1949? That was the year that was...

Turning  70 - and doesn't that just trip off the old tongue? - has got me thinking about 1949. Even though I just spent a month in it, 1949 is my year. So my mind got to wandering (as the 70 year old mind is prone to do) to what other significant events happened that year. 

There was some serious news.
NATO was formed to help keep the European peace. So far, so good (unless between when I'm writing this on 11.30 and this morning DJT manages to f it up). 

And Mao Tse Tung and his Communists beat Chiang Kai-Shek and his Nationalists to set up Red China. Mao vs. Chiang Kai-Shek? It would have been hard to pick a side on that one, but bad as Chiang Kai-Shek was, if he'd prevailed I'm guessing that there would have been a bit less death and probably no Cultural Revolution.

And back in the USSR, boys, the Soviets set off their first atomic bomb.

But let's get to the good stuff. 

At the movies

Movies that came out that year were a mixed lot. The Third Man, which familiarized the world with the zither, was released, as was All the King's Men, which familiarized the world with a fictionalized Huey Long.

No surprise that there were plenty of World War II movies out. Sands of Iwo Jima. Twelve O'Clock High. and I Was a Male War Bride. At least Twelve O'Clock High, in attempting to deal with the psychiatric perils of war made an attempt at realism. On The Town was also turned into a movie in 1949. Don't know if it counts as a war movie, but it had fun music and great dancing. (Crushing on Gene Kelly in his sailor suit...)

White Heat, with Jimmy Cagney chewing the scenery and hollering "Top of the world, Ma" was another 1949 film.

Adams Rib or, Tracy v. Hepburn in a battle of the sexes, and yet another version of Little Women, this edition with the whiney June Allyson as Jo. (Oh no!)

Film-wise, there was something for everyone in 1949.

Paul Ryan wasn''t yet around to enjoy it, but wooden writing and wooden acting were combo'd to bring us the film version of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. On a slightly less dour note, Esther Williams, Red Skelton, Ricardo Montalban and Xavier Cougat starred in Neptune's Daughter. Would someone offer me $1K to sit throug that doubleheader? I think that would be my price...

Religos got to watch Come to the Stable, and the country dealt with its race problem via Pinky, about a woman who passed for white. 

On the jukebox

1949 was not a great year for music. Ghost Riders in the Sky? Come on! But the year did give us a few holiday classics" Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Mele Kalikimaka, and - switching holidays - Here Comes Peter Cottontail.

The best "normal" song of the year was probably Some Enchanged Evening. But If I Had a Hammer, while probably neither on The Hit Parade or in a juke box, came out. And thanks to The Google, I discovered that my husband's favorite Irish pub song, Ewan MacColl's Dirty Old Town, came out in  1949. (And, yes I know that MacColl was a Brit, but he still writes a mean Irish pub tune. Unless, in this case, you listen to the lyrics, which are a tad bit violent...)

The East German national anthem "Aufterstanden Aus Ruinen" (Risen from the Ruins) was introduced in 1949, although one might argue that East Germany never did quite manage to rise from the ruins until The Wall started to crumble.

What About TV?

Americans were starting to buy into television, buying 100,000 sets a week during 1949. But there wasn't all that much on. Some shows I watched as a kid were first on in 1949: Candid Camera, The Life of Riley, I Remember Mama and The Lone Ranger. Did we really all parrot Chester A. Riley's line, "What a revoltin' development this is?" Did I really have a crush on Dick Van Patten, who played Nels on Mama? 

On the library shelves
Eleanor Roosevelt’s This I Remember was published. But every book that year wasn’t quite as forgettable. There was Paul Bowles The Sheltering Sky. And the brilliant German writer, Heinrich Böll, published his first novel, The Train Was On Time. (Note to self: reread Böll.) Death Be Not Proud, in which John Gunther chronicled the death of his teenage son from brain cancer came out that year. It was staple reading when I was in high school, reinforcing the lesson that the good died young and we were all too rotten to do so. Most significantly, George Orwell’s 1984 was published.

And on the children’s book front, there was The Color Kittens, a delightful Golden Book. In a home full of Golden Books, this was one of m favorites. 

And in other cultural news
South Pacific opened on Broadway and Death of a Salesman won the Pulitzer Prize

But wait, there's more...

Silly Putty came on the market. The most popular toy of the year was Cootie. (Yay!) And Meryl Streep and Bruce Springsteen were born. So I'm in good company.

That was the year that was!