All Films

If War Should Come

1939 • 9 min • United Kingdom

Produced shortly before the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, If War Should Come was one of the last films to be produced by the GPO Film Unit before it was re-named the Crown Film Unit and incorporated into the Films Division of the Ministry of Information.

Small Fry

1939 • 8 min • United States of America

Junior wants to be a Big Fry, but learns the hard way that he just isn't ready for smoking in the pool room when he should be in the school room.

Musical Mountaineers

1939 • 6 min • United States of America

Betty Boop runs out of gas in Feud County, and wins over the initially hostile hillbillies with her dancing.

Violons d'Ingres

1939 • 30 min

Shows hobbies of people who do an ordinary job in the day. Made for New York Fair.

Information Please: Series 1, No. 1

1939 • 10 min • United States of America

Information Please: Series 1, No. 1 is a 1939 short film of the famous show from RKO Radio. The segment stars Clifton Fadiman, Rex Stout, and John Kieran.It was nominated for an Oscar for Best Short Subject, One-Reel, a rare instance of a game show being nominated for an Academy Award.

Barnyard Egg-citement

1939 • 7 min

A Terrytoons cartoon released 4 May 1939.

The Big Game of the Sea

1939 • 15 min • Sweden

Whale hunting in the Antarctic Ocean

The Greener Hills

1939 • 11 min

An MGM Miniature about an incurable optimist who is always giving up on his job or project to try something new, while his wife and kids humor him, thinking that some day he may make that million he always talks about. He takes over a peanut farm, but immediately starts off on a bee-hive project, leaving his wife and kids to run the peanut farm.

Naughty But Mice

1939 • 8 min • United States of America

Sniffles the mouse, in his first appearance in a Warner Bros. cartoon, goes to a drugstore and gets drunk on a cold remedy, then befriends an electric razor and gets it drunk as well.

Design for Murder

1939 • 60 min • United Kingdom

When a wealthy, lonely university music student is beaten and has his apartment trashed by a fellow dorm resident-bully and his gang, he goes mad, lures the bully into his room on pretense of forgiveness, slips him a paralyzing agent in a drink, throws him in a trunk and locks him in, and taunts the bully with the promise that he will be buried alive in the trunk. Only, once he gets his trunk and his prey to his country estate, the vengeful victim finds things keep going wrong...

The First Robin

1939 • 7 min

A young newlywed robin couple move into a tree apartment. After being brought over the threshold, she gets ignored by Hubby who wants to listen to the radio. Later, she bakes some biscuits, but they prove to be brick-like, one even crashing through the table and floor. He bravely downs one, but he can't pretend to enjoy it. she bursts into tears and leaves. He decides he can take over, putting on her apron and mobcap while incongruously smoking a cigar. Aparently lacking not only cookery skills, but common sense as well, he salts and boils a can of beans in a saucepan on the stove.

The Story of Dr. Jenner

1939 • 11 min • United States of America

This short focuses on the story of Dr. Edward Jenner, who developed vaccination.

Porky's Movie Mystery

1939 • 7 min • United States of America

Mr. Motto (Porky) is called back from vacation to catch the invisible man.

Rita Rio and Her Orchestra

1939 • 10 min

Her doctor thinks Rita Rio is crazy for loving music too much, but she proves him wrong by becoming a successful bandleader.

Billy Mouse's Akwakade

1939 • 7 min • United States of America

The title is a take-off parody of Billy Rose's Aquacade, and uses an ordinary bathtub, as aqua-mice perform aquatic ballet dances and water sports. The soap bubbles float downstairs to where the dog and cat are sleeping, who blame each other for the disturbance, and have a fight about it. When they learn the mice are the bubble producers, they go after them with a vacuum cleaner.

The Royal Rodeo

1939 • 15 min • United States of America

A young monarch, bored with responsibility and craving excitement, invites a traveling rodeo show to perform at his palace.

Trouble Finds Andy Clyde

1939 • 20 min • United States of America

Andy's twin brother gets Andy in hot water.

Chasing Danger

1939 • 60 min • United States of America

When American newsreel cameraman stationed in Paris is sent to cover an Arab rebellion he finds a financier presumed dead but actually fomenting desert warfare.

Land of the Midnight Fun

1939 • 8 min • United States of America

A cruise to Nome, Alaska, starts with some cruise-ship jokes: the ship pulls out of the harbor like a car, raising anchor also raises the front of the boat, the ship follows the coast by curving around it. On arrival, we see some local scenes: A penguin eats two fish, then is eaten by the third; the dogs of a dog sled stop (behind an iceberg) at a telephone pole; a timber wolf goes around shouting "Timber!" Two Eskimos rub noses: in preparation, the woman applies lipstick to her nose. Finally, an Eskimo nightclub (after all, the nights are six months long) features a rotoscoped ice skater. The ship leaves, and gets caught in the fog near New York; when the fog clears, we see the ship is perched atop the World's Fair Trilon.

Taming of the West

1939 • 55 min • United States of America

When the marshal of the lawless town of Prairie Port is shot while trying to break up a saloon brawl, Wild Bill Saunders, a newcomer to town, rides in pursuit of Turkey, the marshal's assailant.

Riders of Black River

1939 • 59 min • United States of America

Former Texas Ranger Wade Patterson (Starrett) returns to his home town, only to find that the territory is in the grip of cattle rustlers. For a while, it looks as though heroine Linda Holden (Meredith) is in cahoots with the bad guys, but Patterson quickly clears her name and takes on the crooks himself.

Sundown on the Prairie

1939 • 58 min • United States of America

Tex and Ananias are sent by the government to capture some Santa Fe rustlers. Tex recognizes Hendricks as an outlaw, captures him and learns that Hendricks intends to meet a rustler named Dorgan. Tex goes instead and finds out that Dorgan plans to move rustled cattle through the ranch owned by Graham and his daughter Ruth. Dorgan has Graham Pass set to be dynamited to stop any pursuit.

Timber Stampede

1939 • 59 min • United States of America

Cattlemen fight corrupt railroad men out to destroy the forest.

En Djurgårdspromenad

1939 • 11 min • Sweden

An overview of Djurgården in Stockholm and what it looked like in the 1930s.