1950s Documentary Movies

A documentary on the work of artist Henry Moore.

A documentary short about the Semana Santa in Sevilla.

Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.

This "Theater of Life" series short focuses on a medical services ship that stops in the native village of Haines, Alaska. The natives are depicted as superstitious of modern medicine. In the end, however, youngster Ralph Sarlan (the only person identified by the narrator) is taken by airplane to get corrective surgery on his deformed foot.

Filmed on a world wide trip by Danny Kaye, this is an examination of the state of children in the third world.

Two couples, one from St. Louis and one from Switzerland, each go to the other's country and travel around.

Short documentary

Narrated by actress Katharine Cornell and filmed in black and white, it spends the first 24 minutes introducing viewers, through newsreels, interviews, and old photographs, to the story of the deaf and blind disabled-rights pioneer. News footage shows her international appearances and visits with heads of state, including President Eisenhower allowing her to feel his face. The second half takes a day-in-the-(exceptional)-life approach to Keller's existence circa 1955. Made just 13 years before her death, Keller's famed tutor-translator-friend Anne Sullivan had already died, leaving her live-in replacement, Polly Thomson, to share the film's focus. From the time Keller takes her morning walk along the 1,000-foot handrail around her yard through her workday to her nightly reading of her Braille Bible, her serene acceptance of her life will amaze and inspire. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2006.

This short documentary records the celebration and ritual surrounding a snowshoe competition in Sherbrooke in the late 1950s. The film marked the beginning of a new approach to reality in documentary and prefigures the trademark style of the NFB's newly formed French Unit. Today, "Les raquetteurs" is considered a precursor to the birth of direct cinema.

A documentary about French marathon runner Alain Mimoun at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne.

Few films wield the awesome spiritual power of Jazz Dance, on which Leacock was one of two cameramen charting the slow, smoldering build of a Manhattan dance club from idle space to explosive, carnal bacchanal. Employing handheld cameras, limited light and sheer proximity, the film achieved an intimacy never before witnessed in a documentary.

This 95-minute, full-color documentary was released in the U.S. as Sixth Continent. That continent is Africa -- or, more specifically, the coast of Ethiopia. Director Folco Quillici takes his cameras deep, deep into the waters near the coastal islands of Dalach, observing the passing parade of sea life on an up-close-and-personal basis. Particularly thrilling is a shark attack and its aftermath, with the cinematographers obviously in the thick of things. Gian Caspare Napolitano provides the narration, while the lush, evocative musical score is the handiwork of Roberto Nicolosi.

"Araya" is an old natural salt mine located in a peninsula in northeastern Venezuela which was still, by 1959, being exploited manually five hundred years after its discovery by the Spanish. In images, the life of the "salineros" and their archaic methods of work before their definite disappearance with the arrival of the industrial exploitation.

The artistic and spiritual vision of William Blake as expressed through his books and illustrations.

Directed by Pierre Clément and Djamel-Eddine Chanderli, produced by the FLN Information Service in 1958, this film is a rare document. Pierre Clément is considered one of the founders of Algerian cinema. In this film he shows images of Algerian refugee camps in Tunisia and their living conditions. A restored DVD version released in 2016, from the 35 mm original donated by Pierre Clément to the Contemporary International Documentation Library (BDIC).

Set to a classic Duke Ellington recording "Daybreak Express", this is a five-minute short of the soon-to-be-demolished Third Avenue elevated subway station in New York City.

This biographical docudrama traces the life of Dr. Albert Schweitzer, from his birth in Alsace, up to the age of 30 when he made the decision to go to French Equatorial Africa and build his jungle hospital. The latter half of the film encompasses a full day in the hospital-village, following the octogenarian Samaritan in his daily rounds.

A short documentary on Paul Gauguin, a French painter and sculptor.

How--and how not--to get thrown for a loop is demonstrated as Fred Davis visits the gymnasium of the Kano Judo Club in Hull, Québec and interviews Bernard Gauthier, judo instructor, and gets the history of judo as a sport.

Grand Canyon is a 1958 American short documentary film directed by James Algar and produced by Walt Disney Productions. It is a pictorial interpretation of Ferde Grofé's Grand Canyon Suite. Grand Canyon is one of Walt Disney's more unconventional and experimental works, as it has musical accompaniment, but no dialogue or narration. The short won an Oscar at the 31st Academy Awards in 1959 for Best Short Subject (Live Action).

Early Lindsay Anderson industrial film promoting Sutcliffe's conveyors. Three different uses of Sutcliffe's conveyor installations.

Johnny Green leads the MGM Symphony Orchestra in a medley of waltzes and other familiar pieces by three members of the Strauss family. Filmed in CinemaScope.

Presents life in 18th century Spain as the painter Francisco de Goya showed it to us.

Short documentary. Plot unknown

No overview available

Documentary film recounting the travels of Captain Hassoldt Davis and his wife, Ruth Staudinger Davis, across the Ivory Coast. The Davises filmed their exploits, seeking out in particular evidence of the beginnings and native practices of witchcraft and sorcery, and culminating in a visit to the village of YHO, ostensibly a village of sorcerers.

A miniature parable about a young boy who misunderstands the function of a bird feeder.

Made over a three year period by George Michael and John B. Kennard and shot entirely in Africa, the film is a documentary of the native villagers and bearers of Bechuanaland, Rhodesia and Mozambique.

Behind the scenes of Darby O'Gill and the Little People.

Benjy is a 1951 American short documentary film directed by Fred Zinnemann. It won an Oscar in 1952 for Documentary Short Subject. Henry Fonda narrates this short film about a boy who was handicapped from birth. An orthopedic pediatrician wants to provide a therapeutic regimen that could cure the child, a scoliosis patient, but first he needs to convince the boy's parents, who have rejected the child because of his disabilities.

A filmed version of Aaron Copland's most famous ballet, with its original star, who also choreographed.

Detailed record of the celebration of the day of the Virgin of Andacollo, a feast that takes place between December 23 and 27 in the city of Andacollo, located in the Coquimbo Region, Chile. The arrival of the pilgrims, the way to the temple, and the beginning of the procession of the Virgin through the town, along with the dances of the numerous brotherhoods that gather. Then, the penitences for completed errands, other activities around the festivity and, finally, the departure of the pilgrims.

A staged documentary that started the Polish Black Series. The film takes the form of a warning against indifference to the rogue behavior of hooligan groups and their pernicious effect on young people flowing into the cities.

Documentary about the life of farmers in Poland.

Everyday the children of the neighborhood known as "Tire Dié", in the city of Santa Fe, wait for the train to ask for money, shouting "Tire dié!" (toss me a dime!) to the passengers. Considered the first survey-on-film in Latin America.

A documentary about the life of Jewish children forced to live in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

MGM short that looks at the behind the scenes production of Raintree County.

No overview available

A documentary featuring musicians including Artur Rubinstein, Jan Peerce-Nadine Conner, and Jascha Heifetz.

Les Etoiles de Midi is an engaging docudrama about some of the more spectacular exploits of French mountain climbers over the last several decades. In one re-enacted story, there is a wartime escape through the mountains, and in another, a daring rescue of a pair of climbers who had been missing. The actors themselves are adept at the sport of climbing, and they give the scenes an immediacy and real daring that brings the stories alive. A combination of their acrobatics and skill and the outstanding episodes in the history of French climbing creates a winning 78 minutes.