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1-50 of 374
- Ruth Etting shows how she make a perfect three minute egg by singing a song with a length of exactly three minutes.
- An elderly barber shop owner wins a sweepstake and uses the winnings to elaborately remodel his run-down shop. For in-house entertainment he hires his musician friends as the jazz orchestra and the four shoeshiners are skilled tap dancers.
- This short shows highlights from several basketball games at two postseason tournaments in 1956. They include the quarterfinal, semifinal, and final games of the National Invitation Tournament; and the semifinal and final games of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) tournament, The NCAA All-Star game also is highlighted.
- This Traveltalks visit to Germany explores several locales in the state of Bavaria in the southeastern corner of the country.
- This short documentary was first shown on the Turner Classic Movies (TCM) cable channel. Stuntmen specializing in various fields discuss their craft and explain the planning, execution, and safety aspects of the stunts they perform. The areas discussed include car chases, fistfights, sword fights, high work (e.g., jumping from high buildings or hanging from a tall ladder), and working with horses.
- This entry in the Believe It or Not series (#10) finds Mr. Ripley aboard a US naval ship speaking to a group of sailors. The film he shows them includes items on a Mr. Curt Thompson, a blind telephone operator, and John R. Voorhees, who, at age 102, has voted 81 times since his 21st birthday. The finale is a demonstration of skill by Otto Reiselt, the three-cushion billiards champion.
- In this entry, passengers enter a mockup of an airplane. During the flight, Robert Ripley shows the "passengers" several oddities across the United States. They include the town with the smallest population (of one) in the 1930 census, a father and son who can rest their shoulders on their chest, and an armless trombone player who uses his foot to move the instrument's slide.
- The second entry in the Believe It or Not series of shorts begins with Robert Ripley in his office sorting his mail. At the time he received about one million pieces of mail per year, more than any other individual. He shows the audience several of the more oddly addressed envelopes. These include one addressed in Morse code; one in Hebrew, one using the naval flag code; and one with a small tear to the left of a picture of Robert E. Lee (i.e., "Rip + Lee" = Ripley). A U.S. marshal then enters the office and arrests Ripley. He is brought to court to defend several of the claims made in his books and newspaper columns. One claim is that "The Star-Spangled Banner" is not the national anthem of the USA (it wasn't until 1931). Another is that Charles A. Lindbergh was actually the 67th person to fly nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean. (The first nonstop flight was made in 1919 by a pair of aviators in one plane, and two dirigibles with more than 30 passengers each also made crossings before Lindbergh).
- Reporters interview Ripley about his world travels.
- This first entry in the second "Believe It Or Not" series of shorts visits northern Africa. Included are a look at the Tuareg people of the Sahara Desert, a waterfall whose under-surface builds up because of lime deposits, a clock that strikes 13, and the Tree of Abraham, estimated to be 3500 years old.
- This entry in the series crisscrosses America to find various curiosities. Among them are a church in Nebraska made of bales of hay; a duck with four legs that lives with its owner in Flint, Michigan; a 128-year-old woman who lives in Holly Springs, Mississippi, with her 100-year-old daughter; and, in a cemetery in Mayfield, Kentucky, a family plot wherein the deceased members are memorialized with life-sized statues, including the patriarch's horse and other family pets.
- In this Sportscope entry, naturalist Van Campen Heilner and his wife go to Louisiana bayou country to hunt a particular species of goose. They first use a motorboat and see the local Cajuns trapping muskrats for fur. They later switch to a marsh buggy. After their guide picks out what he believes is a good spot, the three of them set up a blind and set out decoys to lure the geese.
- The first 3 minutes of this Vitaphone Melody Master feature Phil Spitalny's orchestra playing popular music. The band's singer then fantasizes about her experience when she first arrived in America, looking for "Uncle Phil." As she wanders through the various ethnic neighborhoods of New York City (the Bowery; Hester Street; Mott Street; Harlem), music associated with each area is heard. She finally hears music from her homeland being played in a restaurant and is united with her relatives.
- A showcase of bullfighting in Portugal, explaining how the country's version of the sport differs from those in Spain and Latin America and helps define the national character. After showing the training techniques for the bulls and horses, a bullfight is presented.
- This short looks at the life Michel Ney, who fought at Napoleon's side and was made a Marshall of France. Ney rejoined Napoleon's army after the emperor escaped from Elba and returned to France. He was convicted of treason and, according to history, executed by firing squad in 1815. The film presents the possibility that Ney's execution was a ruse, after which he escaped to America, became a teacher in North Carolina, and died in 1846.
- An embezzler who expects to serve his time in prison and then pick up his buried loot is in for a surprise.
- The pageantry of Calgary's colorful celebration of its past, culminating with its world famous rodeo, is chronicled.
