Roger Bannister

Using newsreel footage, this Sportscope entry chronicles the race toward running's four-minute mile, highlighting several important contests. It starts in the 1920's, when Finland's Paavo Nurmi set the record for the distance at 4 minutes 10.4 seconds. It continues through Roger Bannister's first run under 4 minutes in 1954, and ends in spring 1956, when Australia's Joe Bailey became the first to break 4 minutes on US soil.

History wonks and running buffs will vie for who loves this movie the most. "Everest on the Track" is as much an historical study of Britain's psychological, if not almost physical, need for something - anything - to erase the woes of World War II as it is a fresh look at the quest for the first sub-4:00 mile, the heretofore deemed physically impossible. Before the war, Britain had bloomed best in its Sporting Tradition, but the amateur accolades leading to Olympic accomplishments were blown off the podiums in the 1952 Helsinki Games. Roger Bannister was the epitome of that disappearing scholar-athlete ideal. Can the lunchtime-trained runner immersed in his medical school studies inject the booster shot into Britain's flagging but still flickering morale?

The Ed Sullivan Show is an American TV variety show that originally ran on CBS from Sunday June 20, 1948 to Sunday June 6, 1971, and was hosted by New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan. It was replaced in September 1971 by the CBS Sunday Night Movie, which ran only one season and was eventually replaced by other shows. In 2002, The Ed Sullivan Show was ranked #15 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.