All Films

Ballet Tales

1955 • 55 min • Soviet Union

A pair of short ballets, written for the screen, filmed and performed by artists of the Georgian SSR. In color, with narration.

Drie Belgische Waterkuursteden

1955 • 16 min

Promotional documentary about Belgian spa cities. The spas in Ostend, Spa and Chaudfontaine are shown, together with their nearby attractions.

3rd Ave. El

1955 • 10 min • United States of America

Impressionistic picture of the Third Avenue Elevated Railway in Manhattan, New York City, before it was demolished. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2010.

Untitled Joseph Cornell Film (The Wool Collage)

1955 • 23 min

The contents consist mostly of found footage, similar to the repurposed imagery favored by Cornell in his other films. Edited with Cornell’s distinctive splicing tape, the 23-minute film was composed by the artist sometime between 1940 and 1955.

Fifth Avenue to Fujiyama

1955 • 10 min

A Fox MovieTone CinemaScope special. "Air journey to one of the most famous spots in Japan."

The Land of the Basques

1955 • 41 min

Study V: Interplay

1955 • 8 min • Sweden

Sequences of photographic abstractions have been balanced against more realistic sections. A surrealistically charged encounter between two lovers, a young woman and a man.

Ella

1955 • 16 min • Colombia

A follow up of a young woman, an artist's model, in her dreamlike wandering through the intimacy of her home.

Emperor Penguins

1955 • 11 min • United States of America

Documents the life and habits of the largest of all penguins, filmed during a French Antarctic expedition led by Paul Emile Victor.

Rabies in a Human Patient

1955 • 4 min • Iran, United States of America

Case history of an Iranian patient bitten by a rabid wolf.

Magoo's Check Up

1955 • 6 min

After a rather unpleasant incident followed by a suggestion that Magoo have his glasses checked, Magoo decides to have his eyes examined. He mistakes a television repair shop for an ophthalmologist/optometrist and the fun begins.

Sonate in Brussel

1955 • 16 min • Belgium

Short film set in Brussels.

Behind the True-Life Cameras/The Olympic Elk

1955 • 49 min

James Algar, the writer-director of Walt Disney's "True-Life Adventures" short subject series, takes the viewers of the TV anthology Disneyland behind the scenes to show how these remarkable documentaries are made. Segments include photographers Clare and Bill Anderson filming on location in the Everglades, Bob Crandall doing close-up photography of a busy ant colony (both to be used in the upcoming Secrets of Life), and the on-location filming in Africa of the newest True-Life Adventure film The African Lion with footage by Alfred and Elma Milotte. The second half of this one-hour episode consists of the 1952 "True-Life Adventure" theatrical release The Olympic Elk, the vibrant saga of the annual elk migrations in Washington State's Olympic Peninsula.

Betty High Heel Dance

1955 • 3 min

Betty Page dances in high heels.

Origins of the Motion Picture

1955 • 21 min • United States of America

A historical overview of the development of the motion picture industry.

La Corniche d'Amour

1955 • 29 min • France

Two rich tourists, a photographer and a painter, meet during a walk in Kabylia. Their wanderings are an opportunity to highlight the many tourist and picturesque places on the Algerian coast. This film commissioned by the Defense Communication and Audiovisual Production Establishment (ECPAD), attempts to sell a tourist destination when Algeria was in flames with the outbreak of the Algerian national liberation war. Filmed with the colonial lens of the time, the natives are only one element of a picturesque setting, and the final kiss between a French woman and an Arab man is an attempt to demonstrate a pacified country. Despite everything, the film constitutes a precious archive for Béjaïa, which is the subject for the first time of a film which immortalizes a moment in its history, and to introduce the work of Tahar Hannache, actor, cinematographer and director, one of the pioneers of Algerian cinema.

£20 per ton

1955 • 5 min • United Kingdom

Wintry snowfall in a factory yard contrasts with the furnaces burning within. This film follows the eye of the firm's accountant as he traces waste and excess about the works. The concerns for fuel efficiency and reducing pollution are all about economy, even when the narration talks of coal heating up the atmosphere. Among the wastrels are the workers, who are shooed away from a warming stove.

Smoke in the Forest

1955 • 47 min • Soviet Union

A school boy finds a fallen pilot in the forest during the fire started by enemies.

A Job for a Gob

1955 • 6 min • United States of America

Olive's ranch needs a helper, and the boys just happen to be passing by. Bluto's convinced he's better, but Popeye wins at all of Olive's tests: riding a bronco and branding. As Popeye wins the job, Bluto starts a stampede and a fire simultaneously. With some spinach help, Popeye gets Bluto out of the way, douses the fire, and saves Olive from the stampede.

Destination: Competence

1955 • 30 min • Canada

A look at some of the institutions where the Ministry of Social Welfare and Youth provides young people eager to learn with education that opens the doors to the future. In Trois-Rivières: the School of Stationery; in Saint-Hyacinthe: the School of Textiles; in Rimouski: the Marine School, in Montreal: the School of Furniture, as well as the School of Graphic Arts, the School of Commercial Trades and the School of the Automobile which also provide courses in Quebec.

Station 307

1955 • 18 min • France

A research expedition to the Persian Gulf and a dive near Bahrain in search of oil. The film was sponsored by the French arm of British Petroleum, and featured the ship Calypso which later became world famous.

The Structure of Unions

1955 • 11 min • Canada

Examines the organization of labor unions. While the narrator in all seriousness outlines the structure of a union and the larger bodies to which it is affiliated.

Our Magazine No. 11

1955 • 9 min • United Kingdom

A Saturday matinee cine-magazine for the boys and girls' cinema clubs. Sections include, Children of the Black Forest, What's Wrong?, Toy Museum, and The Ringers.

Confidential File: Horror Comics

1955 • 25 min • United States of America

In 1954 the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency conducted an investigation into how the comic book industry was supposedly contributing to the moral decay of a nation's youth. The investigations were spurred on by a number of articles that blamed comics for the rise in juvenile delinquency in post-war America. Chief among the critics was Doctor Frederic Wertham, whose book, "Seduction of The Innocent" has been blamed for nearly single-handedly crippling the entire comics industry. "Confidential File" was aired in 1955, after the senate hearings and the formation of the Comics Code, but it serves as a perfect example of how the media reacted to the comic book industry, and sought a scape goat by blaming the comic book publications for society's own lack of responsibility in raising its children.