Above you see U.S. actress Judy Holliday, who debuted in cinema in 1938 and appeared in such films as Adam's Rib and The Solid Gold Cadillac. Her career was going okay until she was named in the red-baiting publication Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and TV as having communist connections. Called before a congressional committee, she refused to name names, but learned that freedom of association was an illusion in 1950s America. Holliday kept working in films until 1960, and died early five years later, at age 43, from throat cancer, in the place where she had been born and spent most of her life, New York City. The photo above was made in 1944, when she was filming Winged Victory. 

You know what’s so fascinating about the American dream car designs of the 1950s? They imagined a completely different future than the one that actually came. Our present is one of potholes, car alarms, finger print recognition, panic buttons, failing bridges, and roads built with public money being sold by corrupt politicians to private cabals of carpetbaggers. Their future is one of smooth sailing, bright horizons, and flat tarmac upon which purring dreamboats carry everyone into an opportunity-filled, non-AGW-constrained future.

Consider the bubble-topped floral delivery car above. You think the driver is worried about break-ins? Probably not. That design was conceived in a world without mindless vandalism, or guys who wash your windshield at red lights just to survive, or cops that stop you for traffic violations and eyeball your interior for probable cause. And it was certainly designed before we acknowledged the prevalence of drunken rollover accidents. Yes, reality bites. But even if we have to live in reality, we can imagine the perfect world of these cars designed by Ford, Cadillac, and other companies.

Some of these images came the great forum jalopyjournal.com, and you can see more if you click over there.