Episode Six: The Attack of Small Screens (1950-1960)
Monday Dec. 6 at 8 pm & 11 pm ET
Wednesday Dec. 8 at 10 pm ET
Monday Dec. 13 at 7 pm ET

During the 1950s, with the nation enjoying a new prosperity and television providing fierce competition, the reign of the old moguls began a long decline. The movies needed new ideas that went beyond 3-D, widescreen processes and stereophonic sound. Dore Schary became the new production head at MGM, and by 1951 L. B. Mayer was forced out of his own company. (Schary himself soon would follow.) At Warner Bros., a hot new director named Elia Kazan brought earthy realism to the screen with such films as A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and On the Waterfront (1954). An ominous atmosphere was created by the anti-Communist blacklist, poisoning a tough business where reputation was everything. In 1958 Stanley Kramer produced and directed The Defiant Ones, which gave Sidney Poitier above the-title billing and created the first African-American superstar. While such stars as Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift had some of the old glamour, a new and bolder breed was represented by Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. By the end of the 1950s, Louis B. Mayer and Harry Cohn had died and Jack Warner was losing his grip on power. Only Zanuck at 20th Century Fox and Zukor at Paramount held on, but even more radical changes lay ahead.