1950s

David O. McKay Library at Brigham Young University created a list of films that feature librarians or libraries. The films in the list below are part of Group A, where: "Someone says or does something that clearly identifies himself or herself (or some other character) as a librarian. This person may be a professional, a clerk, a student assistant, a director or some other type of 'librarian.' Some have major roles, others have barely a dozen words to speak." All of the films in the Group A category were originally listed in alphabetical order, not chronological. The films listed below were taken from that list but are limited to those films released during the period of 1950-1959. You can find the complete list of films at http://emp.byui.edu/RAISHM/films/introduction.html

The possible errors in these statistics are as follows:

I have not actually seen most of these films because most are unavailable. I looked up many items on the Internet Movie Database but was still unable to determine the precise role the librarian played in the film or her marital status. Also, some films have multiple librarians in them, which is why there are more librarians than there are films. There is also simple human error. Finally, since I haven't see the films because they were unavailable, I may have determined that a woman was a spinster when she was not and vice versa.

AS YOUNG AS YOU FEEL (1951). A man who has reached mandatory retirement age at Acme Printing wants to find a loophole that would allow him to continue working. He visits the corporate library where a pretty, young, blonde librarian (played by Carol Savage) quickly finds the information he needs. He tells her, "Whether you realize it or not, you have just solved one of the mysteries of the age!"


KATIE DID IT (1951). Ann Blythe, the librarian in a small New England town, shocks everyone by posing in scanty attire for a commercial artist in New York.


MR. BELVEDERE RINGS THE BELL (1951). As part of a plan to help the citizens of an old folks' home, Mr. B visits the local public library to "borrow" a stamp from a collection on display. The mousy librarian (Dorothy Neumann) is very thin, wears a too-large, ill-fitting dress, and in a variation on the bun, wears her hair in two disheveled braids across her head.


PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (1953). While the film's narrator speaks we see a man stop at a desk just inside the door of the New York Public Library and ask the reference librarian (played by Jay Loftin) a question. He pulls a card from a small tray on his desk and hands it to the patron while pointing in the general direction of the microfilm reader. (Remade as The Cape Town Affair, 1967.)


WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953). Ann Robinson is a library science teacher, although this serves only to establish her as educated-but-not-aggressive.


THE GIRL RUSH (1955). Rosalind Russell was a librarian before inheriting a half-share in a Las Vegas hotel.


VIOLENT SATURDAY (1955). One character is a stereotypical female librarian but she is also a purse-snatcher.


THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS (1956). In 1943 the British secret service tries to confuse the Germans by dropping a dead man into the sea with false documents. Gloria Grahame is a librarian who must convince the Nazi agent that the information is authentic. She is a bit of a wild one and goes out with a lot of RAF officers.


STORM CENTER (1956). Bette Davis is typical small-town librarian: single (widowed), hair in a bun and a bit fussy. She devoted 25 years to building the library from a small room behind a bar into a beautiful ivy-covered edifice. She wants to add a children's wing to the building and the town council agrees to support her on one condition: that she remove a book on communism from the library shelves. She refuses and is fired. Other events ensue that ultimately lead to tragedy not only for some individuals, but for the town as a whole. Davis offers a strong, positive image of a librarian. She knows her collections, provides personal service to her patrons, is kind and supportive to children (especially one boy who loves to read) and is not afraid of those who brand her a subversive. She is also human: being ostracized by the community leaves her sad, lonely and demoralized (she is not even invited to the groundbreaking ceremony for the library expansion). She grows weary of the struggle but eventually returns even stronger in her resolve to defend the library's mission of providing information on all topics, even those deemed undesirable by politicians more focused on their careers than on the free flow of ideas. This is one of the finest anti-censorship films ever made. Kim Hunter is an assistant librarian who struggles with her feelings and commitment to the ideals emulated by her (former) director. Unfortunately the film has never been released to video and is rarely shown on TV.


DESK SET (1957). Spencer Tracy is hired to install a computer in the Reference Department of a television network. The librarians (played by Katharine Hepburn, Joan Blondell, Dina Merrill and Sue Randall) though single women, are knowledgeable, capable and efficient professionals. Miss Warriner (played by Neva Patterson), a young woman who operates the computer, is definitely not a librarian. (Tracy refers to her as a "research worker.") She cannot deal with the pressure of the reference desk, nor conduct a decent reference interview. It is also interesting to see how a query is entered into the computer (named EMMARAC -- the Electromagnetic Memory and Research Arithmetical Calculator). Boolean logic it ain't.


INTERLUDE (1957). June Allyson does a little light shelving in the American Cultural Center in Berlin, while falling in love with famous conductor Rossano Brazzi.


WITWER MIT 5 TÖCHTERN (1957). A comedy from West Germany in which a widowed librarian (Heinz Erhardt) raises his five daughters.


WEB OF EVIDENCE (1959). A librarian (Vera Miles) assists a young man who is trying to prove his deceased father innocent of murder.

Creator: Jenny Freed
Created: 10/23/05