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During a reception in his honor, Joseph L. Mankiewicz,the president of the Screen Director's Guild, violently denounces the current policy of “blacklisting”, as well as Cecil B. DeMille's demand members of the Screen Directors.
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Roy Rogers receives a temporary injunction preventing the sale of his Republic features to television. He claims that the advertisements shown during the commercial breaks in his films would suggest he was endorsing the products.
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Howard Hughes announces the temporary closure of RKO Studios to facilitate the dismissal of close to 100 employees suspected of having Communist sympathies.
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The Academy Award ceremony is broadcast on television for the first time. The show draws the largest single audience in television's five–year commercial history.
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Joseph Breen retires as director of the Production Code Administration after 20 years. Geoffrey Shurlock is appointed to replace him, and soon afterwards the Production Code is amended to allow miscegenation, liquor and some profane words in future Hollywood productions.
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Most studios have switched from using Technicolor's three–strip color process to using Eastman Kodak's “Eastman Color” negative film stock. Kodak's single–strip color negative film can be used in any camera, and processed and printed by conventional means.
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Harry and Albert Warner are selling their holdings in Warner Bros. to a group of investors headed by the First National Bank of Boston. Jack Warner, however, is holding on to his stock, and he remains the largest individual shareholder in the company.
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This is the 30th year for the Academy Awards and the voting rules have changed. Instead of allowing industry guilds, industry unions, and Academy members to all have votes for the Academy's award nominations, both nominations and final selections will now only be in the hands of Academy members.
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Paramount has sold the television rights for its pre–1948 film catalogue (750 movies) to the Music Corporation of America (MCA). The price is said to have been $50 million.
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The Motion Picture Association of America has repealed its 1957 ruling that forbids persons sympathetic to Communism, or those who refused to give evidence to the House Un–American Activities Committee (HUAC), from being nominated for an Academy Award.
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The Screen Writers Guild has called for a strike. It is demanding that its members receive a percentage of the television rights for films.
