Short film in support of the Red Cross showing civilian volunteers'work, radio and movie personalities at a fund-raising gala and encouraging recruitment. Deanna Durbin performs a song dedicated to the nurses. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.
The film is a series of comical musical numbers and skits following Phil Harris around, starting with him performing at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, which is listened to by Dorothy on the radio whose home-brewing husband Walter hates Harris.
An aging, decadent landlord’s passion for music becomes the undoing of his legacy as he sacrifices his wealth in order to compete with the opulent music room of his younger, richer neighbour.
A documentary about the first flight over Mt Everest. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with UCLA Film & Television Archive in 2014.
Henry Browne, an African American farmer, and his family are profiled in this film. The important job of a farmer during times of war is highlighted, specifically his efforts growing peanuts and cotton.
This short on movie sound men starts with a short history of sound in the movies. We then see how the different jobs in the sound department contribute to the finished film.
Commissioned by the U.S. Office of War Information, this short film features conductor Arturo Toscanini leading the NBC Symphony Orchestra, tenor Jan Peerce, and the Westminster Choir in Verdi’s Inno delle nazioni.
Busy Little Bears is a 1939 American short family film directed by John A. Haeseler. The film follows three bear cubs are observed exploring the forests of the Sierra Nevadas, encountering other wildlife, and invading the kitchen of a local ranch house.
Strand spent over twenty years documenting her friend Anselmo Aguascalientes’ life, eventually creating a stunning trilogy of films—Anselmo, Cosas de mi vida, and Anselmo and the Women—tender portraits that are also glimpses into poverty, resourcefulness, perseverance and patriarchy.
The people of Britain resist the German air force and navy with help from North America. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Library and Archives Canada in 2005.
Popular movie trailers from 1940
These some of the most viewed trailers for movies released in 1940:
Capitalizing on the famous radio 'feud' between comedians Jack Benny and Fred Allen. The two stars play versions of themselves, constantly at each other's throats due to real and imagined slights.
This short documentary, presented and directed by MGM sound engineer Douglas Shearer, goes behind the scenes to look at how the sound portion of a talking picture is created.
A gang of urban street kids and a club of suburban would-be federal agents, at first rivals, join forces to rescue the father of one of the kids, the inventor of a super-explosive and its remote detonator, from the clutches of a band of foreign subversives call the "Flaming Torch Gang".
Radio star Jack Benny, intending to stay in New York for the summer, is forced by the needling of rival Fred Allen to prove his boasts about roughing it on his (fictitious) Nevada ranch.