Thanksgiving in 1951 might not be as different for many today as it was back then. Bill Johnson’s family can’t afford a turkey this year. Dick, Tommy, Susan and baby Janet are devastated. But there is still much to be thankful for, especially in the shadow of what the world was like only a few […]
MORE ...In 1946, Mr. Wilson (Edward G. Robinson) of the United Nations War Crimes Commission is hunting for Nazi fugitive Franz Kindler (Orson Welles), a war criminal who has erased all evidence which might identify him, with no clue left to his identity except “a hobby that almost amounts to a mania—clocks.” Wilson releases Kindler’s former […]
MORE ...Who doesn’t love a great yodeler? It’s Rosalie Allen, who taught herself to play music as a child in Pennsylvania on her brother’s guitar. Involving herself with radio, she scored her first hit covering Patsy Montana’s “I Want to Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart.” In this piece, Rosalie sees her beau off to war, a scenario […]
MORE ...If you were taking a sea cruise from the Eastern Seaboard to the West Coast via the Panama Canal, this might be the film you’d see before disembarking in San Diego, Los Angeles, or San Francisco. An exquisite travel film documenting the magnificent landscape and locales of pre-WWII California, this film showcases classic school California, […]
MORE ...Like a television courtroom drama, the prosecutor deconstructs a criminal enterprise within the meatpacking industry. The dramatization hints at Hollywood crime films of the day, with shakedowns, oblivious accomplices and bribe money wrapped in paper with a soup bone. Despite the fact that the accused are given no opportunity to defend themselves, this piece of […]
MORE ...Tica Ti Tica Ta, produced in 1942, stars “dynamite swing singer” Ginger Harmon and vaudeville dancing team the Mercer Brothers. On April 18, 1942 Billboard’s Movie Machine Reviews writes, “Ginger Harmon and the Mercer Brothers don South American garb for Tica Ti – Tica Ta. Ginger sings well and the nimble Mercer boys contribute a […]
MORE ...Hemp for Victory, produced by the US government in 1942, made a case for increasing the domestic cultivation of Cannabis sativa. As WWII ratcheted up and the Japanese controlled the hemp powerhouse of Southeast Asia, a vital resource for the war effort, the filmmakers advocate US farmers focus on the “devil’s weed” as a cash […]
MORE ...This documentary produced by the US War Department commences with a stone memorial to Booker T. Washington. We are then presented with an overview of how African-American universities were contributing the nations effort during World War II.
MORE ...In this anti-fascist film produced by US Military in the wake of WWII, the producers deconstruct the politically motivated social engineering of Germany by the Nazi regime. Its argument is just as timely and relevant today.
MORE ...In this short World War II propaganda montage, the filmmakers examine the uses of hands, and how the united hands of America and her Allies will defeat the Axis. In times of war as in times of peace, hands hold many purposes and functions. Hands are tools with which we play musical instruments, type letters, […]
MORE ...
