By publishing the photograph without such a notice, under the terms of the 1909 Copyright Act (which was law until 1978) the image went into the public domain.
This was a common occurrence for studio publicity images, as explained by Eve Light Honthaner, in The Complete Film Production Handbook (Focal Press, 2001), p. 211: "Publicity photos (star headshots) have traditionally not been copyrighted. Since they are disseminated to the public, they are generally considered public domain, and therefore clearance by the studio that produced them is not necessary."
If there is any chance that the photograph was copyrighted, under the terms of the 1909 Copyright Act this copyright would have had to be renewed 28 years after publication. A search for copyright renewal records of 1953 ([1]) reveal no trace that this occurred.
Note that it may still be copyrighted in jurisdictions that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works (depending on the date of the author's death), such as Canada (70 years p.m.a.), Mainland China (50 years p.m.a., not Hong Kong or Macao), Germany (70 years p.m.a.), Mexico (100 years p.m.a.), Switzerland (70 years p.m.a.), and other countries with individual treaties.