Decade that made the Sunset Boulevard movie and Touch of Evil certainly wasn't optimal (and then later on in the 60s we got insane flicks like Young Savages with Burt Lancaster) but things were better off than today.
it really depends, i'm a huge racist so i like to imagine that the silent generation and before still had a lot of the criminal mentality you see all over europe vs american white people.
Like one of the things every friend i know who goes to europe is shocked by is white criminals, like the idea of white people being full on thieves, rapists, murderers, etc. just never entered our minds because forgotten and boomer gens aren't really like that because of how wonderful america was meanwhile "nigger moments" happen quite a lot in the UK. Same thing with doing drugs, most americans really don't move beyond weed, whereas most europeans are perfectly fine doing cocaine or other "hard" drugs in a way that most americans didn't and it takes a literal doctor to get many to try opioids or amphetamines or ketamine or weed. Also these were all observations from a dozen years ago pre-muzzie invasion. but in the white areas of the country, you really can leave your phone or car keys or computer just out and nothing happens in the US, you can walk around at night. the biggest thing you have to fear is pranks your friends pull on you.
its why you'd have books like "the killer inside me" or "lolita" about middle age men being full on psychopaths but then films about the youth like "rebel without a cause" where being out after curfew was the craziest thing imaginable that someone born in the late 1930s might get up to.
Thats one of the crazier things about 1950s culture, everyone focused on the youth bullshit, while the media for adults was still very mature. A Face in the Crowd doesn't feel like it should have come out in 1957, its cynical view on celebrity feels closer to a 90s movie than what people associate with the 50s.
Honestly the way we look at the 1950s reminds me of how zoomers and others look at the 1980s now. All the horrible shit gets forgotten so its all happy neon lights and cool movies and music all day every day while the inner city crime peaking, the aids crisis, the union-busting, the misogyny, and the racism is washed away. Even Spielberg in an interview for "ready player one" talked about the 1980s being the best decade with no issues and everyone being united.
Honestly with the Bush and Cheney worship from the left, i wouldn't be surprised if the 2000s eventually gets a similar treatment because of it being the last pre-smartphone decade and the new appreciation everyone has for the music of the era. OTOH minorities, especially the brown ones like indians still must have the worst memories of that era.