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The History of American Cinema: 1952

January - June

10/1 -

Cecil B. DeMille’s The Greatest Show on Earth is released.   Charlton Heston stars as the manager of a travelling circus, with support from James Stewart (in clown make-up throughout), Cornel Wilde, Betty Hutton, Dorothy Lamour and Gloria Grahame.   Bob Hope and Bing Crosby make cameo appearances. [ADD]

4/3 -

Ronald Reagan, languishing in B-movie hell, marries little-known actress Nancy Davis.   Reagan has recently finished filming She’s Working Her Way Through College for Warners. [MORE] [ADD]

20/3 -

The 24th Academy Awards ceremony, hosted by comedic actor Danny Kaye, takes place at the RKO Pantages Theater.  [MORE]

4/4 -

Susan Hayward stars in 20^th Century-Fox’s musical biopic of Jane Froman, With a Song in My Heart.   Hayward’s singing voice is dubbed by Froman herself, whose career was nearly destroyed after she was crippled in a wartime air crash.   David Wayne, Rory Calhoun, Thelma Ritter and Robert Wagner. [MORE] [ADD]

5/4 -

Howard Hughes announces the temporary closure of RKO Studios to facilitate the dismissal of nearly 100 employees suspected of being Communist sympathisers.  [MORE] [ADD]

10/4 -

After initially refusing to do so, director Elia Kazan names 15 of his former colleagues as communists after admitting he also was a member of the party from 1934 to 1936. [MORE] [ADD]

11/4 -

MGM’s latest musical, Singin’ in the Rain, is released.   Directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, the movie also stars Kelly, with support from Jean Hagen and Donald O’Connor, and is a witty and nostalgic pastiche of the movie world’s transition from silent pictures to sound.  [MORE] [ADD]

15/5 -

Red Planet Mars, an anti-communist allegory directed by Harry Horner, is released. [MORE] [ADD]

26/5 -

In the case of Burstyn v Wilson, the Supreme Court rules in favour of the distributor of Roberto Rossellini's film L’Amore, deciding that the cinema is not a purely commercial venture, and thus has a right to constitutional guarantees of protection of freedom of expression under the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the US Constitution. [MORE]

The History of Cinema: 1952