Gertie the Dinosaur is a 1914 animated short film by American cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay. It is the earliest animated film to feature a dinosaur. McCay first used the film before live audiences as an interactive part of his vaudeville act; the frisky, childlike Gertie did tricks at the command of her master. McCay’s employer William Randolph Hearst curtailed… Read more →
Alice’s Wonderland is a 1923 Walt Disney short silent film, produced in Kansas City, Missouri. The black-and-white short was the first in a series of Walt Disney’s famous Alice Comedies and had a working title of Alice in Slumberland. The film was never shown theatrically, but was instead shown to prospective film distributors. It was included as a bonus feature… Read more →
This film tells the story of the historic first landing of men on the Moon in July, 1969. It depicts the principal highlight events of the mission from launching through post-recovery activities of Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, and Michael Collins. Through television, motion picture and still photography, the film provides an “eye-witness” perspective of the Apollo 11 mission…. Read more →
Let There Be Light (1946) — known to the U.S. Army as PMF 5019 — is a documentary film directed by American filmmaker John Huston (1906–1987). It was the last in a series of three films directed by Huston while serving in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War II. Its portrayal of soldiers suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder… Read more →
The Cry of Jazz is a 1959 documentary film by Ed Bland that connects jazz to African American history. It uses footage of Chicago’s black neighborhoods and performances by Sun Ra, John Gilmore, and Julian Priester interspersed with scenes of musicians and intellectuals, both black and white, conversing at a jazz club. It has been credited with predicting the urban… Read more →
The Jackie Robinson Story is a 1950 biographical film directed by Alfred E. Green (who had directed The Jolson Story, “one of the biggest hits of the 40s”) and starring Jackie Robinson as himself. The film focuses on Robinson’s struggle with the abuse of bigots as he becomes the first African-American Major League Baseball player of the modern era. The… Read more →
From the Manger to the Cross or Jesus of Nazareth is a 1912 American motion picture that was filmed on location in Palestine. It tells the story of Jesus’ life. Directed by Sidney Olcott who also appeared in the film, actress and screenwriter Gene Gauntier wrote the script and portrayed the Virgin Mary. The film received excellent reviews at the… Read more →
Nanook of the North (also known as Nanook of the North: A Story Of Life and Love In the Actual Arctic) is a 1922 American silent documentary film by Robert J. Flaherty, with elements of docudrama, at a time when the concept of separating films into documentary and drama did not yet exist. In the tradition of what would later… Read more →
In the Land of the Head Hunters (also called In the Land of the War Canoes) is a 1914 silent film fictionalizing the world of the Kwakwaka’wakw peoples of the Queen Charlotte Strait region of the Central Coast of British Columbia, Canada, written and directed by Edward S. Curtis and acted entirely by Kwakwaka’wakw native people. The film was selected… Read more →
Gulliver’s Travels is a 1939 American cel-animated Technicolor feature film, produced by Max Fleischer and directed by Dave Fleischer for Fleischer Studios about an explorer who helps a small kingdom who declared war after an argument over a wedding song. The film was released to cinemas in the United States on December 22, 1939[2] by Paramount Pictures, which had the… Read more →
