asphalt

Jungle and the book version of Kiss Me, Deadly use the gender norms of the period in a

straightforward, almost stereotypical manner. Both versions of In a Lonely Place and the film

Kiss Me Deadly begin with the assumptions of the Long Fifties and then use them to critique the

gender attitudes of that era, highlighting their flaws and how seemingly normal behavior can

quickly turn into something much more sinister and less palatable. Their attitudes towards

authority also differ, ranging from competent to well-meaning but ineffective to corrupt. One

aspect they do have in common is their view of cities, which is frequently cynical and depicts

them as dangerous, crime-ridden, and home to the worst humanity has to offer. Again, while the

genre seems to offer itself well to traditional and conservative ideals, it does not always portray

those ideals in a straight ahead manner, often using them for satire and criticism instead.

Curiously, the science fiction movies collectively seem to have the most consistent view

of the Long Fifties. All three present a negative, or at least neutral, view of authorities and their

related institutions, such as the military, and their ability to do what they are supposed to do

when they are needed. They also portray human society as prone to falling apart under pressure

and humans being willing to indulge in their own worst tendencies when things get bad. All three

highlight the importance of cities, both as centers of power during the period and as targets for

attack by outside forces. Though not without their positive view about the period, each of the

movies highlights ways that the culture of American during the Long Fifties was flawed in some

fashion.

62

The question of whether these filmmakers choose to make genre movies in order to make

their messages easier to disseminate to the public is difficult to answer. Certainly, none of

filmmakers ever came out and said that reason they were making a noir or a western or a science

fiction movie was to get less publicly acceptable opinions across to the public without too many

people noticing. However, the reaction of the period seems to suggest that, even if this was not

the filmmaker’s specific plan, placing these ideas in genre movies did make it easier for these

ideas to be spread without attracting the kind of attention they may have in a film made in a more

respected genre. As noted above, few of the reviews of this films from their initial release

commented on any of their ideological content, preferring to focus on the films value as

entertainment. Given this, it seems reasonable to argue that these films were able to successfully

present their messages behind the metaphorical imagery that these genres presented to them. As

a consequence, genre films like the ones analyzed here can provide a window into concerns and

criticisms of the mainstream culture of American during the Long Fifties that were able to reach

a wide audience, even if some of the audience did not realize what they were seeing.

63

Appendix

This thesis analyzes nine American movies made during the course of the Long Fifties, as

well as, to a lesser extent, the books and short stories that these films were based on. To help

navigate these many texts, this appendix will contain a brief summary of each film, highlighting

the general plot and characters of each version of the story, and explaining whatever differences

there exist between the written source and the final film. The summaries will not be exhaustive,

but they will give a good overview for anyone who has not seen or read these stories. They are

listed in alphabetical order by the title of the film version of the story for ease of reference.

The Asphalt Jungle was originally released in 1950 and is based on the W. R. Burnett

novel of same name published in 1949. It tells the story of a jewelry heist organized by Doc

Riedenschneider, an aging thief recently released by from jail and interested in committing one

last crime so he can have money to retire on. Using a bookie named Cobby as an intermediary,

he arranges to have the heist financed and the jewelry laundered by Alonzo Emmerich, a shady

lawyer. Doc also hires three men to help him commit the heist: Louie, a safecracker; Gus, a

getaway driver; and Dix Handley, effectively the protagonist of the story. Dix is hired as general

muscle and agrees to participate so he can pay off his debts and try and buy back his family’s

horse farm in Kentucky. While the heist initially goes smoothly, an errant bullet wounds Louie,

causing the gang to split up so he can be taken home. While trying to get Emmerich to pay for

the jewels, Dix and Doc discover that he intends to double cross them in order gain more money

to spend on his mistress. While Dix and Doc do escape, Dix is wounded in the process. He and

Doc split up, with Doc leaving town by taxi and Dix going to Kentucky with his girlfriend. By

the end of the film, all of the principal characters have either been arrested or killed, with the

police recovering the stolen jewels in the end. While the order of event is slightly different and

64

the final ending is slightly different, the film and the book versions of this story are nearly

identical and have the same overall tone and themes.

