All Films

The Do-It-Yourself Cartoon Kit

1961 • 6 min • United Kingdom

A mock promotional short cartoon film for the 'Do-It-Yourself Cartoon Kit'

Your Birthday

1961 • 21 min • Yugoslavia

On a little girl's birthday, her parents' friends come. The received gifts are piled up in her room and most of them are the same. The guests forget the little celebrant and close in the lounge. The dance begins, and the elders play cards. The little one is left alone. Neighbors are disturbed by the noise and ask the caretaker to intervene. He goes to the apartment where he is celebrating. The girl opens the door for him. He invites the good old caretaker to his room to show him the toys. Wanting to beautify her birthday, the caretaker tries to cheer up the little one. With the help of her toys she enters the world of fairy tales. The dolls come to life and the girl happily participates in their game. Time passes, it is already late at night and the girl falls asleep. The caretaker leaves quietly, leaving her in the interior of her room full of toys.

The Saga of Windwagon Smith

1961 • 13 min • United States of America

Sea Captain Windwagon Smith hits Westport, Kansas, the starting point of the old Oregon and Santa Fe Trails, and is quickly the laughing stock of the town; instead of traveling in the usual oxen-drawn covered wagon, he is at the helm and wheel of a Contestoga-type wagon with a full set of sails. He plans to go to Oregon by taking advantage of the prairie winds. First, he wins over the town mayor, falls in love with the mayor's beautiful daughter, Molly Crum, and then secures financial backing from the townspeople. He sets sail across the plains, with Molly Crum as a covered-wagon stowaway, and a Kansas twister looming on the horizon. And, then, the wind hits the sails. And the fan, too, if he had had one.

Birds of a Father

1961 • 6 min • United States of America

Sylvester Cat discovers that his son, Junior, has a new best friend - a bird named Spike. Aghast, Sylvester decides to teach his son the facts of feline life and goes with him on a bird hunt, which, as usual, isn't Sylvester's forte. He is hit with a badminton racket after he mistakenly shoots a badminton birdie and then is blown up when he sends a model plane after Spike and is himself shot at by the out-of-control plane and forced to take refuge in an explosives store shed, with the plane slipping in behind him and firing at the TNT.

Sawt Echaâb

1961 • 20 min • Algeria

“La Voix du Peuple,” composed of archival photographs by René Vauthier and others, exposes the root causes of the armed conflict of the Algerian resistance. Participating in a war of real images against French colonial propaganda, these images aimed to show the images that the occupier had censored or distorted, by showing the extortions of the French occupation army: torture, arrests and arbitrary executions, napalm bombings, roundabout fires, erasing entire villages from the map, etc. This is what the French media described as a “pacification campaign”.

Cupido

1961 • 12 min • Yugoslavia

Short animated film.

La Chevelure

1961 • 19 min • France

A man developes an obsession with a wig.

The Zoo Story

1961 • 60 min

Peter and Jerry meet on a park bench in New York City's Central Park. Peter is a wealthy publishing executive with a wife, two daughters, two cats, and two parakeets. Jerry is an isolated and disheartened man, desperate to have a meaningful conversation with another human being. He intrudes on Peter's peaceful state by interrogating him and forcing him to listen to stories about his life and the reason behind his visit to the zoo.

Edge of Tomorrow

1961 • 50 min

A portrait of UFO huckster Reinhold O. Schmidt.

Clash and Carry

1961 • 6 min • United States of America

Chilly Willy, perennially either cold or hungry (or both) is determined to use any strategy to get more than an average catch of fish at the market run by Wally Walrus.

The Queen's State Visit to Iran

1961 • 14 min

2-6 March 1961 saw the Queen and Prince Philip make their first and only state visit to Iran. Their host was Mohammed Reza Pahlavi (1919-80), the Shah of Iran, who had already made an official visit to Britain in 1959.

The Grim Reaper

1961 • 50 min • United States of America

Celebrity author Beatrice Graves purchases a cursed painting of the Grim Reaper; her nephew Paul warns her that most of its previous owners have died violently but she scoffs-until blood appears on the Reaper's blade.

Yasmina

1961 • 15 min • Algeria

"Yasmina" filmed in 1961 in the middle of the Algerian war tells the story of a little Algerian girl with her hen and her family whose father was killed in a bombing by the French colonial army of occupation. The family, after a long journey, heads towards the refugee camps on the Tunisian border. Produced by the Cinema Service of the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA) in the midst of the war of independence, these films were intended to re-inform the population and international public opinion on the abuses committed by the French colonial army: torture, arrests and arbitrary executions, napalm bombings, fires in douars, entire villages wiped off the map, etc. which the French media described as a "pacification" campaign. The latter censoring or reorienting any images that could harm the colonial narrative.

Circle of the Sun

1961 • 28 min • Canada

A young man of the Kainai Nation (Blood tribe) shows us contemporary life of people as he attends a Sun Dance ceremony with the tribe.

Moment of Decision

1961 • 10 min

Paul and his two friends come across a new convertible that is parked with the keys still in the ignition. While Paul's friends want to hop in the car and take it for a joyride, Paul isn't quite sure if he wants to engage in that type of criminal behavior.

Abner the Baseball

1961 • 13 min • United States of America

We meet Abner propped upon a pillow in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. With an annoyingly twee voice emerging from his anthropomorphised face, Abner reveals the events leading up to his arrival in this hallowed hall. It seems that Abner is the baseball that got whacked by Mickey Mantle for a home run against the Detroit Tigers, on 10 September 1960 ... sailing for an astonishing 634 feet (193 metres).

Miceniks

1961 • 6 min • United States of America

Beatnik mice are chased by a square cat.

The Bing Crosby Show

1961 • 60 min • United States of America

Bing Crosby performs with special guests Bob Hope, Marion Ryan, Dave King, Terry-Thomas, and Shirley Bassey.

Seven Keys

1961 • 57 min • United Kingdom

Alan Dobie plays a convict who is bequeathed a set of seven keys by a fellow prisoner. After discovering that the deceased was an embezzler who stole £20,000 that was never recovered; he sets out to find the cash after finishing the last three months of his sentence. However he must first solve the mystery of which locks the keys fit, and run the gauntlet of the police and a number of gangsters who are after him and the money.

Accent on Spring

1961 • 14 min • United States of America

A woman's therapy session turns into a musical review of men's clothing.

Ore wa toppu-yada: kao no nai bijo

1961 • 52 min • Japan

1961 Japanese movie

Nelly's Folly

1961 • 7 min • United States of America

Nelly the Giraffe is discovered in Africa and leaves to begin a singing career, but finds that chasing fame brings her nothing but unhappiness.

Echo of Barbara

1961 • 58 min • United Kingdom

Barbara is the long-lost sister of no-good Mike Roscoe (Ronald Hines). Paula Brown (Maureen Connell) is the stripper whom Mike hires to pose as Barbara. It's all part of a scheme to fool Mike's ex-convict dad Sam Roscoe (Mervyn Johns). The son hopes to entice Sam into revealing the whereabouts of his stolen money, and Paula is hopefully going to do the trick. Based on a novel by Jonathan Burke, Echo of Barbara is a better-than-usual British programmer, entertaining despite its surplus of unpleasant leading characters.

The Man Out There

1961 • 55 min

A Russian astronaut trapped in space in a faulty rocket, has five hours to live when his radio makes contact with Marie, a hunter's wife also trapped, in a blizzard swept area of Canada. Her daughter is dying of diphtheria, he as a doctor can help her.