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The History of American Cinema: 1956

January - June

6/1 -

Prince Rainier and actress Grace Kelly announce their engagement while in New York. [ADD]

27/1 -

Norman Panama and Melvin Frank’s The Court Jester, starring Danny Kaye and Glynis Johns, is released.   Kaye memorably has to remember the phrase, "The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle, the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true." [ADD]

Jan -

Columbia announces a deal to rent its pre-1948 films to television. [ADD]

4/2 -

For the first time, Hollywood studios are closed on a Saturday as a result of union demands for a five-day working week. [ADD]

6/2 -

Henri Chrétien, the French inventor of Hypergonar, the forerunner of CinemaScope, dies in Washington.  [ADD]

8/2 -

Don Siegel’s Communist infiltration allegory, Invasion of the Body Snatchers is released.   Kevin McCarthy stars as the small-town doctor who discovers his neighbours are being replaced by aliens as they sleep.   Dana Wynters also stars. [ADD]

13/3 -

John Ford’s The Searchers, starring John Wayne in possibly his best performance as Ethan Edwards on a stubborn search for his niece (Natalie Wood) snatched by Indians, is released. [ADD]

Mar -

Warner Bros. sells its pre-1948 films to television for $21 million. [ADD]

12/4 -

Filming of Bus Stop is halted after Marilyn Monroe is hospitalised for "exhaustion due to overwork, and acute bronchitis." [ADD]

10/5 -

Harry and Albert Warner sell their shares in Warner Bros. studios to an investment group headed by the First National Bank of Boston.   Their brother Jack remains the largest individual shareholder. [ADD]

12/5 -

Montgomery Clift suffers severe facial injuries in a car crash after leaving a party at the home of Elizabeth Taylor. [ADD]

1/6 -

Alfred Hitchcock’s remake of his own 1934 British thriller The Man Who Knew Too Much is released.   The action is shifted from Switzerland to Morocco, and stars James Stewart and Doris Day. [ADD]

6/6 -

29-year-old Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing is released as support to Robert Mitchum in Foreign Intrigue.   The tough heist movie, based on a novel by Lionel White, stars Sterling Hayden, Jay C. Flippen, Elisha Cook Jr., Ted De Corsia, Timothy Carey, Vince Edwards and Marie Windsor. [ADD]

29/6 -

Rodger and Hammerstein’s Broadway hit The King and I is brought to the screen by 20^th Century-Fox, with bald-headed Yul Brynner repeating his stage role as the King of Siam.   Deborah Kerr replaces Gertrude Lawrence as the British governess hired to teach his many children. [ADD]

The History of Cinema: 1956