Author Archive: Retro

This video presents archival footage of the Academy Awards ceremony held in 1955 for movies released in 1954. The program shows an evening hosted by Bob Hope, during which the Elia Kazan anti-union picture On the Waterfront took top honors with eight wins out of twelve nominations, including the prize of Best Picture, while its star, Marlon Brando, won his first Best Actor Oscar after four consecutive nominations. Kazan garnered the Oscar for Best Director as well, while Grace Kelly received the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in The Country Girl. This video also features nominees such as Humphrey Bogart (for The Caine Mutiny) and Bing Crosby (for The Country Girl).

Parade A compilation of short subjects released in the 1930s featuring major stars at play.

Rare home movies of many visiting Hollywood stars and colorful gardens of this California Landmark.

A 7-part series exploring all aspects of Hollywood.

An informational film produced to encourage farmers to grow hemp for war efforts, detailing its many industrial uses.

A documentary showing the struggle to bring electricity to rural areas of the United States.

First we cleared the Indian. Then we cleared the buffalo.” Gosh, didn’t they have a UN back in the 1800s to stop ethnic cleansing? Guess not. They could have sent Canadian troops into the Kansas region to stop the predominantly Christian Yankees from murdering the Ethnic Indians. This movie is full of a narrator shouting about ‘the wheat’ and weird shots of everything from WWI tanks to starving kids and Okies packing their trucks to go west. People say that modern TV news is all flash and no substance. Apparently things were the same in the 1939 though. The end shows how the great Federal Government is setting up agencies to prevent the topsoil from being blown away as it was during the ‘dust bowl’. The govt is also helping all those poor refugees from the drought who had to pack up and move west. Yeah Right.