My Appendix N: 1950’s Call of Cthulhu in Hollywood
Fifty Cent Souls
Walter Lambe, probably
For our latest season of Out of Depth Plays, I decided we were going to play Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition. That game is normally set in the 1920’s, which is a great time period, but I’ve always wanted to play it in the 1950’s, a decade that I’ve been drawn to for a long time. It’s a crazy period of paranoia, scientific revolutions, and shifting cultural ideals. It’s a powder keg period that would eventually erupt in the late 60’s, and ultimately become this bizarre memory of how we used to be by the 70’s and 80’s.
While the story of Fifty Cent Souls can’t totally encapsulate all of these themes and ideas, I certainly had them in mind when we recorded each game session.
So today’s blog is a list of media that helped me get an understanding of the time period we were playing in, and inspired some of its story. I hope you find this list of references useful, if you ever decide to take your Investigators to the Decade of Conformity.
Welcome to Mars
Welcome to Mars is a book by Kenn Hollings is 100% the starting point if you want to set your Call of Cthulhu game in the 1950’s. It’s a bizarre book that goes year by year and details how American culture developed post war.
You’ll find lots of stories to inspire your game. Among other topics, Hollings covers the birth of LSD, the development of the suburbs, and the beginning of the UFO craze. The 1950’s feels like a time where we were blessed with all this new scientific breakthroughs and prosperity, but we didn’t quite have the general education to handle it all as a society.
It almost feels like we became aliens, and we were colonizing our own planet, with strange new technology. Invasion of the Body Snatchers or The Stepford Wives captures this feeling perfectly.
Any time modernity evolves, fear and uncertainty rises. And this decade is brimming with that sentiment, which makes it perfect for Mythos Horrors.
FilmSite.Org
I watch a lot of films and have read a lot about the early history of cinema, but for our show I used this great overview from FilmSite.Org. There’s a section that covers the threat of television, that I found really useful, because it helped define the perspectives of my Hollywood characters, which I find to be a key to creating a living world for my players. If non-player characters are able to express their points of view, it not only creates world depth, but also educates the players. It gives them a chance to react and understand their own character.
In the first episode of Fifty Cent Souls we have a conversation between NPCs about TV and Cinema and the difference between the two. This became a moment for Gail to express her character’s feeling about the subject, and by doing so it developed her personality and established a relationship between her and studio executive Art Berman.
So if you’re going to set your game in Hollywood, like mine, this website is a great quick reference, whether you have prior knowledge like I did, or you’re starting from scratch.
Hollywood Babylon
Would you believe me if I told you that I got this book for free at my children’s elementary school? It was in a pile of books they were just giving away. I can’t help but wonder if this was in the children’s library and someone finally discovered it.
Kenneth Anger’s collection of salacious tales from the golden age of Hollywood is mostly bullshit. But that’s okay. For our show I needed to maintain a feeling that there was always something awful under the surface. This book is also a great inspiration for mysteries that your players can be pulled into, so it doesn’t matter if they’re true or not. You can also use it to create some rather colorful supporting characters for your players to encounter.
For me, I like mysteries where the protagonists are investigating one thing, but their search for the truth leads them to something completely unexpected. I love that moment where their perspective shifts and they realize the world is much different than they thought. I want my players to feel like Jack Nicholson at the end of Chinatown, basically.
Kiss Me Deadly
This is where we start talking about films and we should probably start with one of the most important on. I’ve watched Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly(1955) a lot. It’s probably my favorite film noir ever.
It’s sexy in a real sleazy way, and the protagonist comes off as a bit of a deconstruction of the hard-boiled masculinity that men strove for then and now. And while the plot feels familiar, if you’ve read a lot of pulps or watched a lot of noirs, there’s an uneasiness that permeates through out. It’s not until the very end that we realize the truth, and that final scene still unsettles me today.
If you’ve listened to the show, this movie is also where I got the Bunker Hill location from. It’s a unique place that has so much personality, but has been completely erased. It would be a waste to not include it in the show somehow.
The Hudsucker Proxy
I think Fifty Cent Souls, owes more than a little bit to the Coen Brothers. Their brand of comedy often blends absurdity with darkness, and that’s definitely a place where I live creatively. While it was made in the early 90’s, The Hudsucker Proxy was a gateway drug for my interest in the 1950’s. I remember taping it off of TV one midnight, and I’ve probably watched it dozens of times since.