- This Warner Bros. short film shows the process that studios use to select women for the chorus line in movie musicals. It then presents a few clips of chorus lines in Busby Berkeley production numbers from 1930s Warner Bros. musicals.
- This Traveltalks visit to Cape Town, South Africa includes grand vistas from atop Table Mountain, varied architecture in the city center, trips to suburbs to see a winery and the former estate of Cecil Rhodes, and a seaside resort.
- This Traveltalk on Michigan begins with a look at the state's major educational institutions, which started as agricultural schools. We then visit the fish hatcheries at Grayling, which are used to keep the state's numerous lakes and rivers well stocked. After a short look at Detroit, the car capital of the world, we spend several minutes at Greenfield Village, founded in 1929 by automobile magnate Henry Ford. Included in the tour are churches, a clock tower, and the the homes of several famous persons in American history. Although some of the structures are reproductions, many of them are the actual buildings they lived in.
- Real-life investigator Jo Goggin uses a motion-picture surveillance camera to gather evidence. This Pete Smith Specialty short (a rare serious entry in the series) dramatizes how Mr. Goggin works. A farmer claims that an accident caused by the negligence of Goggin's client has confined him to a wheelchair, and he has sued the client for $100,000. Goggin sets out to show that the man is a fraud.
- This short shows various curiosities of people and nature across the United States, in the style of the "Believe It or Not" series. Among the dozen subjects are Milwaukee's Monkey Island; a boy in Salt Lake City who wrestles with his pet lion; a tree that grows out of a courthouse's stone roof; a well shaft in Pennsylvania that freezes in summer and melts in cold weather; and the town crier of Provincetown, Massachusetts.
- At carnival time in Quebec, Canada, it's also time for racing with sled dogs, horse-drawn sleighs, hockey competition, the carving of ice statues, obstacle races by youngsters, fireworks, and also the selection of a queen for the carnival.
- This Sportscope short shows youngsters (8 years old and up) training at the Junior Bengal Lancers riding school in Halifax. Later they demonstrate their skills at a celebration in Annapolis, Nova Scotia. Six-year-old Heather Cameron, who is too young to be a student, is named official mascot of the unit.
- This MGM short film, part of the A Pete Smith Specialty series, takes a humorous looks at photography. Starting with Louis Daguerre's first photo, which terrified his maid, to wedding photos where the the groom sat and the bride stood, eventually anyone was able to take snaps. Newspapers wanted photos and cameramen took candid snaps. The challenges faced by the amateur photographer are explored, not the least of which is that they can be a real pest to their subjects, in this case the man's wife and son.
- Owners of Loon Bay Lodge in St. Stephen, New Brunswick usually plan fishing and rafting trips for guests. Here they take such a trip themselves on the St. Croix River, part of the international boundary between New Brunswick and Maine.
- This Traveltalks short film explores the history, land, and people of Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, Canada including the summer home and the final resting place of Alexander Graham Bell.
- The janitor of a Paris museum's Egyptology department agrees to help a girl hide from the police. Using museum costumes, they join the Paris carnival parade and even win the 'best costume' contest. Later she helps him unravel a mystery regarding the identity of one of the museum's mummies.
- In this Pete Smith Specialty, we see the humorous (and disastrous) results when people save their money under a mattress, in a coffee can or an old shoe, and other unsafe places. Viewers are urged to put their money in U.S. Savings Bonds, a much safer investment.
- A Technicolor travelogue celebrating San Francisco - past and present
- This MGM short is a promo for their upcoming feature Westward the Women (1951), which was filmed on location in Utah. The film introduces the stars, including Robert Taylor, but focuses primarily on the challenges of filming on location. The rugged countryside provides a beautiful backdrop but provides few facilities for film making. Transportation, on site facilities for rehearsal, eating and daytime shelter all had to be provided. The shoot lasted approximately 8 weeks.
- In a husband deferring to his wife's wishes, a couple takes a driving trip to Mexico as a vacation. Their trek takes them across the wide open desert. They report on the rather odd things they see along the way, including: an abandoned junk of a car which obviously could not make the desert crossing; a community populated solely by Russians speaking only Russian and adhering to their Russian customs mixed with local flavor, such as the young boys embarking on the sport of cactus apple fishing; what is supposed to be a battle to the death between two turtles by flipping the opponent onto its back, that death without human intervention saving the otherwise "doomed" loser; and close encounters with two other species of wildlife, namely a lizard and a probably venomous snake. They encounter that snake again later at a nearby farm, it which gets into battles with with a cat, then with a German Shepard.
- The people of Britain resist the German air force and navy with help from North America.
- This short dramatizes how three disparate events in history contributed to the adoption of three of the amendments in the United States Bill of Rights.
- This Dogville comedy is a spoof of college football movies. A man in debt to a loan shark uses his daughter to stop football hero Red Mange from playing in the big game between Airedale College and Spitz University. Guess who makes a last second score to win the game for Airedale.