In a Lonely Place was released in 1950 and is based on the Dorothy B. Hughes novel of

the same name published in 1947. It tells the story of Dix Steele, a violent, short tempered, and

currently out-of-work Hollywood screenwriter. When Dix is offered a new job, he gets Mildred,

a hat-check girl, to come to his home and read and summarize the book for him. When Mildred

is discovered dead the following day, Dix become the primary suspect, but is given an alibi via

Laurel, a new tenant in his apartment complex. The rest of the story deals with the growing

relationship between Dix and Laurel, as well as the stress it must endure when people accuse Dix

of murdering Mildred. In the end, the strain is too much for them and, to their mutual regret, the

relationship ends and both go their separate ways. The film diverges from the book in many

respects, as that novel’s version of Dix is a misogynist who murders women to deal with his

mental problems and enjoys listening to police officers discuss his crimes, while the film’s

version is merely short-termed and prone to getting into fights when angry. The relationship

between Dix and Laurel remains similar in both versions, although the failure of their

relationship is more tragic in the film version. The overall events of the book is also charged to

better accommodate the new versions of these characters, though the themes of the book are

preserved to a significant extent.

High Noon was released in 1952 and is based on the John W. Cunningham story “The

Tin Star” published in Collier’s in 1947. Set in the frontier town of Hadleyville, it tells the story

of former town marshal William Kane’s attempt to gather a posse to deal with returning criminal

Frank Miller, whom Kane arrested many years earlier. Initially hopeful that he can get a posse

together, Kane discovers that no one in town will help him, for reasons ranging from people’s

65

fear of Miller, their personal opinion of Kane, and the concern that a fight with Miller will hurt

the town’s image. When Miller arrives, Kane must fight off his gang by himself, until he

receives some last minute help from Amy, his wife. Though Kane and Amy defeat Miller, Kane

leaves town, disgusted by the behavior of the people of Hadleyville. While it keeps the same

basic plot of a retired marshal fighting a criminal he had arrested in the past, the film expands on

the story significantly, adding in more side characters, making the marshal a newly married man

rather than a widower, making the relationships between all the characters more complicated and

complex, and giving the story a much richer thematic texture than the simple actions story the

original was.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was released in 1953 and is based on the Ray Bradbury

short story “The Fog Horn,” originally published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1951 under

the title “The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.” The film deals with a dinosaur that had been frozen

in ice in the Arctic Circle but was awoken by an atomic bomb test. The monster precedes to

rampage down the coast of North America, attacking ships and lighthouses along the way, before

reaching New York City. There, it attacks more people, causes damage to several buildings, and

destroys the Cyclone rollercoaster in Coney Island. While Thomas, the film’s protagonist, and

the army is initially unable to stop the beast, they are finally able to kill it with a radioactive

isotope. This film expands greatly on the original short story, which ran only a scant six pages.

The main action of the short story, where a prehistoric monster attacks a lighthouse, remains in

the film. But the context for why the monster is there changed. In the story, the monster is a

mysterious creature that has apparently been living on the ocean floor since prehistoric times and

is only drawn to the lighthouse because its foghorn resembles the call of the dinosaur. The

dinosaur ends up destroying the lighthouse out of anger after discovering that it was not another

66

member of its species, but appears to regret its decision since it now feels even more alone than

before. This sympathetic and philosophical portrayal of the Beast is not kept for the film version,

which keeps the event of the monster attacking a lighthouse but other makes it into a violent

monster that destroys things for no readily apparent reason.

The War of the Worlds was released in 1953 and is based on the H.G. Wells novel of the

same name published in 1897, making it the only primary source of this thesis written outside of

the Long Fifties. The film deals with an invasion of Earth by aliens from Mars as seen through

the eyes of the two protagonists, Dr. Clayton Forrester and Sylvia van Buren. The initially come

to Earth in ships disguised as meteors and soon proceed to destroy everything in their way,

whether that be humans, machines, or buildings. The army proves unable to stop them, even with

an atomic bomb, and the Martians are able to quickly invade and destroy most of the major

countries and cities on Earth. While Earth scientists are able to learn how the Martians function,

it gives them no clues as to how to stop them. Just when all seems lost, the Martian invasion

comes to a halt, as they have succumb to basic bacteria that all Earth life has long since become

immune to. While the film keeps the same basic plot as the book, all of the major details have

been changes. Most notable the time period and location, shifting the action from Edwardian

England to 1950s America and, in a few instances, elsewhere in the world, largely to make the

story seem less dated. Despite these changes, many of the themes and ideas that are present in

the original novel, such as the breakdown of society and the horror cause by seeing familiar

places be destroyed, remain in this adaptation.

