Black and white movies and TV are the current equivalent to silent movies in my childhood.  And I expect, a generation or two before that, there was a lot of wistfulness for seeing live acts in vaudeville instead of having to watch moo'om pi'tures of them on a screen. 

As for
If Heinlein was that big in the preceding years, they would have asked him to write It Came from Outer Space, not Bradbury. 
Bradbury was a relatively well-known, up-and-coming literary star.  Heinlein was well-known.  So were a lot of other writers.  

Heinlein was not a humanist, he was a rabid libertarian before there were Libertarians.  Much of his better-known stuff-- which I read in grade school -- was juvenile slam-bang novels for Lester del Ray's company.  And it really was "science fiction," using a scientific posutulate as a starting point.  That is what most outsiders (and a lot of insiders) thought of when they heard "science fiction."  He was a good choice to have around for DESTINATION MOON-- a hard-tech potboiler.  He was the wrong choice for a thriller about benign aliens marooned on Earth and trying to get away. 

Bradbury's short stories showed a humanity, a sense of kindness which was seen as different from run of the mill "science fiction" (and Bradbury himself resented the typecasting, rightly.  As did Harlan Ellison later-- again, rightly.)  Indeed, one critic I read the other day called Bradbury's stuff "anti-science fiction," and he wasn't off base.  His "science" constructs are usually fantasy McGuffins, a jumping-off point for a human story, rather than slam-bang pulp action.  The nostalgia he often shows (he really does, Bill) is most often a reaction against technology rather than a Wellsian "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" cheer for technocratic solutions.

Bradbury was the right choice to craft a story from Alland's idea.  AND he was cheap.

PS:  I checked in Lawrence Grobel's THE HUSTONS, a terrific book on the whole Huston family-- and pulls no punches painting John Huston as an arrogant, impossible monster-- when it's deserved.  On MOBY DICK, Bradbury was one of at least five writers.  Huston was one, and he'd been playing with it for years.  After Bradbury finished, Huston called in Roald Dahl, no mean tale-spinner himself.  And throughout shooting, rewrites were handled sub rosa by a guy named John Godley.  For his two-day bit as the preacher, Orson Welles rewrote his own dialogue.

Bradbury complained to the WGA when Huston asked for co-credit on the script; Bradbury felt he should have sole writing credit.  There was an arbitration.  Huston's production secretary, Lori Sherwood (formerly Howard Hawks' production secretary & assistant), had kept all the sequential copies of the drafts, the arbitors read them all, and the Guild found in favor of Huston's co-credit.  A publicity guy named Ernie Anderson who knew the scoop and was around during that time said of Bradbury's contribution, "His name really shouldn't be on it." 

Bradbury felt the decision was unjust, and that the WGA favored John Huston because he was a big name in Da Biz.  That was also his claim when the judge found in favor of Robert Alan Authur in the FAHRENHEIT 451 plagiarism suit a couple years later. 

Last Edited By: Ted Newsom Aug 11 10 12:09 AM. Edited 2 times.