From Our Rear Window
1954
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In 1954 the year of our birth, the top selling movie was Rear Window. People buying the popcorn in the cinema lobby had glazing eyes when looking at the poster.
Remember? That was before there were DVDs. Heck, even before there was VHS. People were indeed watching movies in the cinema and not downloading them online. Imagine the packed seats, the laughter, the excitement, the novelty, and most all of that without 3-D computer effects.
Do you know who won the Oscars that year? The academy award for the best movie went to On the Waterfront. The Oscar for best foreign movie that year went to the Japanese film, Gate of Hell. The top actor was Marlon Brando for his role as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront. The top actress was Grace Kelly for her role as Georgie Elgin in The Country Girl. The best director? Elia Kazan for On the Waterfront.
In the year 1954, the time when we arrived on this planet, books were still read on paper, not on digital devices. Trees were cut down to get the word out. The number one US bestseller of the time was Not as a Stranger by Morton Thompson. Oh, that is so long ago. Have you read that book? Have you even heard of it?
In 1954 Marilyn Monroe marries baseball player Joe DiMaggio…the first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched in Groton, Connecticut, by First Lady of the United States, Mamie Eisenhower. Queen Elizabeth II becomes the first reigning monarch to visit Australia. The first mass vaccination of children to prevent polio begins in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Chiang Kai-shek is re-elected president of the Republic of China by the National Assembly. The Boeing 367-80, the prototype of the Boeing 707 series, goes on its maiden flight. The first issue of Sports Illustrated magazine is published in the United States. West Germany joins NATO.
That was the world when we were born. Since then, others and we have changed it.
The Nobel prize for Literature that year went to Ernest Hemingway. The Nobel Peace prize went to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The Nobel prize for physics went to Max Born from the United Kingdom for his fundamental research in quantum mechanics, especially for his statistical interpretation of the wave function.
The sensation this created was big. However, it didn't stop the planets from spinning, on and on, year by year. Years in which we would grow bigger, older, smarter, and, if we were lucky, sometimes wiser. Years in which we also lost some things. Possessions were misplaced. Memories faded. Friends parted ways. The best friends, we tried to hold on. This is what counts in life? Isn’t it?
The 1950s were indeed a special decade. The American economy is on the upswing. The cold war between the US and the Soviet Union is playing out throughout the whole decade. Anti-communism prevails in the United States and leads to the Red Scare and accompanying Congressional hearings. Africa begins to become decolonized. The Korean War takes place. The Vietnam War starts. The Suez Crisis war is fought on Egyptian territory. Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and others overthrow authorities to create a communist government on Cuba. Funded by the US, reconstructions in Japan continue. In Japan, filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa, creates the movies Rashomon and Seven Samurai. The FIFA World Cups are won by Uruguay, followed by West Germany, then Brazil.
Do you remember the movie that was all the rage when we were 15? The Wild Bunch. Do you still remember the songs playing on the radio when we were 15? Maybe it was "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" by Marvin Gaye. Were you in love? With whom? How many times? Did you go steady? Do you remember? Do you care? Does it matter?
In 1954, 15 years earlier, a long time ago, the year when we were born, the song "Little Things Mean a Lot" by Kitty Kallen topped the US charts. Do you know the lyrics? Do you know the tune? Sing along.
Blow me a kiss across the room
Say I look nice when I'm not
Touch my hair as you pass my chair
Little things mean a lot...
There's a kid outside, shouting, playing. It doesn't care about time. It doesn't know about time. It shouts and it plays and thinks time is forever. We were once that kid.
6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... it's 1954. There's TV noise coming from the second floor. Someone turned up the volume way too high. The sun is burning from above. These were different times. The show playing on TV is The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin. The sun goes down. Someone switches channels. Candid Camera is on now. That is the world when we were born.
Progress, year after year. Do you wonder where the world is heading? The technology available today would have blown our minds in 1954. Do you know what was invented in the year we were born? The Radar Gun, the Synthetic Diamond, and the Geodesic Dome.
Aim for the body rare, you'll see it on TV
The worst thing in 1954 was the bikini
See the girl on the TV dressed in a bikini
She doesn't think so but she's dressed for the H-bomb...
That's from the song "I Found That Essence Rare" by Gang Of Four.
In 1954, a new character entered the world of comic books: Marvelman. Bang! Boom! But that's just fiction, right? In the real world in 1954, Howard Stern, Denzel Washington, and Jackie Chan were born. And, of course, we were born. Everyone an individual…everyone special. ..everyone taking a different path through life.
Today the world is a different place.
What path have you taken?
