Top 20 Kids Movies from the 50s

Young Travis Coates is left to take care of the family ranch with his mother and younger brother while his father goes off on a cattle drive in the 1860's. When a yellow mongrel comes for an uninvited stay with the family, Travis reluctantly adopts the dog. After a series of scrapes involving raccoons, snakes, bears, wild hogs and wolves, Travis grows to love and respect Old Yeller, who comes to have a profound effect on the boy's life.... [show more]

Enchanted by the idea of locating treasure buried by Captain Flint, Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey and Jim Hawkins charter a sailing voyage to a Caribbean island. Unfortunately, a large number of Flint's old pirate crew are aboard the ship, including Long John Silver.

After the beautiful Princess Aurora is born into royalty, everyone gathers to celebrate. Everything is perfectly fine until an unwanted guest appears, the evil fairy Maleficent. Maleficent curses the young princess and announces that she will die by pricking her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel before sunset on her 16th birthday. Fortunately, one of the good fairies, Merryweather, changes the spell so Aurora will fall into a deep sleep instead, and the only way to wake her from her sleep is true love's kiss. Finally the day comes.... [show more]

Legends (and myths) from the life of famed American frontiersman Davy Crockett are depicted in this feature film edited from television episodes. Crockett and his friend George Russell fight in the Creek Indian War. Then Crockett is elected to Congress and brings his rough-hewn ways to the House of Representatives. Finally, Crockett and Russell journey to Texas and partake in the last stand at the Alamo.... [show more]

The bane of young Bart Collins' existence is the piano lessons he's forced to take under the tutelage of Dr. Terwilliker, the only person he detests because of his dictatorial nature. Bart feels that Dr. Terwilliker has undue influence on his widowed mother Heloise. Bart constantly daydreams of a place--the Terwilliker Institute--at which the evil madman is its overlord. The mad doctor's built a piano so immense that it needs 500 children to play it.... [show more]

On the day he gets married and hangs up his badge, Marshal Will Kane is told that a man he sent to prison years before, Frank Miller, is returning on the noon train to exact his revenge. Having initially decided to leave with his new spouse, Will decides he must go back and face Miller. However, when he seeks the help of the townspeople he has protected for so long, they turn their backs on him. It seems Kane may have to face Miller alone, as well as the rest of Miller's gang, who are waiting for him at the station.... [show more]

While sailing with Princess Parisa to Baghdad to their wedding, Sinbad finds the Colossa Island and anchors his vessel to get supplies for the starving crew. Sinbad and his men help the magician Sokurah to escape from a Cyclops that attacks them, and Sokurah uses a magic lamp with a boy jinni to help them; however, their boat sinks and he loses the lamp. Sokurah offers a small fortune to Sinbad to return to Colossa, but he does not accept and heads to Baghdad. The citizens and the Caliph of Baghdad are celebrating the peace with Chandra, and they offer a feast to the Sultan of Chandra. Sakurah requests a ship and crew to return to Colossa but the Caliph refuses to jeopardize his countrymen. However, the treacherous magician shrinks the princess and when the desperate Sinbad seeks him out, he tells Sinbad that he needs to return to Colossa to get the ingredient necessary for the magic potion. But Sinbad has only his friend Harufa to travel with him, and decides to enlist a doubtful crew in the prison of Baghdad, in the beginning of his dangerous voyage to Colossa to save the princess and avoid the imminent war between Chandra and Baghdad.... [show more]

Mexican Narcotics officer Ramon Miguel 'Mike' Vargas has to interrupt his honeymoon on the Mexican-US border when an American building contractor is killed after someone places a bomb in his car. He's killed on the US side of the border but it's clear that the bomb was planted on the Mexican side. As a result, Vargas delays his return to Mexico City where he has been mounting a case against the Grandi family crime and narcotics syndicate. Police Captain Hank Quinlan is in charge on the US side and he soon has a suspect, a Mexican named Manolo Sanchez. Vargas is soon onto Quinlan and his Sergeant, Pete Menzies, when he catches them planting evidence to convict Sanchez. With his new American wife, Susie, safely tucked away in a hotel on the US side of the border - or so he thinks - he starts to review Quinlan's earlier cases. While concentrating on the corrupt policeman however, the Grandis have their own plans for Vargas and they start with his wife Susie.... [show more]

