Of Pups and Puzzles

This MGM John Nesbitt's Passing Parade series short takes a look at the origins of North American slang.

October 1982: War is waged between Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands. A British soldier stumbles upon an Argentinean soldier. They share a few minutes of uneasy respite before national hostilities re-emerge.

Made just before America would be forced into the Second World War, this short subject is a brief dramatized history of American democracy. It targets a perceived threat to democracy from board room and soapbox fascists who advocated a government based upon contemporaneous European models.

This John Nesbitt's Passing Parade short tells the story of 18th Century French physician Dr. Philippe Pinel, who initiated enlightened, humane treatment of the mentally ill.

Shortly before the start of WW2, renown British big-game hunter Thorndike vacationing in Bavaria has Hitler in his gun sight. He is captured, beaten, left for dead, and escapes back to London where he is hounded by Nazi agents and aided by a young woman.

Filmed in IMAX, a young Mayan boy who lives close to the ruins becomes acquainted with an archaeologist (Guerra) and asks her to tell him about his ancestors. The crew travelled to over 15 locations in Mexico and Guatemala, including Tulum and Chichén Itzá.

The Great American West

Spanning over 2,000 years, this study looks at the complex relationship between Jewish and Catholic thought from a social and historical perspective. Examining different significant moments for both religions throughout the centuries, this commentary on the book analyzes and explains the conflicts that have arisen between the two religions since their beginnings.

This MGM Passing Parade series short recounts how English chemist John Walker invented the wooden friction match during the 1820s.

In the early days of Nazi Germany, a powerful noble family must adjust to life under the new dictatorship regime.

The doltish but self-confident and self-congratulatory Private Snafu is in possession of a military secret during World War II. Over the course of the day, spouting rhymed couplets, he divulges the secret a little at a time to listening Axis spies. He tells his mom some of the secret when he calls her from a phone booth; the rest he spills to a dolly dolly spy who plies him with liquor. Snafu's loose lips put himself at risk.

Shows how important luck can be in a person's life.

This dramatized short film describes the historical mystery of France's "man in the iron mask". King Louis XIV imprisoned a man who was never identified, but who was forced to wear an iron mask for the length of his captivity, which ended only in his death. Several candidates for the identity of the man are investigated.

The story revolves around 3 soldiers who are on the outskirts of a war torn city. They are patrolling an area when a bomb is accidentally set off and they have to wait for help.

A short film depicting the execution of Mary, Queen of the Scots. Mary is brought to the execution block and made to kneel down with her neck over it. The executioner lifts his axe ready to bring it down. After that frame Mary has been replaced by a dummy. The axe comes down and severs the head of the dummy from the body. The executioner picks up the head and shows it around for everyone else to see. One of the first camera tricks to be used in a movie.

Educational short about the status of battle tanks and tankist training in the American Army in pre-War 1941, featuring a comical Army trainee from the Bronx.

A former leader of the French Resistance finds that one of his fellow actors looks like a detestable official he knew in Madagascar during the war. He tells about his time, operating an illegal radio station while evading the Nazis.

A young, Scottish RAF gunner is debriefed by French officials about his escape from Nazi-occupied territory. They are particularly interested in one person who may or may not have been a German agent.

Sigmund Freud - L'invention de la psychanalyse

Zurich, 1905. Nineteen-year-old Russian Sabina Spielrein is put by her parents in a psychiatric hospital, suffering from a severe form of hysteria and refusing to eat. A compassionate doctor, Carl Gustav Jung, takes her under his care and, for the first time, experiments with the psychoanalytical method of his teacher Sigmund Freud. Thus is born a sweeping story of love and passion, of body and soul, soaring to the utmost heights, but also plunging to the darkest depths of the 20th century.