Kiss Me Deadly was released in 1955 and is based on the Mickey Spillane novel of the

same name published in 1952. It deals with private detective Mike Hammer and an investigation

he begins after picking up Christina hitchhiking on the highway, getting beaten by people

67

chasing after Christina, and sees Christina get killed. Despite warnings from the police to not get

involved, Hammer begins tracking down those responsible, with help from his secretary Velda

and Lily, Christina’ former roommate. After dealing with the mobsters behind the plot and

chasing down various leads, Hammer discovers the item that everyone in the film wants to get

their hands on, a box containing powerful nuclear materials. Initially believing the box is safe, he

finds that Lily has betrayed him and has been working for his enemies the entire time. When

Hammer goes to a beach house owned by Dr. Soberin, the mastermind behind everything that

has happened in the movie, to retrieve the box and rescue a recently kidnapped Velda, he and

Velda are able to barely escape with their lives, as Lily opens the box and destroys the building

with burning white light. Apparently safe and alive, Hammer and Velda watch the house burn on

the beach at the movie’s close. The film keeps some of the plot of the book, which was simply

about Hammer battling mobsters over a large batch of narcotics that disappeared under

mysterious circumstance prior to World War II. The endings of the two stories differ as a

consequence, with Hammer obtaining a more decisive victory in novel. Also, as will be

discussed later in the thesis, the setting of the story has been changed from New York City to

Los Angeles and the overall portrayal of Mike Hammer and Velda is quite different, largely to

help director Robert Aldrich and screenwriter A. I. Bezzerides satirize and critique Hammer and

Spillane’s sensibilities and politics.

The Man from Laramie was released in 1955 and is based on the T. T. Flynn serial novel

of the same name first published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1954. The film deals with

Captain Will Lockhart, a US Army officer who has secretly come to the town of Coronado in

order to investigate the sale of firearms to Apache tribes, including the tribe that killed his

brother with said rifles. While there, Lockhart gets swept up in a conflict between Alec

68

Waggoman, a cattle baron in the area, Dave Waggoman, the ne’er-do-well son, and Vic Hansbro,

a hand at the Waggoman ranch and fiancé of Alec’s niece, Barbara. Lockhart eventually learns

that Dave and Alec have been selling the rifles and gets blamed for Dave’s death by Vic, who

actually killed Dave. After being released from jail, and with some assistance from rival ranch

owner Kate Canady, Lockhart confronts Vic over his actions and forces Vic to help him destroy

the newest batch of rifles before it can be sold. Vic ends up being killed by the Native Americans

he promised the guns to and Lockhart returns to Laramie, telling Barbara that she should look for

him if he is ever in the area. The film and the novel follow more or less the same plot, the only

real difference being that that sale of rifles is being done by Frank Darrah, the primary antagonist

and Barbara’s original love interest in the novel. Strangely, though he is almost completely

written out of the film and his character are traits given to other characters, but his name is given

to an otherwise unrelated minor character, a Native American store clerk. Why this decision was

made is unclear, though it may have simply been done to reduce the number of characters and

simply the story.