Texan rancher Jordan "Bick" Benedict, Jr. (Rock Hudson) visits a Maryland farm to buy a prize horse. While there he meets and falls in love with the owner's daughter Leslie (Dame Elizabeth Taylor), they are married immediately and return to his ranch. The story of their family and its rivalry with cowboy and (later oil tycoon) Jett Rink (James Dean) unfolds across two generations.... [show more]

Cinderella, the beautiful and kind-hearted daughter, sees her world turn upside down when her beloved mother dies, and her pained father remarries another woman, the wicked Lady Tremaine, who has two equally cruel daughters, the jealous Anastasia and Drizella. But, once more, things will go from bad to worse, When Cinderella's father, too, dies, leaving her all alone in the Lady's clutches to serve as her maid-of-all-work. Under those circumstances, a shabby and neglected Cinderella doesn't stand much of a chance of attending the King's royal ball--let alone, captivate the handsome Prince--unless she turns to her loving Fairy Godmother who has quite a few tricks up her sleeve. Nevertheless, will the wronged damsel ever find peace--and with it--her own Prince Charming ?... [show more]

An adaptation of J. M. Barrie's story about a boy who never grew up. The three children of the Darling family receive a visit from Peter Pan, who takes them to Never Land, where an ongoing war between Peter's gang of rag-tag runaways and the evil Pirate Captain Hook is taking place.

Professional photographer L.B. "Jeff" Jefferies breaks his leg while getting an action shot at an auto race. Confined to his New York apartment, he spends his time looking out of the rear window observing the neighbors. He begins to suspect that a man across the courtyard may have murdered his wife. Jeff enlists the help of his high society fashion-consultant girlfriend Lisa Fremont and his visiting nurse Stella to investigate.... [show more]

The unemployed trombone player Glenn Miller is always broken, chasing his sound to form his band and hocking his instrument in the pawn house to survive. When his friend Chummy MacGregor is hired to play in the band of Ben Pollack, the band-leader listens to one Glenn's composition and invites him to join his band. While traveling to New York, Glenn visits his former girlfriend Helen Berger, in Boulder, Colorado, and asks her to wait for him. Two years later he quits the band and proposes Helen that moves to New York to marry him. After the success of "Moonlight Serenade", Glenn Miller's band becomes worldwide known and Glenn and Helen and their two children have a very comfortable life. Duting the World War II, Glenn enlists in the army and travels to Europe to increase the moral of the allied troops. In the Christmas of 1944, he travels from London to Paris for a concert to be broadcast; however his plane is never found in the tragic flight.... [show more]

The oceans during the late 1800s are no longer safe; many ships have been lost. Sailors have returned to port with stories of a vicious narwhal (a giant whale with a long horn) which sinks their ships. A naturalist, Professor (Pierre) Aronnax, his assistant, Conseil, and a professional whaler, Ned Land, join a US expedition which attempts to unravel the mystery.... [show more]

Through an ancient spell, a boy changes into a sheepdog and back again. It seems to happen at inopportune times and the spell can only be broken by an act of bravery....

1927 Hollywood. Monumental Pictures' biggest stars, glamorous on-screen couple Lina Lamont and Don Lockwood, are also an off-screen couple if the trade papers and gossip columns are to be believed. Both perpetuate the public perception if only to please their adoring fans and bring people into the movie theaters. In reality, Don barely tolerates her, while Lina, despite thinking Don beneath her, simplemindedly believes what she sees on screen in order to bolster her own stardom and sense of self-importance. R.F. Simpson, Monumental's head, dismisses what he thinks is a flash in the pan: talking pictures. It isn't until The Jazz Singer (1927) becomes a bona fide hit which results in all the movie theaters installing sound equipment that R.F. knows Monumental, most specifically in the form of Don and Lina, have to jump on the talking picture bandwagon, despite no one at the studio knowing anything about the technology. Musician Cosmo Brown, Don's best friend, gets hired as Monumental's ideas man and musical director. And by this time, Don has secretly started dating Kathy Selden, a chorus girl who is trying to make it big in pictures herself. Don and Kathy's relationship is despite their less than friendly initial meeting. Cosmo and Kathy help Don, who had worked his way up through the movie ranks to stardom, try make the leap to talking picture stardom, with Kathy following along the way. However, they have to overcome the technological issues. But the bigger problem is Lina, who will do anything to ensure she also makes the successful leap into talking pictures, despite her own inabilities and at anyone and everyone else's expense if they get in her way, especially Kathy as Don's off screen girlfriend and possibly his new talking picture leading lady.... [show more]

