Cops is a 1922 American two-reel silent comedy film about a young man who accidentally gets on the bad side of the entire Los Angeles Police Department during a parade and is chased all over town. It was written and directed by Edward F. Cline and Keaton. This very Kafka-esque film was filmed during the rape-and-murder trial of Fatty Arbuckle, a circumstance that may have influenced the short's tone of hopeless ensnarement.
Czechoslovakia 1968 is a 1969 short documentary film about the "Prague Spring", the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. The film was produced by the United States Information Agency (USIA) under the direction of Robert M. Fresco and Denis Sanders and features the graphic design of Norman Gollin.
Jam Session is a 1942 short film, directed by Josef Berne, which shows Duke Ellington and his orchestra performing "C Jam Blues".
Lambchops is an 8-minute American comedy Vitaphone short subject released in October 1929, which depicts a vaudeville performance by Burns and Allen of the comedy routine "Lambchops" written by Al Boasberg. The work's copyright was renewed in 1959, and it will enter the American public domain on January 1, 2025.
Little Miss Marker is an American Pre-Code 1934 comedy-drama film directed by Alexander Hall. It was written by William R. Lipman, Sam Hellman, and Gladys Lehman after a 1932 short story of the same name by Damon Runyon. It stars Shirley Temple, Adolphe Menjou and Dorothy Dell in a story about a young girl held as collateral by gangsters. It was Temple's first starring role in a major motion picture and was crucial to establishing her as a major film star. It was inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 1998 and has been remade several times.
The Living Desert is a 1953 American nature documentary film that shows the everyday lives of the animals of the desert of the Southwestern United States. The film was written by James Algar, Winston Hibler, Jack Moffitt (uncredited) and Ted Sears. It was directed by Algar, with Hibler as the narrator and was filmed in Tucson, Arizona. The film won the 1953 Oscar for Best Documentary.
Tulips Shall Grow is a 1942 American animated short film in the Puppetoons series, directed by George Pal and starring Rex Ingram and Victor Jory. It was released by Paramount Pictures and originally photographed in 3-strip Technicolor. It later became the black-and-white edition by National Telefilm Associates.
Theodore Case Sound Test: Gus Visser and his Singing Duck, also known as Gus Visser and His Singing Duck, is a 1925 American short musical comedy film starring vaudeville performer Gus Visser. The short is an early sound film, directed by Theodore Case while perfecting his variable density sound-on-film process. Case began working on his sound film process at the Case Research Lab in Auburn, New York, in 1921.
The Kiss is an 1896 film, and was one of the first films ever shown commercially to the public. Around 18 seconds long, it depicts a re-enactment of the kiss between May Irwin and John Rice from the final scene of the stage musical The Widow Jones. The film was directed by William Heise for Thomas Edison. The film was produced in April 1896 at the Edison Studios of Edison, the first film studio in the United States. At the time, Edison was working at the Black Maria studios in West Orange, New Jersey.
The City is a pioneering short documentary film from 1939 that contrasts the problems of the contemporary urban environment with the superior social and physical conditions that can be provided in a planned community. It was directed and photographed by Ralph Steiner and Willard Van Dyke based on a treatment by Lewis Mumford, which was in turn based on an outline by Pare Lorentz. Aaron Copland wrote the musical score, and Morris Carnovsky provided the narration.
The House I Live In is a ten-minute short film written by Albert Maltz, produced by Frank Ross and Mervyn LeRoy, and starring Frank Sinatra. Made to oppose anti-Semitism at the end of World War II, it received an Honorary Academy Award and a special Golden Globe Award in 1946.
Robert Charles Benchley was an American humorist best known for his work as a newspaper columnist and movie actor. From his beginnings at The Harvard Lampoon while attending Harvard University, through his many years writing essays and articles for Vanity Fair and The New Yorker and his acclaimed short films, Benchley's style of humor brought him respect and success during his life, from his peers at the Algonquin Round Table in New York City to contemporaries in the burgeoning film industry.
The Power and the Glory is a 1933 pre-Code film starring Spencer Tracy and Colleen Moore, written by Preston Sturges, and directed by William K. Howard. The picture's screenplay was Sturges' first script, which he delivered complete in the form of a finished shooting script, for which he received $17,500 and a percentage of the profits. Profit-sharing arrangements, now a common practice in Hollywood, were then unusual and gained Sturges much attention.
Pups Is Pups is a two-reel comedy short subject, part of the Our Gang series. It was produced and directed by Robert F. McGowan for Hal Roach, and originally released to theaters by MGM in 1930. It was the 100th Our Gang short to be released, and the first in the 1930–1931 season.
Rose Hobart is a 1936 experimental collage film created by the artist Joseph Cornell, who cut and re-edited the Universal film East of Borneo (1931) into one of America's most famous surrealist short films. Cornell was fascinated by the star of East of Borneo, an actress named Rose Hobart, and named his short film after her. The piece consists of snippets from East of Borneo combined with shots from a documentary film of an eclipse.
Tol'able David is a 1921 American silent film based on the 1917 Joseph Hergesheimer short story of the same name. It was adapted to the screen by Edmund Goulding and directed by Henry King for Inspiration Pictures. A rustic tale of violence set in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia, it was filmed in Blue Grass, Virginia, with some locals featured in minor roles.
(Sir) Charlie Chaplin (KBE) (1889–1977) was an English internationally renowned Academy Award-winning actor, comedian, filmmaker and composer who was best known for his career in Hollywood motion pictures from his debut in 1914 until 1952, he however subsequently appeared in two films in his native England. During his early years in the era of silent film, he rose to prominence as a worldwide cinematic idol renowned for his tramp persona. In the 1910s and 1920s, he was considered the most famous person on the planet.
The Treasurer's Report (1928) is a comedy sketch, made into a short film, written and performed by Robert Benchley. The film, made in the then-new Fox Movietone, documents an assistant treasurer of an organization struggling to present its yearly report. This was the first of Benchley's 46 comedy short films, with six made for Fox, one each for Universal Pictures and RKO Radio Pictures, 29 for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and nine for Paramount Pictures.
The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB's inception in 1988.
