1940s Documentary Movies

The film, shot in 1938, is part of a series entitled “The true face of Algeria”. The film highlights the proximity of Algiers to Paris and promotes air travel. The commentary supporting the images highlights the urban dynamism (“Every day, a new skyscraper replaces a wasteland”) and the comparison with Paris (“Algiers is often nicknamed the Paris of North Africa because of its elegance become proverbial). Contemporary architectural achievements are described as the sign of “grandiose modernism”: “we love the new, the bold”. But the point does not forget the buildings illustrating “the Moorish, classic and attractive style”. The description of the Casbah also attempts to understand the architectural organization but also the diversity and even the atmosphere.

This documentary follows a group of adventurers into the Amazon jungle as they attempt to catch animals to be shipped to zoos in the USA.

Farrebique, the first feature-length effort of French documentary filmmaker Georges Rouqier, is widely regarded as his finest film. Rouqier concentrates on a single French farm family, following them through the four seasons. As in the works of Robert Flaherty, the human characters and the land surrounding them are "one", and Rouqier never misses an opportunity to parallel their lives with the eons-old phases of nature. The final symbolic images of Spring, achieved through time-lapse photography, are almost unbearably beautiful. The winner of several festival awards, Farrebique nonetheless did not immediately result in an outpouring of financing for Rouqier's follow-up films (this was a common problem in the financially strapped French film industry of the 1940s). Perhaps as a result, Rouqier did not make his sequel, Biquefarre (filmed in the same region, with some of the same "actors"), until 1983.

A documentary about the first Belgian king, Leopold I.

No overview available

This short film documentary features Shaw Desmond, founder of the International Institute for Psychical Research. Shaw relates several famous British hauntings.

Documentary short film about the work of Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844), one of the most famous Danish sculptors, who spent a good part of his life in Italy.

Muscle Beach was shown in competition at Cannes in 1949 and won a prize at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 1951. The short became a cult favorite, screening at film clubs around the world. Strick used an army surplus movie camera to shoot the film during weekends in the fall of 1948. The songs in “Muscle Beach,” composed and sung by political folk singer Earl Robinson, with lyrics by screenwriter and poet Edwin Rolfe, accent the film’s three-movement structure as it transitions between soaring gymnastics shows, flirty beachgoers and children playing near the now-demolished pier at Ocean Park. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2009.

Documentary compilation of Finnish Defence Forces Newsreels keeping the people up-to-date with the latest about the war.

The research, development, and deployment of the first atomic bomb, as well as the bombing of Hiroshima, are detailed in this docudrama.

Short documentary about the town of Famalicão, in the North of Portugal.

This 1940 presentation features highlights of earlier (1928 onward) Oscar ceremonies including Shirley Temple and Walt Disney, plus acceptance speeches for films released in 1939 with recipients and presenters including Vivien Leigh, Judy Garland, Hattie McDaniel and more, with host Bob Hope.

A film about life on the small island of Likiep in the Marshall Islands in Micronesia.

Atomic Power! is an American short documentary film produced by The March of Time and released to theaters August 9, 1946, one year after the end of World War II. It is a recreation of the making of the atomic bomb leading up to the Trinity test. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

A filmed performance of a burlesque show at the Follies Theatre in Los Angeles, California.

Directed by Meyer Levin.

An MGM short promoting the studio's impact on fashion through film through their chief of costume design, Adrian; in rural America, a mother and daughter are shopping and observe a designer dress worn by Joan Crawford in a recent movie.

This short celebrates the 20th anniversary of MGM. Segments are shown from several early hits, then from a number of 1944 releases.

A look at Canada's first national Ballet Festival.

During the colorful ceremonies of the Nuremberg rallies, Hitler Youth parade before their Fuehrer and are addressed by Nazi youth leader Baldur von Schirach, Rudolf Hess, and Hitler himself.

From 1942 to 1944, Henri Storck composed his Symphonie paysanne, in which he describes the day to day life and rituals of the farmers on the rhythm of the seasons. The film is a poem to nature, a lyrical masterpiece on life and death, on animals and plants, on man and his labour.

The story of how newspapers were distributed during the Blitz, stressing the importance of an accurate and objective press on the home front.

A docudrama about baroque art in Croatia.

A featureless land fit only for war, as the narrator, J. L. Hodson stated in the early scenes: "If war was to be fought then let it begin here". In endless miles of rock-strewn scrub desert, where civilians hardly existed. Desert Victory tells the story of the Allied campaign to drive Germany and Italy from North Africa is analysed, with the major portion of the film examining the battles at El Alamein, including some re-enactment. Won "Best Documentary Feature" at the 16th Academy Awards in 1944.

A documentary picture about Finnish Americans. A husband, wife, and a daughter are travelling in the "Wonderland of the West" meeting many Finnish immigrants.

Old Original Footage of the 1945 Toronto Maple Leaf's Team.

A documentary portrait of Denmark’s village churches, examining their ancient architecture and enduring place in Danish cultural and religious life.

Portrait of Arnhem destroyed by war. Citizens and volunteers clear the rubble and start the reconstruction of their city.

Commissioned to prepare Allied troops for the liberation of Europe, the film uses a blend of staged narratives and historical footage to promote solidarity and dispel the myth that France was a nation of willing collaborators.

A documentary about the problems of post-war reconstruction and the beginnings of socialism in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Poland.

The Japanese attack on Midway in June 1942, filmed as it happened. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive, in partnership with Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, in 2006.

Visits to three animal parks in Miami, Florida: the Rare Bird Farm, with it's many chickens, cranes, and other birds; the Monkey Jungle, where the visitors are caged and the simian inhabitants roam freely; and finally the Parrot Jungle.

Produced in 1943 under the guidance of Army Air Force Lieutenant Clark Gable, this film follows a single 8th Air Force B-17 crew from training through a series of missions over Europe.

The film deals with the Winter War of 1939-40 between Finland and the USSR. It begins with military exercises in the Autumn of 1939 and moves on to the Soviet invasion; the battle for Karelia; the bombing of Helsinki and other Finnish cities; as well as the activities of the foreign press corps in Finland and the heroic efforts of Finnish women and the Red Cross in their treatment of the wounded.

The Town was a short propaganda film produced by the Office of War Information in 1945. It presents an idealized vision of American life, shown in microcosm by Madison, Indiana. It was created primarily for exhibition abroad, to provide international audiences a more well-rounded view of America, and was therefore produced in more than 20 translations. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

Documentary about the social and economic policy of the country in the first years of the Justicialista government. Considered a lost film.

The final entry in a trilogy of films produced for the U.S. government by John Huston. Some returning combat veterans suffer scars that are more psychological than physical. This film follows patients and staff during their treatment. It deals with what would now be called PTSD, but at the time was categorised as psychoneurosis or shell-shock. Government officials deemed this 1946 film counterproductive to postwar efforts; it was not shown publicly until 1981.

Conquer by the Clock was a short dramatic propaganda film produced by the RKO Pathé in 1942 to encourage wartime industrial production. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1943.

In 1938 Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler sponsored an expedition to Tibet lead by several Nazi SS scientists to study the regions flora and fauna, and to take scientific measurements of the Earths magnetic fields. The expedition was also sent to find traces of the orgins of the "Aryan" race in Tibet which was where Himmler thought evidence of could be found. This film is a Nazi era documentary of that expedition.

In this Pete Smith Speciality, the audience is asked a series of multiple-choice questions on various subjects.