This promotional travelogue, made for the Christchurch City Council, shows off the city and its environs. Filmed at a time when New Zealand’s post-war economy was booming as it continued its role as a farmyard for the “Old Country”, it depicts Christchurch as a prosperous city, confident in its green and pleasant self-image as a “better Britain” (as James Belich coined NZ’s relationship to England), and architecturally dominated by its cathedrals, churches and schools. Many of these buildings were severely damaged or destroyed in the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011.
The remote island of St. Helena, a British possession located in the south Atlantic, is perhaps best known as where Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled/imprisoned for the final six years of his life and where he died in 1821.
Hong Kong and Taiwan are 2 islands inextricably linked by their huge neighbour. Modern metropolises full of eastern traditions, they're forging forward in the 21st century as China's little dragons.
How can structures, which take up defined, rigid portions of space, make us feel transcendence? How can chapels turn into places of introspection? How can walls grant boundless freedom? Driven by intense childhood impressions, director Christoph Schaub visits extraordinary churches, both ancient and futuristic, and discovers works of art that take him up to the skies and all the way down to the bottom of the ocean.
Bordeaux-Paris was the best bike race you’ve never heard of: a midnight start, 550km-long, and ridden behind motorised ‘dernys’, with winners including Jacques Anquetil and Tom Simpson.
Bruce Brown's The Endless Summer is one of the first and most influential surf movies of all time. The film documents American surfers Mike Hynson and Robert August as they travel the world during California’s winter (which, back in 1965 was off-season for surfing) in search of the perfect wave and ultimately, an endless summer.
Popular movie trailers from 1952
These some of the most viewed trailers for movies released in 1952:
When his grandfather dies, George Westcott (Patrick Doonan) returns home from India to collect his inheritance -- only to find that the will has mysteriously gone missing.
After beginning their train trip to California, a famous film actress and her daughter discover their compartment has also been assigned to a handsome biology professor.
In the 18th century, the pirates of Madagascar, lords of the Republic of Libertatia and masters of the Indian Ocean, live in an impregnable natural fortress, killing, robbing and plundering with impunity, so the British Navy hatches a daring plan to destroy them.
Canada, rich in uranium, is harnessing atomic science for peacetime living. This film provides a progress report on nuclear research conducted at the atomic energy plant at Chalk River, Ontario, and shows some of the constructive applications of atomic energy carried out in hospitals (including Canada's celebrated "cobalt bomb"), in agricultural experimental stations and in industry.
