All Films

The Uninvited Pest

1943 • 7 min • United States of America

Barney is settling in for his hibernation when a squirrel spots his bedtime snack: a bowl of walnuts. The squirrel sneaks in and wakes Barney up. Barney chases out the squirrel, who proceeds to drop first the nut, then himself, down Barney's noisy tin roof.

The Life History of the Onion

1943 • 11 min • United Kingdom

The film shows speeded-up germination of the seed to form roots and shoot, at whose base the leaves later form a bulb. The flower produces pollen grains (shown much magnified), which are transferred by insects to the stigmas for fertilization of seeds inside the ovary.

Why We Fight: The Battle of Britain

1943 • 53 min • United States of America

The fourth of Frank Capra's Why We Fight series of seven propaganda films, which made the case for fighting and winning the Second World War. It was released in 1943 and concentrated on the German bombardment of the United Kingdom in anticipation of Operation Sea Lion, the planned German invasion.

Farm Hands

1943 • 11 min

Our Gang kids Mickey, Buckwheat, Froggy and Happy spend a day working on the farm.

The Law Rides Again

1943 • 58 min • United States of America

When a band of American Indians breaks a treaty with the federal government, U.S. Marshals Ken Maynard and Hoot Gibson hit the trail with captured outlaw Duke Dillon (Jack La Rue) to find out what sparked the uprising. They discover clues that point to corrupt Indian agent John Hampton (Kenneth Harlan), but meanwhile, the bandit Dillon pulls a fast one on the marshals, and soon everybody's getting ready for a showdown.

Death Valley Manhunt

1943 • 55 min • United States of America

Unknown to oil company president Ross, his man Quinn is pulling a swindle on the independent drillers. Quinn controls both the Judge and the Marshal. But when the Marshal is accidentally killed, Wild Bill Elliott is brought in as the new Marshal and things begin to change.

A Stockholm Silhouette

1943 • 6 min • Sweden

From Bern's salons at Berzelii Park in Stockholm. Exterior and interior from early morning until dawn the next day. Lunch and dinner. Entertainment and dancing to Mischa Angelini's orchestra.

Nazty Nuisance

1943 • 43 min • United States of America

Germany's Adolf Hitler, with his Axis-stooges, Italy's Mussolini and Japan's Suki Yama, although he tried to avoid taking them, is on his way, via submarine, to a tropical country to negotiate a treaty with the High Chief Paj Mab. However, an American P.T-boat crew is already there and have some plans for schickenbit-grubber and his buddies.

Fifth Column Mouse

1943 • 7 min • United States of America

In an allegory for World War II, one mouse's attempt to appease the cat of the house in exchange for a regular supply of cheese puts all the mice in danger.

War Department Report

1943 • 47 min

The first official War Department Report by the Office of Strategic Services using American newsreel footage and footage of film captured from the enemy. Topics include: Gran Sasso aftermath; Japan’s conquered territory; Germany’s troops and provisions; US Military supply logistics; and battle strategy. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

The Stolen Sun

1943 • 11 min • Soviet Union

The sun is shining in the sky. Flowers are revealed, birds sing, animals take care of others. Only an evil crocodile who could not catch anyone, attacks the sun and swallows it. It is darkness. The animals in a panic run to the bear and ask to return the sun to the sky. The bear, who in the dark could not find the cubs, goes to war with the crocodile. The bear engages in battle, wins the crocodile and forces him to free the sun. Happy beasts rejoice in the sun and praise the bear.

Raiders of San Joaquin

1943 • 59 min • United States of America

In this western, two cowboys ride to the rescue of ranchers who are fighting to keep a land-grabber from taking their land and selling it to the railroad

Hiss and Make Up

1943 • 8 min • United States of America

An old woman has a cat, a dog, and a canary. The cat and dog fight even worse than normally. Fed up, she tells them both off, then threatens to throw them both out if there's any more trouble.

