American movies from the 50's

I've always had many preconceptions about hollywood productions from the 50's. McCarthy ruled the land, everything was to be kept "clean" and "family-friendly". Nothing slipped by the eyes of the censorship bureaucrats. My picture: In Europe the art of making films was flourishing as many film-makers (Bresson, Rosselini, De sica) took up a neorealism. I tend to think that Hollywood movies from this era are all stupid musicals, screwball comedies with Doris Day in the cast and John Wayne Westerns (of which some are half-decent entertainment when in the state of hangover). Film noir? Sure, some of it is great. James Dean? Yeah, he's great, too.

Lately I've watched stuff that makes me less willing to stick to this crude picture.

• A streetcar named desire (1951) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044081/
• Cat on a hot tin roof (1958) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051459/
• Track of the cat (1954) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047603/
• Sweet bird of youth (1962) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056541/

Three of these movies are based on plays by Tennessee Williams (Track of the cat is not among these). Regrettably, I am not familiar with the plays, so I don't know in what way the movies and the plays differ (even though I have read that some things considered too dangerous were left out or watered down in the movies). Anyways, these four titles have in common an atmosphere of disruption and rebellion. There is, in all of these films, some moments were melodrama gets the upper hand, but there are also moments where a state of unrest is described more subtly. These films are, in different ways, about how a person's past might haunt her and how it is difficult to live in a world in which one is expected to inhabit a particular role: the husband who loves his wife, the decent & innocent woman, the professional, the patriarch.

In all of these movies, there are tendencies to criticize the way gender (by means of expectations) dominates what a person's life is considered to be. In Cat on a hot tin roof, a man's disgust with himself and with his wife is depicted. It becomes apparent that he doesn't love her but that as a man, he is expected to be sexually interested in anything having a female form. He sees this expectation as absurd and outrageous. The idea that if one is not sexually interested in all women, or worse, one's wife, something is deeply wrong. Sweet bird of youth showcases a great many troubled characters, and the dynamics between them works well at times. A gigolo tries to work his way into the Hollywood business by tending to a drugged actress' every need. He tries to keep up his "male pride" by looking up a sweetheart of his youth. Nothing beats the end of the film, *SPOILER* in which the gigolo is rejected by his sweetheart. "What about you and me", cries Chance, the gigolo. "To hell with you" brawls his former sweetheart. The end!