Darby O'Gill seems to be as full of blarney as any old codger in Ireland, but the stories of leprechauns he tells at the pub are true. In fact, he and the tiny King Brian, ruler of The Little People, are friendly adversaries, continually out-foxing each other. Darby needs a bit of magical help from the wily King when Lord Fitzpatrick replaces him as caretaker with the handsome, strapping young Michael from Dublin. Michael falls in love with Darby's beautiful daughter Katie, which is all right with Darby, but the lad has a rival in a local ruffian, the son of a devious widow who wants her boy to be the caretaker. King Brian's supernatural assistance is necessary to make everything come out all right, but the sneaky leprechaun won't play matchmaker without a fight. Finally, real trouble comes in the form of the Banshee, and Darby will need all his quick wits to save his daughter from the wicked spirit.... [show more]

There is a dead well-dressed man in a meadow clearing in the hills above a small Vermont town. Captain Albert Wiles, who stumbles across the body and finds by the man's identification that his name is Harry Worp, believes he accidentally shot Harry dead while he was hunting rabbits. Captain Wiles wants to hide the body as he feels it is an easier way to deal with the situation than tell the authorities. While Captain Wiles is in the adjacent forest, he sees other people stumble across Harry, most of whom don't seem to know him or care or notice that he's dead. One person who does see Captain Wiles there is spinster Ivy Gravely, who vows to keep the Captain's secret about Harry. Captain Wiles also secretly sees a young single mother, Jennifer Rogers, who is the one person who does seem to know Harry and seems happy that he's dead. Later, another person who stumbles across both Harry and Captain Wiles is struggling artist Sam Marlowe, to whom Captain Wiles tells the entire story of what he has seen thus far. Over the course of the day, several revelations come to light that question if Captain Wiles actually killed Harry. Sam, Mrs. Rogers, Captain Wiles and Miss Gravely's individual and collective actions in the matter of Harry take into account friendship, self-preservation, the path of least resistance, love and a lot of realizations about what their past actions will mean. Their work may all be for naught if Deputy Sheriff Calvin Wiggs, the closest thing to law enforcement in their town, finds out about Harry.... [show more]

While attending a medical conference in Paris, American physician Dr. Ben McKenna, his wife, retired musical theater actress and singer Jo McKenna née Conway, and their adolescent son Hank McKenna decide to take a side trip to among other places Marrekesh, French Morocco. With a knife plunged into his back, Frenchman Louis Bernard, who the family met earlier in their bus ride into Marrakesh and who is now masquerading as an Arab, approaches Ben, cryptically whispering into Ben's ears that there will be an attempted assassination in London of a statesman, this news whispered just before Bernard dies. Ben is reluctant to provide any information of this news to the authorities because concurrently Hank is kidnapped by British couple, Edward and Lucy Drayton, who also befriended the McKennas in Marrakesh and who probably have taken Hank out of the country back to England. Whoever the unknown people the Draytons are working for have threatened to kill Hank if Ben divulges any information told to him by Bernard. With what little information they have on hand, Ben and Jo head to London to try and thwart the assassination attempt and more importantly find an alive and safe Hank. Scotland Yard is aware of some pieces to the puzzle, including the fact that Bernard was a French secret service agent and that there will be an assassination attempt on someone. They and the McKennas will have to work together as they hit a diplomatic roadblock, one that may be overcome with a special Jo Conway song.... [show more]

Anna Kalman is a London-based actress. She has been unable to find love in her life. The reason why she came home early from a vacation to Majorca fits into that theme, as the man she met there and was initially attracted to ended up not being who she thought he was as a man. Upon her arrival home, she meets the suave Philip Adams, a financier who is a work acquaintance of her brother-in-law, diplomat Alfred Munson. Philip initially states that there is no Mrs. Adams in his life. But when Anna later asks him out, he clarifies that statement in that there is no Mrs. Adams in London, as she is at home in San Francisco. Regardless, Anna decides still to ask him on the date she had intended to the ballet. He accepts, letting her know that whatever happens between the two of them that he will never be able to leave his wife. As time goes on, the two fall in love, their happiness which can only be sustained as long as Philip has his Paris-based contract with NATO. So, when Philip announces that he is being transferred to New York for five months, Anna comes to the realization that she truly cannot live without him and wants to marry him. Shortly thereafter, Anna learns something about Philip's background, which not only threatens their relationship, but leads to a night that Anna wants to give him that he will never forget, and not in a good way. But the best laid plans may have a bumpy road to being executed effectively.... [show more]