The Searchers was released in 1956 and is based on the novel of the same name by Alan

LeMay published in 1954. It deals with the aftermath of an attack by Comanche Native

Americans, led by a man named Scar, on the home of the Edwards family, killing most of them

and kidnapping the youngest daughter, Debbie. The only two remaining members of the family,

Debbie’s uncle Ethan Edwards and her foster-brother Martin Pawley, go on a quest to find

Debbie and bring her back home. After many years of searching and running into dead ends, the

two finally find Debbie, only to learn that she has been assimilated into the tribe and has no

desire to return home. Initially saddened and disappointed, they briefly return home before

joining up with a cavalry unit also going after that particular Comanche camp. They attack the

69

camp, killing the man who organized the raid that lead to the death of the Edwards and rescuing

Debbie, who elects to come home with them. The film follows the general outline of the book’s

plot, but many of the details have been changed, most notably the characterization of the Ethan

Edwards character, called Amos in the novel, who is made to be more violent and bigoted in

order to help underscore the film’s message about racism. In addition, Amos Edwards is killed in

the novel during the battle with Scar’s camp, while Ethan survives the movie, but chooses to not

stay with his niece in the last minute of the film.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers was released in 1956 and is based on the serialized Jack

Finney novel “The Body Snatchers”, which was originally published in Collier’s in 1954. It tells

the story of Dr. Miles Bennell, a small town doctor who has been getting a rash of cases where

people claim that close friends and relatives have been replaced by duplicate imposters. While

initially skeptical of these claims, and more interested in getting back together with Becky

Driscoll, his old girlfriend, Miles changes his mind once a partially formed version of his friend

Jack is found in Jack’s basement. From there, Miles and Becky discover that aliens have slowly

been replacing everyone in town with doppelgangers via giant seed pods, with intentions of

taking over the entire planet. They manage to escape town, and even destroy one patch of alien

pods, but Becky is eventually changed by the aliens and Miles is left to deal with the authorities,

who believe he is crazy. Miles is saved when a truck delivering seed pods crashes, giving the

authorities the proof they need to believe him. The film follows the plot of the novel very

closely, only changing a few elements, most notably the ending. The novel concludes with the

seed pods electing to leave Earth and avoid having to deal with rebellious humans like Miles and

Becky, leaving the pod people to die off in a few years as they are designed to.

70

Bibliography

Primary Sources

The Asphalt Jungle. DVD. Directed by John Huston. 1950; Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, 2004.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. DVD. Directed by Eugène Lourié. 1953; Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, 2003.

High Noon. DVD. Directed by Fred Zinnemann. 1952; Santa Monica, CA: Lionsgate, 2008.

In a Lonely Place. DVD. Directed by Nicholas Ray. 1950; Burbank, CA: Columbia/Tristar Home Entertainment, 2003.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers. DVD. Directed by Don Siegel. 1956; Hollywood, CA: Paramount Home Entertainment/Olive Films, 2012.

Kiss Me Deadly. DVD. Directed by Robert Aldrich. 1955; United States: Criterion Collection, 2011.

The Man from Laramie. DVD. Directed by Anthony Mann. 1955; Culver City, CA: Columbia TriStar Home Video, 1999.

The Searchers. DVD. Directed by John Ford. 1956; Burbank, CA: Warner Bros. Entertainment, 2006.

The War of the Worlds. DVD. Directed by Byron Haskin. 1953; Hollywood, CA: Paramount Pictures, 2005.

Secondary Sources

“Also Showing.” Time 61, no. 25 (June 22, 1953): 90. Publisher Provided Full Text Searching File, EBSCOhost (accessed May 6, 2015).

Auerbach, Jonathan. Dark Borders: Film Noir and American Citizenship. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011.

Booker, M. Keith. Monsters, Mushrooms, and the Cold War: American Science Fiction and the Roots of Postmodernism, 1946-1964. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001.

Bradbury, Ray. The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories. Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2008.

71

Burnett, W. R. The Asphalt Jungle. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1949.

Buscombe, Edward. The Searchers. London: BFI Publishing, 2000.

Collins, Max Allen and James L. Taylor. Mickey Spillane on Screen: A Complete Study of the Television and Film Adaptations. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2012.

Conley, Tom. “A Fable of Film: Rancière's Anthony Mann.” SubStance: A Review Of Theory & Literary Criticism 33:1 (January 2004): 91-107. Accessed May 6, 2015. doi: 10.2307/3685464.

Corkin, Stanley. Cowboys as Cold Warriors: the Western and U.S. History. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004.

