All Films

Beautiful Bali

1940 • 8 min

A look at Bali, in the Dutch East Indies, 90 miles long, 45 miles wide, and home to a million people. After a quick reference to its history, we see its rice paddies, markets, and fishing. Rice is a cash crop, and the distribution of wealth, according to the narrator, is the most equal in the world. Girls dance at the temples, from age four to fourteen. Each community has its orchestra and often a popular dancer. We watch Gigi and his back-up musicians. On the shore, tourists are just beginning to discover Bali's beauty.

Pinto Canyon

1940 • 55 min • United States of America

In his final Western for Poverty Row's Metropolitan Pictures, Bob Steele played Bob Hall, a lawman looking into a series of cattle rustlings. The leader of the rustlers, rancher Farley (Ted Adams), hires killer Pete Childers (George Cheseboro) to impersonate a deputy sheriff and gain Sheriff Hall's confidence.

Kristopher Kolumbus Jr.

1939 • 7 min • United States of America

Porky Pig is Kristopher Kolumbus, who sets off to discover the New World carrying Queen Isabella's treasures (including her jewels, a slingshot and a Jr. G-Man badge). Porky is met by some weird-looking Indians, some of whom he takes back to the Old World to introduce to the court of Queen Isabella. A hush falls over the hall as the natives prepare to demonstrate their native dance. True to the Warner Bros. tradition, a wild jitterbug scene ensues with music from the studio orchestra.

Chains

1939 • 14 min • United Kingdom

The making of wrought iron chain at the Netherton Works of N. Hingley & Sons Ltd. Part of BFI collection "Tales From the Shipyard".

A Day at Denham

1939 • 10 min • United Kingdom

A look at London Film Productions' studios at Denham.

Television

1939 • 9 min

Promotes television sets and the broadcast of New York's first regularly scheduled programs by providing a clinical look at the inner workings of television, including the manufacture of the tubes, lab experiments, and an actual telecast. Shows RCA's production studios in Rockefeller Center, television demonstrations at the 1939–40 New York World's Fair, RCA's Empire State Building transmitter, and remote mobile broadcast units. One of a variety of "Reelisms" shorts produced by Frederic Ullman Jr. and Frank Donovan for RKO in the late 1930s.

1126 Dewey Avenue, Apt. 207

1939 • 4 min • United States of America

Avant-garde home movie, creators unkown, attributed to John C. Hecker.

Stewart Family Home Movies

1939 • 34 min • United States of America

“Between 1926 and 1985, amateur Archie Stewart shot over seventy thousand feet of film. In 1936 he purchased a sound-on-film 16mm camera and began to make talking pictures. The result is that we can not only see what Archie saw but hear what he heard. Stewart primarily focused on his family, watching them grow and mature as the years passed. Here we partake in four years of family activities, trips, and holiday seasons, as well as technical experiments. The record, intimate and endearing, shows people comfortable in front of the ever-present camera and microphone.” — Bruce Posner

Homes for Workers

1939 • 11 min • United Kingdom

This celebratory 1939 film, sponsored by a local gas company and introduced by LH Keay, architect and director of housing in Liverpool, is an enthusiastic overview of the slum-clearance programme that had been undertaken in Liverpool.

Out of the Drum

1939 • 19 min • United Kingdom

Lady Luck smiles on a reckless secretary who takes a punt on the Irish Sweepstake … but not everyone’s a winner.

Childbirth as an Athletic Feat

1939 • 8 min • United Kingdom

A class of expectant mothers practise ante-natal exercises designed by Kathleen Vaughan at Paddington (LCC Hospital), London. The purpose of each exercise is explained by intertitles prior to the footage. One of the women is a former ballerina in her 34th week of pregnancy - she is frequently singled out to demonstrate the poses and at the end of the film she does a small ballet performance.

A Young Shooter

1939 • 10 min • Soviet Union

About young shooters helping each other master the skill of shooting.

United Action Means Victory

1939 • 36 min

Documentary detailing the 1939 strike by the Tool and Die Makers union against General Motors.

Cargo for Ardrossan

1939 • 18 min

Oil arrives at the Ayrshire end of the Firth of Clyde: this fine documentary tells the story of the process, and of oil’s use to power Scotland’s industries. Informative throughout and at times very evocative, it was directed by Ruby Grierson, too often overshadowed by her brother John, ‘the father of British documentary’, but a good filmmaker in her own right, who was killed during WWII.

The Melody of the City

1939 • 15 min • Sweden

Images of Stockholm.

The World Parade: Bali - Paradise Isle

1939 • 13 min • United States of America

Early documentary on the island of Bali.

From Jerusalem to Tel Aviv

1939 • 11 min

Reportage showing views of old and new Jerusalem and the modern buildings of Tel-Aviv. It is one of two (along with 'Tel Aviv') reportages made in the late 1930s by Romuald Gantkowski in what was then Palestine.

Brazil: 1st Part

1939 • 11 min

Discover Brazil, its wildlife, its riches (rubber, Brazil nuts) and its major cities along the Amazon River (Manaos, Santarem, Belem).

A Day in Artek

1939 • 22 min • Soviet Union

The work of the amateur film group of the Moscow Palace of Pioneers. The film was shot in the camp from July to September 1939. The shooting involved pioneers from "Artek" and students from children's theater studios, who were specially invited for the filming.

Love on the Wing

1939 • 5 min • United Kingdom, Canada

Animation featuring dancing black and white shadows.

Dance of the Colors

1939 • 6 min • Germany

A play of colours, shapes and music: colourful dots, lines and surfaces move to the rhythm of the music. A short film by Hans Fischinger, the younger brother of experimental film pioneer Oskar Fischinger.

Jewish Life in Krakow

1939 • 10 min • Poland

Focusing on Cracow's Jewish quarter, this film intermingles old and new, using music to enhance the images. Streetcars share tree-lined streets with horse-drawn carriages; people conduct business under umbrella-covered markets and arcaded market halls; parks and schoolyards host sports, games and animated discussions. Scenes of the famous Remu Synagogue and the Alte Shul, an orphanage, a hospital, the Jewish Community Council, and several schools convey the vitality of this age-old Jewish community.

Starlight Night

1939 • 30 min

A story set in 1811 as Napoleon is gathering men to go into war. Eight years later Father Joseph Mohr sits down and writes the song Silent Night.

Chosun, Our Rear Base

1939 • 11 min

Aimed at promoting active Korean participation in the war for the Imperial Japanese Army, the film sees the people of Joseon mobilized into a string of organized units such as a youth group helping to recruit young volunteers, a group promoting the sale of war bonds, and an exclusive organization that focuses on donating aircrafts and anti-aircraft machine guns.