- This MGM short, part of James A. Fitzpatrick's Traveltalks series starts off in Denver, capital of Colorado, the mile high city. Known as a recreational and health center, it is noted for its beautiful parks. The Museum of Natural History has specimens of local animal life. About an hour's drive from Denver on Lookout Mountain is the grave of Col. William Cody, 'Buffalo Bill', known as a scout and a plainsman. In Colorado Springs, there is a monument to the great American humorist Will Rogers who loved the stretches of open country. Much of the mountain area of Colorado is owned by the Federal government as national forest and there are many well stocked trout streams. In Mesa Verde National Park you will find the cave dwellings once used by Native Americans.
- This Traveltalk short visits three African locations on the Indian Ocean that used to be administered by Great Britain. The first stop is the Seychelles island group. Then it's on to the island of Zanzibar. The final stop is Mombasa, Kenya, where efforts are underway to save the elephants from extinction by ivory hunters.
- On a slow news day, the wisecracking staff of a newspaper write articles about the serious safety issues of a local excursion steamboat line.
- This Traveltalks visit to the Commonwealth of Virginia showcases some of its many historical sites. The first stop is Mount Vernon, where George Washington lived most of his life. We also visit the home of president Thomas Jefferson and the birthplace of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. There are also stops at Charlottesville (University of Virginia); Williamsburg, the colonial capital; and other cities.
- A short compilation of newsreel clips featuring people performing strange stunts with humorous narration added by Pete Smith.
- Two professional dancers beautifully demonstrate the rumba and conga while actors humorously display some incorrect techniques for those dances.
- This Pete Smith Specialty shows newsreel footage events that live up to the title. They include, among others, a diaper derby (the father who puts a diaper on his child fastest wins), a fireman's ball (two teams of fire fighters use high-pressure water hoses to move a large ball to score goals), and a basket race (men run a footrace while balancing a "tower" of ten baskets on their heads).
- Joseph A. Doakes goes into a toy shop looking for a gift for his 12-year-old son, and the clerk shows him a box of magic tricks. After a store employee demonstrates several of them, Doakes purchases the box - as well as a larger, more advanced set - and starts demonstrating them for his son, who has low expectations for this display and is totally bored. For some unknown reason, the tricks worked better in the store than they do at home, even though instructions are included. When one trick actually works, Doakes is pleasantly startled by the outcome. In the final trick, Doakes makes himself disappear. Where he ends up after the trick is over must remain a mystery until you see this short film.
- Short news featurette produced by Pathe-RKO after the Russians launched the first orbiting satellite, Sputnik. It is a patriotic 'call to arms' from the threat posed by this and the need for Americans to spend more on education in general and a college education in particular. A visit to the University of Buffalo highlights many of its science programs and the need for more college graduates all science specialties if America is to rise to the challenge. It bemoans the fact the PhDs earn less than a mechanic and the need to re-order priorities.
- This travelogue across America is filled with sight gags such as the 'Old Reliable' geyser spitting into a spittoon, cliff-dwelling Indians who walk horizontally up and down the faces of cliffs to get to their homes, and a Texas cow puncher who really punches cows. Also featured is Mr. Butter Fingers, a 'human fly' who climbs the outside of the Empire State Building.
- Beautiful women allow men to crack whips and throw horseshoes at their heads.
- The remarkable talents of baseball pitcher and trick artist Johnny Price are showcased including throwing two balls at once to two catchers, pitching blindfolded, throwing and hitting hanging upside down, and fielding fungoes in a jeep.
- This entry in the "See America First" series focuses on the ten years prior to the US Civil War. We see monuments and buildings associated with people and places of that era. Some of these are: a monument to slaves in Nachitoches, Louisiana; the Brunswick, Maine home of Harriet Beecher Stowe, where she wrote the novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin"; Fort Nashboro in Nashville, Tennessee; composer Stephen Foster's home in Bardstown, Kentucky; the grave of abolitionist John Brown at his family's farm in North Elba, New York; and Andrew Jackson's home, The Hermitage.
- This MGM short, part of the Crime does not Pay series, focuses on industrial sabotage during wartime. After a valuable shipment of manganese is blown up at a plant, the FBI try to find out how information on the manganese shipment was found out. They get a lead on one of the plotters, Beulah Anderson, who as a waitress in a café gets to pick up all kinds of scuttlebutt from the innocent but loose talking clients. Once they figure out how she is sending the information she gathers, the FBI sets a trap. The moral of the story is: Don't Talk!
- This Passing Parade entry looks at several historical "truths" that just aren't so: Steve Brodie never jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge; Mrs. O'Leary's cow did not start the great Chicago fire; Nero didn't fiddle while Rome burned; and Lady Godiva never rode naked through the streets of Coventry.