Costello, Matthew. “Rewriting High Noon: Transformations in American Popular Political Culture During the Cold War.” Film & History (03603695) 33:1 (May 2003): 30-40

Crowther, Bosley. “The Screen In Review.” New York Times (1923-Current File), Jul 25, 1952. http://search.proquest.com/docview/112466177.

Crowther, Bosley. “Screen: Stewart Out West." New York Times (1923-Current File), Sep 01, 1955. http://search.proquest.com/docview/113275381.

Crowther, Bosley. “Screen: The Searchers' Find Action.” New York Times (1923-Current File), May 31, 1956. http://search.proquest.com/docview/113821656.

Crowther, Bosley. “The Screen: Three Films Make Their Bows.” New York Times (1923-Current File), May 18, 1950. http://search.proquest.com/docview/111719876.

Crowther, Bosley. “The Screen: Three New Films On Local Scene.” New York Times (1923-Current File), June 9, 1950. http://search.proquest.com/docview/111717705.

Crowther, Bosley. “Summer Fare.” New York Times (1923-Current File), June 28, 1953. http://search.proquest.com/docview/112804955.

Crowther, Bosley. “A Western Legend.” New York Times (1923-Current File), Aug 03, 1952. http://search.proquest.com/docview/112464024.

Crowther, Bosley. “The Year's Best.” New York Times (1923-Current File), Dec 28, 1952. http://search.proquest.com/docview/112334431.

Cunningham, John W. “The Tin Star.” Collier's Weekly 120:23 (December 6, 1947): 11, 64-73. Accessed May 6, 2015. http://www.unz.org/Pub/Colliers-1947dec06-00011.

Dimendberg, Edward. Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004.

72

Doherty, Thomas. "Western Drama, Cold-War Allegory." Chronicle Of Higher Education 49:3 (September 13, 2002): B15. Academic Search Elite, EBSCOhost (accessed May 6, 2015).

Edgerton, Gary R. and Michael T. Marsden, ed. Westerns: The Essential Journal of Popular Film and Television Collection. New York: Routledge, 2012.

Field, Douglas. American Cold War Culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005.

Finney, Jack. “The Body Snatchers” Collier's Weekly 134:11 (November 26, 1954): 26, 90-99. Accessed May 6, 2015. http://www.unz.org/Pub/Colliers-1954nov26-00026.

Finney, Jack. “The Body Snatchers” Collier's Weekly 134:12 (December 10, 1954): 114-125, 90-99. Accessed May 6, 2015. http://www.unz.org/Pub/Colliers-1954dec10-00114.

Finney, Jack. “The Body Snatchers” Collier's Weekly 134:13 (December 24, 1954): 62-73. Accessed May 6, 2015. http://www.unz.org/Pub/Colliers-1954dec24-00062.

Finney, Jack. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1998.

Flynn, T. T. The Man from Laramie. New York: Leisure Books, 2009.

Fraterrigo, Elizabeth. “The Answer to Suburbia: Playboy’s Urban Lifestyle,” Journal of Urban History 34:5 (2008): 747-774.

Grant, Barry Keith. Invasion of the Body Snatchers New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Hare, William. L.A. Noir. McFarland & Company, Inc.: Jefferson, NC, 2004.

Heise, Thomas. “The Crimes of Punishment: The Tortured Logic of Mickey Spillane's Kiss Me, Deadly.” Journal of Popular Culture 45 (February 2012), 56-78.

Hendershot, Cyndy. “Darwin and the Atom: Evolution/Devolution Fantasies in The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Them!, and The Incredible Shrinking Man.” Science Fiction Studies 25:2 (July 1998): 319-335.

Hoberman, J. An Army of Phantoms: American Movies and the Making of the Cold War. New York: The New Press, 2011.

Hoberman, J. “Thriller of Tomorrow.” Kiss Me Deadly booklet. DVD. Directed by Robert Aldrich. 1955; United States: Criterion Collection, 2011, 5-11.

Huebner, Andrew J. "Lost in Space: Technology and Turbulence in Futuristic Cinema of the 1950s." Film & History (03603695) 40:2 (Fall 2010): 6-26. Academic Search Elite, EBSCOhost (May 6, 2015).

73

Hughes, Dorothy B. In a Lonely Place. New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2003.

