Last updated: 05 March 2010
A trio of Welsh screen stars emerged in the 1950s to help us forget the dearth of imagery of Wales and its people in mainstream cinema - and the lamentable lack of Indigenous productions.
Richard Burton, already a charismatic and lauded stage presence in key Shakespearian stage roles, gained cinema box office clout, and a measure of fame, though nothing compared to his celebrity status in the next decade.
Burton gained an Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination in his first American film My Cousin Rachel (1952), playing opposite Olivia de Havilland in a version of Daphne du Maurier's melodrama and he attracted more attention, landing another nomination - this time for Best Actor - in the first Cinemascope feature The Robe (1953), which did phenomenal business after all the publicity about the new process.
He also gained respectful reviews, at least, for the challenging role of the volatile Jimmy Porter in Tony Richardson's 1959 version of John Osborne's groundbreaking 1956 Royal Court stage hit Look Back in Anger.
Rachel Roberts, from Llanelli, an unorthodox screen talent, made a fine comic impact as Bessie the Milk in Valley of Song (1953) set in west Wales, and followed up with a likeable role in The Good Companions (1956) a remake of Jessie Matthews 1936's screen hit, from the JB Priestley novel.
Gilbert Gunn's Valley of Song (1953), an enjoyable west Wales comedy shot around Llandeilo, starred Rachel Thomas in her finest screen role, as a miffed housewife who divides a village's loyalties when ousted from her customary annual role of village contralto at the Eisteddfod.
She takes the rebuff badly but somehow elicits our sympathy in a short speech as she explains just how much the part means in liberating her just once a year from her domestic role. Even Thomas was compelled to play second fiddle at times to the scene-stealing performance of Rachel Roberts as an inveterate snoop and gossip.
The Rhondda's Stanley Baker earned good notices as a sardonic, boorish officer in The Cruel Sea (1953), and then demonstrated his versatility, as either thief or criminal in a string of crime genre films, notably The Good Die Young (1954).
He was good as a petty criminal proving his macho metal, while revealing a surprising capacity for conveying sensitivity in a truck driving milieu in Cy Endfield's Hell Drivers (1957) but then eclipsed all his previous performances in Joseph Losey's Blind Date (1959) as a class-conscious cop often at odds with his superiors in a murder investigation.
North Walian Peggy Cummins, best remembered in British film circles for her performances in fairly innocuous comedies earned herself an enduring place in crime genre film history, with her role as a trigger happy Bonnie and Clyde style moll in Joseph H Lewis' outstanding thriller and perennial cult American B film favourite Gun Crazy (1957).
Hugh Griffith, a master of cameo roles, gained much more prominence in the 1950s, landing the Best Supporting Hollywood Oscar for his role as Sheiklh Ilderim in William Wyler's Ben Hur (1959).
His namesake Kenneth Griffith, so promising as a blackmailing hood in The Shop at Sly Corner (1947) finally began the comedies which sealed his reputation as a first-rate support, notably as the ferrety union nark in I'm All Right Jack (1959) with Peter Sellers.
Much less successful in films was Donald Peers, the Welsh singing star with a string of chart hits. His attempt to establish himself in cinema with Peter Graham Scott's feature Sing Along With Me (1952) was even less successful than Harry Secombe's lifeless Ealing would-be starring vehicle Davey (1957).
The Welsh feature film of the decade was Tiger Bay (1959) set in a Cardiff dockland now radically changed and marking a captivating debut performance from 12 year old Hayley Mills, alongside her father John.
Outside the commercial cinema Wales produced, for the 1951 Festival of Britain, an outstanding documentary David, directed by Cardiff's Paul Dickson.
The film, centred on a school caretaker and former miner seen through the eyes of a schoolboy was remarkable for its intensity of feeling (for both people and Welsh traditions), impeccable structure. Dickson had previously impressed with another documentary, The Undefeated (1950) about a disabled airman and other war casualties, part shot at Cardiff's Rookwood Hospital.
Elsewhere other Welsh documentary filmmakers gave the first evidence of their talents. Jack Howells, from the Rhymney Valley, helped write and edit a Pathe compilation film for commercial cinemas -The Peaceful Years (1950), offering an impressionistic picture of Britain in the inter-War years. He then wrote and directed Pathe's Here's To The Memory (1952) , with its emotive images of Britain from the turn of the century onwards.
At the end of the decade another formidable documentary director, poet John Ormond arrived on the scene, heading up a new ´óÏó´«Ã½ Wales film unit, and shooting on 35mm. Both men's talents came to full fruition in the 1960s.
