All Films

Skid Kids

1953 • 49 min • United Kingdom

Story about a group of young cyclist track riders and their effort to retain their track against long odds.

Little Boo-Peep

1953 • 7 min • United States of America

Casper, the Friendly Ghost, is thrown out of The Frightening Army by its Unfiendly Ghost's members, and wander on over to Fairy Tale Land, where he finds Little Bo Peep crying over her lost sheep.

Firemen's Brawl

1953 • 6 min • United States of America

Popeye and Bluto are manning a fire station when the alarm comes in: it's Olive's house.

Canvas Back Duck

1953 • 7 min • United States of America

Donald and his nephews are visiting the carnival. After Donald makes a relatively high score on a weight testing machine, he is thought to be a veritable strong man and takes on an offer from a little boy to fight his uncle in a boxing match. Unfortunately for Donald, that "little boy" is actually a con man in cahoots with boxer Peewee Pete who is anything but what his name implies. His nephews notice and try to warn Donald but he finds himself in the ring with Pete anyway.

Tricky Dicks

1953 • 16 min • United States of America

The stooges are policemen on the trail of a murderer. They unsuccessfully interrogate an Italian organ grinder, among other suspects, and then catch the bad guy after a gun fight that nearly destroys the police station.

Farewell Oak Street

1953 • 17 min • Canada

This documentary presents a before-and-after picture of people in a large-scale public housing project in Toronto. Due to a housing shortage, they were forced to live in squalid, dingy flats and ramshackle dwellings on a crowded street in Regent Park North; now they have access to new, modern housing developments designed to offer them privacy, light and space.

The Grievance Hearing

1953 • 15 min • United States of America

Presents a case history of a grievance case from the initial causes to the final settlement. Shows how grievance hearings enable labor unions and management to arrive at compromises in settling disputes.

The Cool Hot Rod

1953 • 26 min

A misfit teenager with a passion for hot rods - and trouble - moves to a California town where he learns the errors of his ways and becomes a model hot rodder.

Saginaw Trail

1953 • 56 min • United States of America

Hamilton's Rangers, led by our hero Gene, must keep the Indians in the northern Michigan territory from attacking the settlers.

Unglassed Windows Cast a Terrible Reflection

1953 • 30 min • United States of America

An anatomy of violence. Four young men and two young women are on a drive. There's a rivalry between two guys for one of the girls. On a remote road, the car stalls. The driver hitchhikes for help. Led by the intrepid girl, the others walk toward abandoned buildings, perhaps a mining operation. One of the three guys sits and reads. The intrepid one explores the building and sees something that scares her. She screams; the two rivals and the second girl run to find her. Something she says starts a fight between her two suitors. The one reading a book walks away in disgust. After stopping the fight, the two young women follow. How can this end? Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2005.

Herman Teirlinck

1953 • 51 min • Belgium

A portrait of the belgian writer Herman Teirlinck by Henri Storck.

Plop Goes the Weasel!

1953 • 7 min • United States of America

A lip-smacking weasel invades the barnyard of Foghorn Leghorn and his usual canine foe, and Foghorn is quite willing to put baby chicks in danger of being taken by the weasel so long as it makes the dog appear to be failing his job of guarding the chicks.

Statues Also Die

1953 • 30 min • France

Commissioned by the journal Présence Africaine, this short documentary examines how African art is devalued and alienated through colonial and museum contexts. Beginning with the question of why African works are confined to ethnographic displays while Greek or Egyptian art is celebrated, the film became a landmark of anti-colonial cinema and was banned in France for eight years.

Starting from Hatch

1953 • 7 min • United States of America

The birth of Baby Huey! The headlines in "Barnyard Eggstra" read: "Duck Lays Huge Egg. Mother Eggcited. Egg To Be Named Huey." A fox steals the giant egg and escapes with it. When he uses a hammer to crack the egg, Baby Huey is hatched. The fox tries to cook the king-size duckling. Huey mistakes the fox for his mommy and thinks that he's just trying to give him a bath. He chases the fox, thinking that the fox is his mother and trying to escape him. In tears, his mother shows up with a milk bottle. Baby Huey is overjoyed: "I'm the luckiest duck in the world, I've got two mothers."

Aero-Nutics

1953 • 7 min • United States of America

Singalong with spot gags about air travel.

The Hiroshima Panels

1953 • 17 min • Japan

Filmed soon after the end of the Allied occupation, this documentary is an extremely valuable record of the production and nationwide tour of “The Hiroshima Panels” at the time.

Northwest Mousie

1953 • 6 min • United States of America

In the frozen North, Captain Herman of the Northwest Mousies is trying to capture notorious outlaw Pierre Katnip, who has been robbing the little mice of all their food. It's a battle to the finish, but Northwest Mousies always get their man... or is that cat?

Highland Journey

1953 • 22 min • United Kingdom

From Glasgow or Edinburgh, Scotland may be explored by train or long-distance coach, and this film includes a coach tour from Edinburgh to the Isle of Skye. The route taken meets the Highlands at Killin, and then goes over Rannoch Moor and through Glencoe to Ben Nevis, the entrance to the Great Glen. Here we meet the West Highland railway line, and follow it on its journey through the Bonnie Prince Charlie country to Mallaig. Returning to the Great Glen we rejoin the coach route out through the Glen Foyne and Glen Shiel to the Kyle of Lochalsh, and take the ferry over to Skye.

Just Ducky

1953 • 7 min • United States of America

Jerry Mouse befriends a newly hatched duckling who can't swim and ends up protecting him against his feline nemesis, Tom.

T.V. of Tomorrow

1953 • 7 min • United States of America

A variety of fanciful innovations in "future" T.V. sets, including a model with a built-in stove, and a number of highly interactive models. And of course, even with dozens of channels, there's nothing on...or more accurately, there's nothing but the same Western.

Vandalism

1953 • 10 min • United States of America

Two young high school boys spike the punch at a Halloween party, mischievously let the air out of car tires, and finally steal a car to go for a joyride. They're caught and thrown in jail, and, as the narrator says, this proves that pranks lead to "habit-forming wildness," and, of course, such anti-social behavior cannot be allowed to happen

Much Ado About Nutting

1953 • 7 min • United States of America

A squirrel in a downtown park lugs a giant coconut back home, but nothing he tries will crack it open.

Mickey's Birthday Party

1953 • 46 min

Disney celebrates Mickey Mouse's 25th Anniversary with a feature-length compilation of six of his all-time fan-favorite cartoons: Mickey's Birthday Party; The Pointer; The Nifty Nineties; Tiger Trouble; Mr. Mouse Takes a Trip; and The Whaler.

A Tale of Two Cities

1953 • 60 min

A dramatization originally for TV on the Plymouth Playhouse. Set against the conditions leading up to the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, French doctor Alexandre Manette serves an 18-year imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris, followed by his release to live in London with the daughter he has never met.