Kackman, Michael. Citizen Spy: Television, Espionage, and Cold War Culture. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2005.

Kitses, Jim. Horizons West: Directing the Western from John Ford to Clint Eastwood. London: BFI Publishing, 2004.

Kuznick, Peter J. and James Gilbert, ed. Rethinking Cold War Culture. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001.

LeMay, Alan. The Searchers. New York: Leisure Books, 2009.

Matheson, Sue. "'Let's Go Home, Debbie': The Matter of Blood Pollution, Combat Culture, and Cold War Hysteria in The Searchers (1956)." Journal Of Popular Film & Television 39:2 (April 2011): 50-58. Academic Search Elite, EBSCOhost (accessed May 6, 2015).

McCarthy, Kevin and Ed Gorman, ed. “They're Here…”: Invasion of the Body Snatchers: A Tribute. New York : Berkley Boulevard Books, 1999.

Moser, Joseph Paul. “From 'Hard-Boiled' Detective to 'Fallen Man': The Literary Lineage and Postwar Emergence of Film Noir.” In Crime and Detective Fiction, edited by Rebecca Martin, 152-175. Ipswich: Salem Press, 2013.

Naremore, James. More than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.

“The New Pictures.” Time 55, no. 23 (June 5, 1950): 88. Publisher Provided Full Text Searching File, EBSCOhost (accessed May 6, 2015).

“The New Pictures.” Time 55, no. 25 (June 19, 1950): 94. Publisher Provided Full Text Searching File, EBSCOhost (accessed May 6, 2015).

“The New Pictures.” Time 60, no. 2 (July 14, 1952): 94. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed May 6, 2015).

“The New Pictures.” Time 66, no. 11 (September 12, 1955): 116. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed May 6, 2015).

“The New Pictures.” Time 67, no. 26 (June 25, 1956): 60. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed May 6, 2015).

Patterson, James T. Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

74

Polan, Dana. In a Lonely Place. London: British Film Institute, 1993.

Polan, Dana. “North America.” In The SAGE Handbook of Film Studies, edited by James Donald and Michael Renov. London: SAGE Publications Ltd., 2008). doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781849200400.n1.

Samuels, Stuart. “The Age of Conspiracy and Conformity: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).” In American History/American Film: Interpreting the Hollywood Image, edited by John E. O'Connor and Martin A. Jackson, 203-216. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1979.

Silver, Alan and Elizabeth Ward, ed. Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style. 3rd ed. New York: Overlook Press, 1992.

Spillane, Mickey. The Mike Hammer Collection. Vol. 2. New York: New American Library, 2001.

Staiger, Janet. “Kiss Me Deadly: Cold War Threats from Spillane to Aldrich, New York to Los Angeles, and the Mafia to the H-Bomb.” In New Directions in American Reception Study, edited by Philip Goldstein and James L. Machor, 279-288. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Sterritt, David. "The Man from Laramie." Cineaste 39:4 (Fall 2014): 67-68. Academic Search Elite, EBSCOhost (accessed May 6, 2015).

Villella, Fiona A. “Shadows on the Horizon: In a Lonely Place.” Senses of Cinema: An Online Film Journal Devoted to the Serious and Eclectic Discussion of Cinema 10 (November 2000). Accessed May 6, 2015. http://sensesofcinema.com/2000/feature-articles/lonely/.

Vizzini, Bryan E. “Cold War Fears, Cold War Passions: Conservatives And Liberals Square Off in 1950s Science Fiction.” Quarterly Review Of Film & Video 26:1 (January 2009): 28-39. Academic Search Elite, EBSCOhost (accessed May 6, 2015).

Weiler, A. H., “Scanning Some Small Wonders.” New York Times (1923-Current File), August 23, 1953. http://search.proquest.com/docview/112589564

Weiler, A. H., “The Screen In Review.” New York Times (1923-Current File), August 14, 1953. http://search.proquest.com/docview/112587918

Wells, H. G. A Critical Edition of The War of the Worlds. Edited by David Y. Hughes and Harry M. Geduld. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.

Wells, H. G. The War of the Worlds. New York: Bantam Classics, 2003.

75