Movies: Old hollywood

An intimate portrait and saga of four film pioneers--Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack who rose from immigrant poverty through personal tragedies persevering to create a major studio with a social conscience....

The astonishing story of the genesis, production, worldwide success, and legacy of King Kong (1933), directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, a landmark of cinema, one of the most influential motion pictures in history....

This short shows the entrances of the various Hollywood studios, then specifically visits Warner Bros. / First National Studios. We start at the casting office, then see Busby Berkeley and choreographer Bobby Connolly working with chorus girls on pro...

A promotional short to hype the production of A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935)....

This documentary recounts the difficult choice actress Mary Astor had to make after learning her personal, very intimate, diaries had been stolen. The film tells the story of Astor's 1936 child custody case....

This short promotes the premise that movies often create a demand for the fashions seen in them. It starts with a vignette in rural America. A mother and daughter go to town to buy a new dress. In the dress shop window is a designer dress worn by Joa...

The daughter of iconic actor John Barrymore is reunited with her father after a ten year estrangement and engages in his self-destructive lifestyle....

In 1933, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, two audacious and visionary directors, dared to create a motion picture that eclipsed everything seen until then: when King Kong was released, it was celebrated as an artistic and technical revoluti...

A governess put in charge of two young children begins to see the ghost of her dead predecessor....

In a deconstruction of classic Hollywood codes, using repetitive single frame images, the re-editing of teenager movies produces an intense Oedipal drama....

A compilation of early-day silent films that serves as a glimpse back to the formative days of the movie industry as a salute to Hollywood's Golden Year, so proclaimed by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce as 1953....

Comedian Lloyd Hamilton escorts a group of beauty contest winners to various Hollywood night spots....

When Lavenza, a 19th-century noblewoman, overhears her husband complaining about her looks, she turns herself into his ideal wife by thrifting the body parts from all the women he desires....

When the ballerina star of a musical feature walks off in a huff, aided by the fit-throwing director, her understudy steps in and a star is born....

In 1988, German filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff sat down with legendary director Billy Wilder (1906-2002) at his office in Beverly Hills, California, and turned on his camera for a series of filmed interviews. (A recut of the 1992 TV miniseries Billy, H...

Basically this is a commercial for Hollywood's Lido Lounge and for MGM contract players. The Lido is a large watering hole; we visit one afternoon with an orchestra playing, all sorts of stars and would-be stars sitting at tables near the pool alongs...

Declassified FBI and CIA documents help director Paul Davids unravel the puzzle of Marilyn Monroe's demise, which was officially ruled a "probable suicide," while providing detailed evidence supporting the conclusion that Marilyn was murdered....

The life of Frank Sinatra, as an actor and singer and the steps along the way that led him to become such an icon....

A visit to a Hollywood nightclub, featuring caricatures of, among others, Walter Winchell, Hugh Herbert, W.C. Fields, Katharine Hepburn, Ned Sparks, Johnny Weissmuller, Lupe Velez, John Barrymore, Harpo Marx, George Arliss, Mae West, Stan Laurel, Oli...

This documentary was written with passion and love for cinema, and on the other hand, he blamed her. Our fictional character for this documentary talks about her passion for cinema and how it affected her life and recounts the decades that passed on ...