On Christmas day rhythm-and-blues singer Johnny Ace jokingly pointed a gun to his head and said, “It’s okay! Gun’s not loaded… see?” Johnny was wrong; the gun was loaded and when he pulled the trigger he blew his brains out.
A fringe psychologist named Fredric Wertham wrote a book titled Seduction of the Innocent in which he claimed that most juvenile delinquents read comic books. Wertham also asserted also that Batman and Robin were gay lovers and Wonder Woman was a lesbian.
As a result of the book, the Comics Code Authority was established and the rules were that in every instance, good must triumph over evil, no comics magazine could use the word horror or terror in its title and all characters had to be depicted in dress reasonably acceptable to society.
The movie The Silver Chalice was the acting debut of Paul Newman and he got a nomination for a Golden Globe Award. Even so, Newman took an ad out in Variety Magazine apologizing for his performance and later called it "the worst motion picture produced during the 1950s".
Better movies that year were Rear Window, a mystery thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and Animal Farm, an animated film base on the satirical allegorical novella, by George Orwell. The Central Intelligence Agency got involved in the latter they financed and re-wrote it; they altered the ending so that the pigs, who represented communists, were overthrown by the other animals on the farm.
Two bad (I think) movies were The Creature from the Black Lagoon and Godzilla, but they were popular in 1954.
Roger Bannister performed an amazing feat when he became the first human to break the four-minute mile barrier. Watch
Ladislav Alster (June 2, 1927 – 11 January 11, 1991, age 63), was was one of the leading Czechoslovak players in the mid-1950s and won the championship in 1956. In 1987, he published the book Sachy hra kralovska (The Royal Game of Chess).
His opponent in the following game was a correspondence IM. What I liked about the game was the clean cut way in which Alster won after he got control of the open b-file. All my games should be so simple!
[Event "Czech Campionship, Prague"]
[Site "Prague CSR"]
[Date "1954.12.02"]
[Round "14"]
[White "Ladislav Alster"]
[Black "Milan Weiner"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "E46"]
[Annotator "Stockfish 15"]
[PlyCount "65"]
[EventDate "1954.11.14"]
{Nimzo-Indian: Rubinstein} 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 {[%mdl 32] The
Rubinstein Variation is the most common line. White continues development
before committing to a definite plan of action. Black has three main options:
4...0-0, 4...c5 and 4...b6.} d6 {An unambitious move, the point of which is to
play an early ...e5} 5. Nge2 O-O 6. a3 Bxc3+ 7. Nxc3 e5 8. Be2 {Black was
probably hoping for the drawish 8.dxe5 and an exchange of Qs.} c6 9. e4 Nbd7
10. Be3 Re8 11. d5 c5 (11... cxd5 12. cxd5 a6 13. O-O b5 14. f3 Nh5 15. g3 {
White is better. Stanke,J (2335)-Meyer,F (2322) Hamburg 2006}) 12. O-O Nf8 13.
b4 b6 (13... cxb4 14. axb4 b6 15. f3 {and black has a very passive position.})
14. Rb1 Ng6 15. Qd2 Ng4 16. Bxg4 Bxg4 17. bxc5 bxc5 18. Rb3 Rb8 19. Rxb8 Qxb8
20. Rb1 {A most interesting position. Back has zero K-side chances and white's
control of the b-file will quickly prove decisive.} Qc7 21. Qb2 Bd7 {[%mdl
8192] After this move which allows white to gain control of the 7th rank black
is lost. He had a fighting chance after 21...Bc8} 22. Qb7 Rc8 23. Qxc7 Rxc7 24.
Rb8+ Nf8 (24... Rc8 25. Rxc8+ Bxc8 {is hopeless.} 26. Nb5) 25. a4 {[%mdl 32]}
f6 26. a5 Kf7 27. Nb5 Bxb5 28. cxb5 {[%mdl 32] Game over. The Q-side Ps
quickly decide the game.} Re7 29. Bd2 Re8 30. Rb7+ Re7 31. a6 c4 32. b6 Nd7 33.
bxa7 {Black resigned. A very clean game by Alster. It's amazing how quickly
his game collapsed after white got control of the b-file and 7th rank.} 1-0
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