At the Movies

In the fifties, the cinema played a major role in German youth culture. Adolescents were especially attracted by spectacular Hollywood productions in cinemascope or 3D technology.
Inside the movie theatre, the monotony of everyday life could be left behind. Here, among their own kind, they could share their problems and illusions.

Movies about juvenile delinquency became blockbusters. Young German people could identify with the protagonists played by actors such as Marlon Brando and James Dean. With the opening credits of "Blackboard Jungle", featuring Bill Haley's "Rock around the clock," rock and roll became an organ, studded jeans and leather jackets became symbols, and the electric guitar the instrument of a long lasting generational conflict.

Destroyed movie theatres and venues, smashed shopping windows, wrecked cars, assaults on adults and street fights with the police were, between 1955 and 1959, the symptoms of that juvenile movement. Against the resistance of state and society, it marked the beginning of the end of authoritarian tradition and mentality in Germany.

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