Author Archive: Retro

Narrated by Westbrook Van Voorhis. A March of Time Feature. Focuses on a typical small American town during the years before American involvement in WWI.

The knife-thrower Louella Gallagher throws knives at her daughters Connie Ann, 5, and Colleena Sue, 2.5 yrs old, in Austin, Texas. As the newscaster comments: “…Evidently Colleena Sue has more trust in Mother’s aim than the audience has. It takes a steady eye and a stout heart to heave knives at the apple of your eye, but this female William Tell has no qualms and plenty of faith…”

Documentary concerning the day to day life of the people of Ceylon.

A Greyhound bus transports us through the landscape of American mythology. Directed by Harold Schuster. Director of Photography: Jerry Fairbanks. Screenplay: Charles L. Tedford, Leo S. Rosencrans. Film Editor: Milton Kleinberg. Art Director: Theobold Holsopple. Production Supervisor: John McKennon. Musical Supervision: Edward Paul. Assistant Director: Robert Scrivner. With Marshall Thompson (Mysterious Stranger); Tommy Kirk (Jimmy Rollins); Morris Ankrum (Fred Schroder); Angie Dickinson (Mary); Charles Maxwell (Bill Roberts) and Tex Ritter as himself. Winner of the Freedoms Foundation Special Award.

Osa Johnson and her husband, Martin, appear in footage from their trips to the South Seas and Africa.

Albert Schweitzer is an 80-minute color documentary on the life of the famed doctor/humanitarian. The film is essentially divided into two sections: The first details Schweitzer’s youth in Austria, via still pictures and reconstructed scenes featuring Schweitzer’s own grandson. The second half dwells upon Schweitzer’s tireless medical efforts at his Lambarene hospital in French Equatorial Africa. The narration, based upon Schweitzer’s own writings, is spoken by Fredric March and Burgess Meredith. Though the color photography by Eric Anderson is uneven (understandably, considering filming conditions in Africa), Albert Schweitzer is a superbly mounted testimonial to the then 80-year-old physician.