Pitchin' in the Kitchen

1943 • 18 min • United States of America

While his wife works at a defense plant, Hugh stays home and tries to do the housework.

Windbreaks on the Prairies

1943 • 21 min • Canada

This short film serves as a cautionary tale to farmers who recklessly cut down trees on their land. When prairie farmers engaged in this practice to facilitate plowing, they discovered that the trees had served as windbreaks protecting top soil from erosion. The Dominion Department of Agriculture's experimental station at Indian Head, Saskatchewan, cultivated acres of young trees for distribution to farmers.

Room and Bored

1943 • 7 min • United States of America

Fox has a furnished apartment which he desires to rent to a nice, quiet, respectable citizen like himself, and he especially wants no riff-raff tenant. What he wants and what he gets are two different things as along comes Crow with his own furnishings and decides to move in. Crow proceeds to make himself at home by tossing out Fox's fine furniture and fixings' and brings in his own junk, including a player piano, a juke box and a set of drums, all of which the jitter-bugging Crow plays all night. The Fox tries to evict him the next morning, but the crow simulates a raging snowstorm outside his window and the soft-hearted landlord allows him to stay. And then, although it is mid-July and hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk, Fox hustles down to the basement and starts shoveling coal into the furnace.

Fin'n Catty

1943 • 7 min • United States of America

"As everyone knows," the narrator begins, "goldfish must have water... and cats hate water." And so it goes.

The Spider and the Tulip

1943 • 16 min • Japan

A spider attempts to lure a ladybug into his web. When she manages to escape and hide in a tulip, a storm comes that batters the spider, while the ladybug remains safe.

Way Down Yonder in the Corn

1943 • 7 min

The fox, determined to keep the Crow away from his garden, reads a box, "How to Fox Crows", which explains, "Crows are allergic to scarecrows." So he offers to hire a scarecrow willing to take the job. The crow disguises himself as a scarecrow, is hired, and instantly devours the fox's entire farmyard crop and even gets the fox blown up in a dynamite trap. Later, the bandaged fox hears a radio broadcast saying the scarecrow he hired is really the crow and suggests he get even with the fowl. He disguises himself as "Sidney Scarecrow" and chases the crow to an amusement park where they eventually make up.

In the Forest of Katyn

1943 • 8 min • Germany

It depicts a crime scene — the exhumation of bodies and personal belongings found with the remains of Polish officers in a mass grave in the Katyn Forest, murdered in 1940 by the Soviet NKVD political police. The film also shows members of the International Medical Commission established by the German authorities, journalists, former Polish Prime Minister Leon Kozłowski (1934–1935), and Russian peasant Parfien Kiselev, one of the witnesses to the Katyn massacre. The Germans sought to exploit these crimes for maximum political gain, and the film’s narrator, in the spirit of Nazi propaganda, argues that in the face of “Bolshevik barbarism,” people would fare much better under German than under Soviet rule.

Inki and the Minah Bird

1943 • 7 min • United States of America

Once again, the mysterious minah bird hops his syncopated way into Inki's lion-hunting expedition. This time the little black bird has a new reality- defying way to disappear: he hops into a haystack which gradually (and with the same catchy hip-hop) shrinks down to a single straw, which vanishes.

Guadalcanal

1943 • 10 min

A stop-motion animated account of the 1942 Battle of Guadalcanal in World War II. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2004.

Rhythm of the Islands

1943 • 60 min • United States of America

Rhythm of the Islands is set in the South Seas, presumably far away from the shooting war. The nonsensical plotline finds hero Tommy (Allan Jones) posing as a native chief. Joan Holton (Jane Frazee), daughter of a millionaire (Ernest Truex), falls in love with Tommy, unaware that he's a charlatan.

Death by Design

1943 • 18 min • United Kingdom

Dastardly deeds are afoot in a smog of pipe smoke when a man is found dead - is it cyanide poisoning or smoke inhalation?