All Films

Time Stood Still

1956 • 9 min • United States of America

Time Stood Still is a 1956 Warner Brothers Scope Gem travelogue, filmed the previous year in Dinkelsbühl, and presented in the wide-screen format of CinemaScope, directed by André de la Varre. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film at the 29th Academy Awards.

The Artist and the City

1956 • 26 min • Portugal

The painter António Cruz wanders around the city of Porto painting what he sees: old and modern buildings, people arriving and leaving work in the factories, children playing. The impressionist realism of Cruz’s drawings dissolves into Oliveira’s vision of Porto, which at the same time portrays the painter and his work.

Prima Donna

1956 • 25 min

A famous singer discovers a newsboy with vocal talent, but he would rather play baseball than develop his singing skills. She'd like to persuade his parents of his potential, but confusion arises when they arrive to discuss the matter.

A Short Vision

1956 • 6 min • United Kingdom

The leaders, the wise men, the leopard, the deer, the owl and the rat all look up in the sky in fear as a strange object flies through the sky.

The Devil and Kate

1956 • 44 min • Czechoslovakia

Adaption of the Antonin Dvorak opera Čert a Káča (The Devil and Kate), Op. 112, B.201, based on a farce by Josef Kajetán Tyl.

Trumpit

1956 • 6 min

Featuring a card game played on the body of a naked woman, Lawrence Jordan portrays male sexual frustration while slyly satirizing Hollywood reaction shots.

Link Span

1956 • 25 min • United Kingdom

Twenty-four hours in the story of the British Railways Channel ferryboats, the 'link spans' directly joining the roads and railways of Britain with those of France and all the Continent. The Lord Warden laden with an assortment of road vehicles from Dover, and the Night Ferry from Newhaven carrying passengers bound for Paris, Vienna or Rome are two of the ferries illustrated in this film; and freight is not forgotten.

Monsieur et Madame Curie

1956 • 14 min

The life and work of the pioneering scientists, told through the words of Marie Curie.

You're Growing Up

1956 • 10 min

The four periods of growing up, from birth to age 20, are highlighted in this training film about learning how to accept help from others.

Mouseum

1956 • 6 min • United States of America

Herman the Mouse takes his cousins to the museum where they encounter Katnip the cat who chases them all over the museum, but becoming batter and bruised as he tries to catch and outwit Herman. But Herman out-maneuvers Katnip who, worse for wear, snakes off in defeat.

The Red Balloon

1956 • 34 min • France

A young boy discovers a stray balloon, which seems to have a mind of its own, on the streets of Paris. The two become inseparable, yet the world’s harsh realities finally interfere.

On Such a Night

1956 • 37 min • United Kingdom

An American tourist on a day trip to Sussex from London inadvertently finds himself at Glyndebourne Opera House in Sussex where he learns to appreciate Opera.

Le Sabotier du Val de Loire

1956 • 24 min • France

This is October 1955. The place is a village in Loire-Atlantique, La Chapelle-Basse-Mer, where an old clog-maker works and lives with his wife and their adopted son. The clog-maker's meticulous craft is described with love and close attention to detail. On the other hand, forthcoming death pervades the quiet everyday life of the elderly couple.

The Legend of the Good Beasts

1956 • 24 min • United Kingdom

Fabergé animals in a Russian influenced Easter tale.

The Hide-Out

1956 • 55 min • United Kingdom

An insurance investigator in London attempts to thwart smugglers trafficking stolen lambskins infected with anthrax.

Flesh of Morning

1956 • 22 min • United States of America

Short B/W film about the textures of the human skin and household objects, showing Brakhage in the morning as reality distorts around him. Revised in 1986.

KgU - Task Force of Inhumanity

1956 • 22 min • Germany, East Germany

Using documentary material and the testimony of convicted agents, the film attempts to prove that the West Berlin "Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit" was an espionage and sabotage organization. As a militant and anti-communist organization, the KgU supported the resistance against the SED government in the GDR from its founding in 1948 until its dissolution in 1959 and, among other things, founded a tracing service for Western citizens deported to the Soviet occupation zone.

Find the Lady

1956 • 54 min • United Kingdom

During New Year's Eve, a young model spends the day searching for her grandmother, who has suspiciously gone missing.

Any Man's Kingdom

1956 • 21 min • United Kingdom

A documentary showing aspects of long-disappeared rural life in Northumberland in 1953.

Disneyland: U.S.A.

1956 • 42 min

A tour of the Disneyland theme park.

十九の春

1956 • 53 min • Japan

Little Cobra Dance

1956 • 1 min • United States of America

Jack Smith descends a fire escape in a makeshift "Arabian" costume and improvises increasingly frenetic choreography.

Night School

1956 • 44 min • Japan

Senta lives with his mother and little brother and supports them by working at day at a factory and attending eighth grade in the evening. One day he finds a letter on his desk, left by Ryohei, a day school student who has lost his pencil case and asks his night-school counterpart to return it…

Nightcats

1956 • 8 min

A bold attempt, full of visual sensibility, to use living animals, innocuous of their roles, as abstract counters in a tone poem of color and chiaroscuro. – Parker Tyler