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The 1950s were an era of both prosperity and great conflict. After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a series of conflicts collectively known as the Cold War. The Soviet Union began the Space Race with the launch of Sputnik 1, while Fidel Castro became the first Communist leader in the Western hemisphere. The landmark Brown v. Board of Education court decision ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, and the Civil Rights Movement was born. Joseph Stalin died, the Vietnam War began, and Elvis Presley turned rock 'n' roll into the most popular music genre in the world.   (from left to right) Replica of Sputnik 1; Fidel Castro; the Vietnam War; Elvis Presley.   The 1950s changed Hollywood as well. As a result of the introduction of television, studios were desperate to attract audiences back to the theatres and resorted to such exotic techniques as CinemaScope and 3D film. The Cold War era zeitgeist translated into a ren...

The nicest man to ever come out of Hollywood, James Maitland Stewart, was born on May 20, 1908, in Indiana, Pennsylvania. He was the eldest child of Elizabeth Ruth Jackson, an expert pianist, and Alexander Maitland Stewart, the owner of the local hardware store. As a young boy, Jimmy dreamed of becoming a pilot and would spend many hours in the basement building model airplanes and working on mechanical drawings. On the weekends, he would go to the movies and marvel at the way actors performed in the still silent silver screen.   James Stewart as a child in Indiana, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1928, after graduating from the Mercersburg Academy prep school, Jimmy enrolled at Princeton University, where he studied towards a degree in architecture. During his sophomore year, his skills as an accordion player won him a coveted membership in the school's prestigious musical drama society, the Triangle Club, where he befriended fellow member Joshua Logan, the future Oscar...

This week on «Film Friday» I want to tell you about my favourite Alfred Hitchcock film. It is also the first Hitchcock film I ever saw, and the first time I saw James Stewart in colour. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Rear Window (1954) follows L.B. «Jeff» Jeffries (James Stewart), a professional photographer confined to his Greenwich Village apartment after breaking his leg while on a job assignment. During a summer heat wave, Jeff passes the time by watching his neighbours from his apartment rear window. He observes a skilled dancer he nicknames «Miss Torso» (Georgine Darcy), a single middle-aged woman he calls «Miss Lonelyhearts» (Judith Evelyn), a couple of lecherous newlyweds (Rand Harper and Havis Davenport), a lonely middle-aged songwriter (Ross Bagdasarian), a female sculptor with a hearing aid (Jesslyn Fax), and Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr), a travelling jewellery salesman with a bedridden wife.   James Stewart, Grace Kelly and Thelma Ritter in Rear Window . One evening, a...