Ah, the Fifties. The Fifties was the last real decade, a time when men drank scotch and soda for breakfast and drove cars that could comfortably sleep fourteen. Ike was busy spanking Commies with his sidekick Joe. We left it to Beaver, not to mention to Pat Boone and Doris Day. There was none of that dirty, nasty hippie business, thank God. Yes, the Fifties was, by all accounts, the Whitest Decade. Television wasn't black and white because of technological limitations; America had the contrast cranked all the way up.

On the screen, too, white people reigned, and, not surprisingly, they were incredibly silly. All too often, they could be found wearing shiny, impractical space suits and calling people "Earthlings." Much of this was due to one man, Roger Corman, who, by conservative estimates, directed, produced, did the music for, edited, provided laundry and craft services, produced (again), cast, did extensive script rewrites, walked the dog, and released some 23 movies in just one week of July 1953 alone. Among films he directed/produced/wrote/second unit directed/catered/acted in/designed and created the sets for/wrote music/trained the monkey/etc. were gems like BUCKET OF BLOOD, BLOOD SONG, ALTAR OF BLOOD, BLOOD CASTLE, QUEEN OF BLOOD, TEENAGE PAPER CUT, TALES OF TERROR AND/OR BLOOD, LAKE OF SOMETHING THAT STRONGLY RESEMBLES BLOOD, ATTACK OF THE BLOOD LEECHES, THE ITTY-BITTY HARMLESS BADGER THAT EVERYONE LOVED AND HAD LOTS OF FRIENDS WHO INCIDENTALLY TAKES A VOYAGE TO THE LAND OF THE BLOOD-SUCKING MAIDENS OF BLOODULA VII AND DIES A HORRIBLE DEATH IN BLOOD, and BUCKET OF BLOOD II: THE SPILLENING, all of which provided jobs for thousands of young white actors and actresses who would otherwise be doing something respectable with their lives.

Although the so-called "world's worst director" Ed Wood garnered far more attention for his spectacularly bad films, Corman preferred quantity over sheer lack of quality, leading to the age-old philosophical argument about whether one PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE is inherently worse than 43 variations on ATTACK OF THE TEENAGE CRAB MONSTERS. This argument misses the point, which is this: The Fifties produced an awful lot of crap for theaters. Truckloads-- nay, boatloads. Indeed, it could be considered the Golden Age of Bad Movies. There were thousands of the things out there, created by some of the biggest names in crapola. Both Wood and Corman were at the height of their powers, such as they were. Ronald Reagan was a bad actor instead of a bad politician. Even Elvis got in on the racket, portraying, among other things, himself in a Civil War outfit, himself in a prisoner outfit, and, daringly, himself in contemporary clothing. Incredibly, oftentimes Elvis was both on screen and not singing at the same time.

Much of the crap unloaded on audiences in the Fifties came in the form of the so-called "B-Movie," which was so named not because it was the second film on a double bill with a higher profile film, but because these movies had failed to pass the USDA's stringent requirements for beef product nutrition. Little-known fact: In the Fifties, celluloid processing involved using broth as part of the developing process. More expensive films produced by major studios could afford to use the higher quality, "grade A" beef broth. Lesser films wound up using a weaker, pork-based consommé, and thus did not meet with government approval. Not long after the process gained popularity, meat terminology completely permeated the industry, with actors calling for "beefier" roles, comedians being asked to "ham" it up, and directors "porking" actresses.

Hollywood, knowing that millions of teenagers with brains dulled from years of Howdy Doody and fluoridated drinking water would watch just about anything put in front of them, up to and including TV test patterns, launched the ultimate bad movie delivery system: the drive-in movie theater. Developed in top-secret labs in Los Angeles, the drive-in theater combined all the fun of trying to find a parking spot at the mall with obstructed views and drive-through restaurant-quality audio. And yet, teenagers still flocked to drive-ins, mostly because it was either that or watch Lawrence Welk with mom. Across the country, teenagers filled the lots and watched hour after hour of films about giant insects or rogue body parts in fights-to-the-death with community theater graduates in tin foil space suits. Not even Corman could crank out bad movies fast enough to meet the demand, though valiantly he tried. Before long, the Sixties would arrive in full force and teenagers would be turning to massive quantities of narcotics and poor hygiene for their kicks.

White people would never be the same again. Thank God.

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