All Films

Golden Gloves

1961 • 28 min • Canada

A classic NFB documentary about the Golden Gloves boxing tournament, the Canadian amateur's hope for success in the boxing world. This Gilles Groulx film shows three Montreal boxers in training. In behind-the-scenes interviews they talk about their ambitions and what prompted them to take up the sport. - NFB

Topology: Jordan's Curve Theorem

1961 • 2 min • United States of America

Short animated film commissioned by IBM - to illustrate Camille Jordan's concept of topology - the fact that a simple closed curve divides a plane into an inside and an outside.

Strangled Eggs

1961 • 6 min • United States of America

Foghorn Leghorn courts Miss Prissy when a foundling is left on her doorstep. It is Henery the Chicken Hawk.

The Missing Note

1961 • 56 min • United Kingdom

Three children track their lost piano with one note missing through London.

Witchcraft: The Doll in Brambles

1961 • 25 min • United States of America

Madame Tirelou is a witch who will not allow her daughter Marie to marry her one true love Louis. The witch puts a curse on Louis should he ever set eyes on Marie again. Louis enlists the help of his old friend Fred to break the witch's spell so the young lovers may finally marry. However, Madame Tirelou proves more powerful than non-believer Fred bargained for. This is actually the Un-Aired Pilot of what was planned to be a weekly television show to run in a 30 minute spot.

The Mouse on 57th Street

1961 • 6 min • United States of America

An inebriated mouse with a throbbing head takes a priceless diamond, thinking it's a soothing piece of ice. Two policemen, one of them a lunkhead, are assigned to recover the missing jewel.

Partners in Crime

1961 • 54 min

British crime film directed by Peter Duffell and starring Bernard Lee, Moira Redmond and John Van Eyssen, loosely based on the 1918 novel "The Man Who Knew" by Edgar Wallace.

Clue of the New Pin

1961 • 58 min • United Kingdom

TV journalist Tab Holland assists Scotland yard with the murder of a reclusive millionaire whose corpse is discovered locked in a vault. The key to the vault is mysteriously found on the table beside the corpse.

A String of Beads

1961 • 60 min

An ordinary girl's life is radically changed by the mistaken receipt of a $60,000 strand of pearls.

Realengo 18

1961 • 60 min • Cuba

A group of peasants of Realengo 18 must face the greed of an American company trying to evict them from their place. One of the peasants will have to deal with the conflict of seeing her son join the rural guard who represses them.

Cipollino

1961 • 38 min • Soviet Union

In a world inhabited by anthropomorphic produce, "Cipollino, the Onion Boy" fights the unjust treatment of his fellow vegetable townsfolk by the fruit royalty (Prince Lemon and the overly proud Lord Tomato) in the garden kingdom.

The Weavers of Nishijin

1961 • 25 min • Japan

The Weavers of Nishijin captures the process of traditional textile manufacture in Nishijin.

Touch of Death

1961 • 58 min • United Kingdom

A criminal gang pull off a big robbery, unaware the cash has been infected with toxic poison. The thieves hide out on a Thames houseboat and terrorise its female occupant, before they start dying.

Bomb in the High Street

1961 • 60 min • United Kingdom

Thieves disguised as soldiers plan to use a bomb scare as part of their plan to rob a bank.

Melancholia

1961 • 12 min • France

The title sums up the mood of this elegant short film in which a woman recalls her life, locked up for 30 years in the courtyard of a building where a young man with whom she was hopelessly in love had lived. The tenants grow up, get married, die. A whole life passes.

The Purple Hills

1961 • 60 min • United States of America

When a bounty hunter kills an outlaw for the reward, he has to deal with both a man falsely claiming he made the kill, and the revengeful brother of the dead man.

The Man in the Back Seat

1961 • 57 min • United Kingdom

The haunting story of two incompetent crooks and an unwanted passenger which obviously has its roots in the Banquo’s ghost segment of Macbeth.

Commotion at Ikedaya

1961 • 8 min • Japan

Independent film by Yanagihara Ryouhei, member of the Animation Sannin no Kai pioneer group of independent animation. It tells the story of the Ikedaya raid by the Shinsengumi from the point of view of the neighbors of the Ikedaya.

俺はトップ屋だ 第二の顔

1961 • 52 min • Japan

1961 Japanese movie

Busman's Holiday

1961 • 6 min • United States of America

As the scene opens, window washer Woody washes the window of Pierre's bakery. His first mishap is to cause Pierre to mess up a cake that he's decorating, and Pierre tells him off. Since this job is finished, Woody gets on a bus with his automatic extension ladder, which keeps hitting the bus driver in the head every time that the bus stops. The driver finally throws Woody off, but Woody manages to get back on. The comedy with the ladder continues, finally involving a traffic cop, a motorcycle policeman and Pierre, as well as Woody and the driver. The story ends with all the participants, on the motorcycle, crashing into a brick wall.

Franken-Stymied

1961 • 6 min • United States of America

In a thunderstorm, the tree in which Woody Woodpecker makes his home is struck by lightning and utterly destroyed. Completely dazed by his misfortune.

Golden Peacock Castle, Part 3

1961 • 57 min • Japan

What will become of Sakon's lover, Shiragiku, who has been abducted to the Matsunaga Danjo residence? What about Benigiku and the others, whose souls have been extracted and who are heading to Mt. Hitokoi? And when will the three treasures of Peacock Castle be gathered? Filled with mystery and bringing with it dreams, the thrilling battle between the righteous young man and the sorcerer reaches an increasingly climax.

Gala

1961 • 20 min • France

Gala (1961), a more polished version of Pourvu, set in a black cha-cha nightclub. Relying more upon looks, faces, and unease, rather than gags or dialogue, Pollet sets the cool elegance of the club's manager against the decidedly uncool Melki and his sartorial inadequacies. - Village Voice

The Fourth Square

1961 • 57 min • United Kingdom

The Police investigate the theft of emerald jewellery which had led to murder.