1950s Films

The 1950s saw the breakup of the studio system and the rise of independent production, which is why so many films from this decade ended up in the public domain. The collection includes science fiction B-pictures, noir, low-budget horror, and the last wave of Western serials. A lot of these films were made by companies that did not survive the decade, which is why their catalogs lapsed. The 1950s are also where you find the first wave of television syndication packages, many of which lost track of the underlying copyrights.