Hollywood in the 1950s was a period when the film industry both set conventions and broke norms and traditions --- from Cinerama, CinemaScope and VistaVision to the epic film and lavish musical. It was a decade that saw the rise of the antihero; the smoldering, the hidden and the unspoken; teenagers gone wild in the streets; the sacred and the profane; the revolution of the Method; the socially conscious; the implosion of the studios; the end of the production code; and the invasion of the ultimate body snatcher: the “small screen” television. Here is Eisenhower’s America, seemingly complacent and conformity-ridden. And here is its darkening, resonant landscape, beset by conflict, discontent and anxiety --- an America on the verge of cultural, political and sexual revolt, busting up and breaking out.