Increased prosperity caused the subjects and rhetoric of the Depression to seem oldfashioned, even inapplicable. Increased conservatism and a Cold War caused the main lines of liberal and antifascist criticism to be suspect. Sponsors and filmmakers alike were unwilling to risk making a "statement" at a time when political positions were being subjected to investigation. Consequently, documentary subjects were essentially noncontroversial; certainly they were not socioeconomic/political by and large, as earlier documentaries had been. Overall, they were for virtue and against vice.1 Documentary had played theatrically with some of the big government films of the thirties, like THE PLOW THAT BROKE THE PLAINS and THE RIVER, and even more frequently during World War II. In the postwar years, without the drama of Depression or war, it no longer did. The newsreels ended, largely because of the new competition of television news. The innovative and highly respected filmed news magazine, The March of Tina, ceased in 1951 after sixteen years of monthly issues, often appearing on movie house marquees above the feature. Paths News stopped in 1976; Paramount News in 1957.
Virtually the only nonfiction films playing theatrically were the Walt Disney True-Life Adventure series, which began with the half-hour SEAL ISLAND in 1948 and ended with the last of the features, JUNGLE CAT, in 1960.
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