The Age of Swordfish (1955)
Genre : Documentary
Runtime : 11M
Director : Vittorio De Seta
Synopsis
A short anthropological documentary from 1954. Director De Seta was fortunate enough to document swordfish fishing; by 1956 it no longer existed.
Dr. Harvey Wallinger is one of Nixon's aides who rises through the ranks to become the "real" power behind the president.
Young Vincent Malloy dreams of being just like Vincent Price and loses himself in macabre daydreams that annoy his mother.
In this short subject (which mostly represents a departure from Disney's traditional approach to animation), a stuffy owl teacher lectures his feathered flock on the origins of Western musical instruments. Starting with cavepeople, whose crude implements could only "toot, whistle, plunk and boom," the owl explains how these beginnings led to the development of the four basic types of Western musical instruments: brass, woodwinds, strings, and percussion.
A marching band of Germans, Italians, and Japanese march through the streets of swastika-motif Nutziland, serenading "Der Fuehrer's Face." Donald Duck, not living in the region by choice, struggles to make do with disgusting Nazi food rations and then with his day of toil at a Nazi artillery factory. After a nervous breakdown, Donald awakens to find that his experience was in fact a nightmare.
Bugs Bunny escapes hunters by leaping into his rabbit hole and tunneling to safety. Unhappily he tunnels into the Sing Song prison where a sadistic prison guard named Sam Schultz refuses to accept that he's anything but one of the prisoners. Soon Bugs is in stripes, but it's the guard who will find prison life to be hell when Bugs Bunny is around to trick him into a cell, the hangman's noose, an electric chair and even into the warden's office, where Bugs will put a severe strain on the relationship between boss and underling. Finally, Sam decides that enough is enough.
Walking along with his bulldog, Charlie finds a "good luck" horseshoe just as he passes a training camp advertising for a boxing partner "who can take a beating." After watching others lose, Charlie puts the horseshoe in his glove and wins. The trainer prepares Charlie to fight the world champion. A gambler wants Charlie to throw the fight. He and the trainer's daughter fall in love.
An elegant and humorous film—in the guise of a serious anthropological treatise—spotlights "The Perfect Human," a model of the modern Dane created by our wishful thinking.
Solarmax is a 40-minute giant-screen documentary that tells the story of humankind's struggle to understand the sun. The film will take audiences on an incredible voyage from pre-history to the leading edge of today's contemporary solar science.
Stormtroopers on Tattooine show us what life is like patrolling and law-upholding on the sandy planet. While being filmed for the hit Imperial TV show TROOPS, Stormtroopers from the infamous Black Sheep Squadron on patrol run into some very familiar characters.
The narrative portrays a plain man who guides the viewer through his life in a bleakly stylised world.
While on a publicity tour in Switzerland, Benji, Cindy Smith, and Patsy Garrett convince Kris Kringle that his place on Christmas Eve is delivering presents to all "his" families all over the world.
A woman lies on the sand, left there by the tides and waves (and in a pose that would be copied in From Here to Eternity). She reaches up across tree roots and makes a difficult climb. Only to discover herself climbing horizontally along a long dinner table as bourgeoise black-tie guests chat and drink and smoke, oblivious to her. At the top of the table, a man is playing chess but abandons the game. Fascinated, she gazes at board, the pieces moving unaided. The woman chases a pawn as it falls to the floor. Falls down a waterfall. Is lost.
Dennis Day tells the story of Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman), narrated by The Old Settler. He's an apple farmer who sees people going west and thinks he can't join them, until an angel appears to him and sings the virtues of apples, convincing Johnny he has a mission. He sets off without a knife or gun; at first, the animals mistrust him, but when he even treats a skunk kindly, they all take to him.
Zoë is a single mother who lives with her four children in Dartford. She is poor and can't afford to buy food. One day her old flame drives by and asks her to go on a date with him. Scared that he doesn't want to go out with her, she lies and tells him that she is just babysitting the kids. This will be her first date in years.
A propaganda film during World War II about a boy who grows up to become a Nazi soldier.
Two teen girls and two teen boys play a game of truth or dare. The questions and the challenges deal with sex; it's innocent and harmless, but at each turn, each youth tries to raise the ante. Then, Paul gives a dare to Rose, and the result brings on a sudden and complete silence.
In a repressive boarding school with rigid rules of behavior, four boys decide to rebel against the director on a celebration day.
Andy Warhol directs a single 35-minute shot of a man's face to capture his facial expressions as he receives the sexual act depicted in the title.
In this short motion picture, schoolboy Kees is intelligent, introvert and sensitive, but gets ridiculed verbally and physically at an all-boys school by mindlessly cocky class mates and even insensitive teachers, especially in gym, where his physical weakness is mercilessly abused to make him a defenceless laughing stock in front of his smirking peers. His awakening sexual interest goes to boys, and in particular to Charel, a beautiful athletic classmate who probably feels an undetermined interest but would never risk admitting (possibly not even to himself) having any gay or bi appreciation, least of all for a 'sissy', and thus remains unresponsive to shy Kees' overtures. When the hunk finally comes over to Kees' place while his parents are away, a desperate disappointment with a tragical twist is in the making…
In his squalid apartment, a man tries to squash with his shoe an insect of some kind that is moving around the room.
