Nineteen fifties
'Noir Alley' host celebrates cinema's double crosses and doomed characters
Eddie Muller's book, Dark City, chronicles film noir from the '40s and '50s. "A lot of factors ... go into making something of film noir," he says, including, a "very dark vision of existence."
Avant-Garde New York Poet David Lehman
Lehman is the series editor of "The Best American Poetry." His new book "The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets" (Doubleday) is a cultural history about a group of poets in the 1950s who he says helped to reinvent literature, like John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, Kenneth Koch, and James Schuyler. They took their cue from the Abstract Expressionistic painters of the time who were also in New York.
Journalist David Halberstam on America in Change
Halberstam has a new book -- a social, political, economic, and cultural history of what he considers the most pivotal decade of the century -- called "The Fifties." His other books include, "The Best and the Brightest" and "The Powers That Be."
1953: Before the Dawn of Rock and Roll
Rock historian Ed Ward remembers the R&B-fueled year which preceded the coming rock and roll revolution.
A Congenial Remembrance.
Book critic John Leonard reviews "New York in the Fifties," a new memoir by Dan Wakefield. (Published by Houghton Mifflin)
A Novel Thirty Years in the Making.
Book critic John Leonard reviews "The Runaway Soul," the long-awaited first novel from writer Harold Brodkey. (It's published by Farrar Strauss).
New History Chronicles the U. S. in the 1950s.
Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews "Homeward Bound," historian Elaine Tyler May's look at family life in the 1950s.
John Waters Discusses His New Musical Film.
Filmmaker John Waters. His latest film is "Cry Baby," a juvenile delinquent love story set in the 1950's, which brings together such performers as Patty Hearst, Johnny Depp (of Fox's tv show "21 Jump Street"), Ricki Lake, David Nelson, and Polly Bergen. Waters is known for his independent, off-beat films, such as "Pink Flamingos," "Female Trouble," and "Polyester." In 1988 Waters entered the mainstream with his popular film, "Hairspray."
Journalist Pete Hamill Feels Ready for Novels
Hamill's first book of fiction is called Loving Women, about a man who joins the Navy in the 1950s. Hamill wrote for a number of New York City newspapers, and recently left the New York Post after an editorial dispute.