The Coens have a way of really latching on to weird details from the 1950’s and making it important to the scene. Like the ticker tape machine that relays stock prices in real time, or the clacking of letters as the signs change destinations at the airport. They use very tangible details that effectively transport you to that time period. And studying that felt important for not only running the game, but also sound designing the show.
Love this movie.
Sunset Boulevard
Just before we started recording Fifty Cent Souls, Gail and I re-watched Sunset Boulevard for a date night. Like the Coen Brothers, Billy Wilder can be very funny and very dark at the same time. This movie kind of served as a touchstone between the two of us, one that we could point back to in order to sync up creatively.
Obviously, Gail’s character, Joann Lamour, took some inspiration from Gloria Swanson’s Norma Desmond. But the dead body in the pool talking to us from beyond the grave, is what inspired episode one’s pool party and seance.
All About Eve
Because I’m an actor, I had pretty solid grasp on the culture around the entertainment community. And because all of my players had history in theatre, I knew they’d also understand the vibe I was going for.
But I definitely rewatched Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1950 classic All About Eve(1950) prior to recording, because I wanted to make sure my non-player characters felt more grounded in the time period.
If you haven’t seen the film, it’s great. Bette Davis is fantastic, and if you’re unfamiliar with the actor George Sanders, this isn’t a bad place to start.
Rear Window
Call of Cthulhu is a horror mystery game, creating tension is pretty much your job if you’re running the game. So if you’re going to watch a movie from this time period, just about anything from Alfred Hitchcock will do.
When I was pitching the game to my players, I told them they could make any period appropriate character they wanted, however they all had to have one specific character trait in common. No matter what they created, the character had be curious to a fault. That’s basically Jimmy Stewart’s character in Rear Window.
I did this because I didn’t want characters that could ignore anything. They have to know. Then it became my job to see how far I could push their curiosity to the breaking point.
Rear Window is also a great example of why I try to make players comfortable with “splitting the party.” If you’ve been playing TTRPG for any amount of time, you’ve surely encountered this meme wisdom that you never split the group you’re playing with. Unless the situation is super obvious, I think this advice is fucking nonsense. If you don’t split the party, you're missing out on so many fun moments.
Like, it’s bonkers to me that in Dungeons and Dragons, you can build a rogue character that’s built for infiltrating enemy camps and castles, but they’re constantly hindered by their walking trash can Paladin or Fighter. All because no one wants to split up.
But watch Rear Window and tell me it’s not intense when Jimmy Stewart has to watch Grace Kelly sneak into the apartment of a suspected killer. Who wouldn’t want to experience that?
I think we go three or four episodes in Fifty Cent Souls where none of the player characters were in the same area. And it lead to some really tense moments that may not have happened if everyone was together all the time.
More…
There were a ton of wiki articles that I read leading up to this season. Too many to list here. But I’ll mention a few inspirations.
Joan Crawford and Bette Davis were both templates we used when developing Joanne Lamour’s relationship with Hollywood and the studio system.
R.A. Goodrich, the president of our fictional Goodrich Pictures was somewhat inspired by a combination of people including Jack Warner, head of Warner Bros, and a certain famous comedian who directed movies under a pseudonym when a scandal killed his career.
Also, years ago I read about the history and process of Technicolor and it blew my mind. They basically built a camera to record onto three different film strips at once, each representing a different color. That’s why Technicolor movies are so very well lit, because the camera needs enough light to penetrate all that film stock. I liked the idea of filming reality by splitting it up into different parts. Then when you put it back together you get an image that feels unreal. This is probably where I got the idea for the camera and film the players discover in the second half of the season.
We could probably be here all day if I started listing all the movies from the 50’s that inspired me in some way. Instead, I’ll recommend pausing the movie you’re watching any time you see an image that engages you and describe it. Maybe it’ll be the set, or the lighting, or the costumes. I pause movies and tv shows all the time just to look at the glasses people drink out of.
My point is to look at the details around the characters in the scene, and figure out why they speak to you. Practice describing them so you can get better at describing them to your players. So if you’re watching, say Sweet Smell of Success, and you like the booth they sit in at the restaraunt, pause it and describe it.
If you do need some more film recommendations, you can always join my Patreon. It’s FREE to do so, and I’m pretty easy to reach there. You get access to all of my updates, including details on Season 5 of Out of Depth Plays and the new show I’m working on. Paid members get some extra stuff, but again you don’t have to spend any money to follow me at Patreon.
Okay that’s it for now. If you end up running your own game in the 1950’s. I’d love to hear about it.
-Jae
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