James Dean was featured in his first major role and film, director Elia Kazan’s East of Eden. The actor was killed in a car accident on September 30, 1955, having appeared in only three films. Both of his Best Actor Oscar nominations – for East of Eden and Giant – were given posthumously. He remains the only person to have two posthumous acting nominations.
The first feature animation in CinemaScope, Walt Disney’s Lady and the Tramp, was released in the US. It also marked Disney’s first full-length cartoon based on an original story rather than an established classic. Disneyland opened in a former orange grove in Anaheim, California, in July 1955, at a cost of $17 million. Another Disney first was the ABC-TV debut of The Mickey Mouse Club on October 3, 1955.
Blackboard Jungle was the first film to feature a rock-‘n’-roll song, “Rock-Around-The-Clock” (sung by Bill Haley and His Comets during the opening credits).
United Artists withdrew from the Motion Pictures Association of American when it refused to issue a Production Code seal to its controversial film about drug addiction, director Otto Preminger’s The Man With the Golden Arm. The film’s success helped to loosen restrictions on such films. The code was amended to permit portrayals of prostitution and abortion as well as light profanity (the use of the words ‘hell’ and ‘damn’).
A solitary white passenger during the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake’s order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger and was arrested, leading to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Ray Kroc opened his first McDonald’s restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois. The Salk polio vaccine received full approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. A young Jim Henson built the first version of Kermit the Frog.
President Eisenhower sent the first military advisors to South Viet Nam. USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine, put to sea for the first time.
A Fable by William Faulkner won the Pulitzer Prize for literature. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams won for drama. The instrumental “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White” by Perez Prado was ranked the number one song by Billboard.
1955, Saigon, South Vietnam — Crowds fill the streets of Saigon to await the return of a referendum held in 1955. The majority of Saigon voters favored President Ngo Dinh Diem who declared the south an independent republic. — Image by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS
The Soviet Union announced the end of the war between the USSR and Germany, which began during World War II in 1941. Eight Communist Bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, signed a mutual defence treaty in Warsaw, Poland, called the Warsaw Pact. It would be dissolved in 1991. The Austrian State Treaty, which restored Austria’s national sovereignty,was concluded between the four occupying powers following World War II (the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and France) and Austria, setting it up as a neutral country.
Ngô Đình Diệm proclaimed Vietnam to be a republic with himself as its President (following the State of Vietnam referendum on October 23) and formed the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. The Vietnam War began between the South Vietnam Army and the North Vietnam Army in which the latter was allied with the Viet Cong.
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I previously reviewed the following 1955 films on this site: Diabolique; Kiss Me Deadly; The Desperate Hours; Mr. Arkadin; The Phenix City Story; and Crashout. A list of the films I will select from can be found here.
Montage of stills from the Oscar winners
Montage of stills from major Oscar nominees
