Dawn Flight

Les Blank's poetic documentation of 1967's Los Angeles Easter Sunday Love-In. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2002.

The Town was a short propaganda film produced by the Office of War Information in 1945. It presents an idealized vision of American life, shown in microcosm by Madison, Indiana. It was created primarily for exhibition abroad, to provide international audiences a more well-rounded view of America, and was therefore produced in more than 20 translations. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

A lyrical recreation of Lightnin’ Hopkins’ decision at age eight to stop chopping cotton and start singing for a living. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.

Documentary short film detailing the history of the American Women's Army Corps, the WACS. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive, Academy War Film Collection, in 2009.

After the suspicious suicide of a fellow cop, tough homicide detective Dave Bannion takes the law into his own hands when he sets out to smash a vicious crime syndicate.

Optical printing pioneer Pat O’Neill uses “his skills in special effects production to extrapolate metaphysical meaning from the ordinariness of industrialized culture” (Scott Stark). In O’Neill’s playful film, “trouble in the image” may take the form of a disturbing moment in a narrative, how-to instructions for creating an image, or pictures that break apart and lose their literal meaning. O'Neill: “The film [is] made up of dozens of performances dislodged from other contexts. These are often relocated into contemporary industrial landscapes, or interrupted by the chopping, shredding, or flattening of special-effects technology turned against itself. The reward is to be found in immersion within a space of complex and intricate formal relationships”. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2016.

Every school day, African-American teenagers William Gates and Arthur Agee travel 90 minutes each way from inner-city Chicago to St. Joseph High School in Westchester, Illinois, a predominately white suburban school well-known for the excellence of its basketball program. Gates and Agee dream of NBA stardom, and with the support of their close-knit families, they battle the social and physical obstacles that stand in their way. This acclaimed documentary was shot over the course of five years.

A disgraced sea captain signs on as a crewman on a cargo ship. He discovers that the vessel is captained by the very man who stole his ship, a sadistic brute who also took the former captain's wife and daughter. The ship's crew is composed mostly of sailors who were shanghai'ed aboard and are kept in line by the brutal captain and his even more fearsome first mate. The captain and one of his fellow crewmen--who has fallen in love with the man's daughter, who now belongs to the brutal captain--try to unite the crew to end the brutal reign of the captain and his henchman. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2007.

"One continuous, intimate shot from within the commune…Being is seen as transitory; everything is in the infinite process of becoming." Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

Retired wealthy sea captain Jim McKay arrives in the Old West, where he becomes embroiled in a feud between his future father-in-law, Major Terrill, and the rough and lawless Hannasseys over a valuable patch of land.

A compilation of four Mother Goose stories "photographed in three-dimensional animation" and unified by a prologue and an epilogue with Mother Goose herself magically setting up a projector to show the films. The familiar nursery rhymes are "Little Miss Muffet," "Old Mother Hubbard," "The Queen of Hearts," and "Humpty Dumpty." Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2004.

Stop-motion puppetry version of the classic fairy tale. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2004.

Recurrent themes of violence, sex and TV commercials. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2004.

King Henry II of England has trouble with the Church. When the Archbishop of Canterbury dies, he has a brilliant idea. Rather than appoint another pious cleric loyal to Rome and the Church, he will appoint his old drinking and wenching buddy, Thomas Becket, technically a deacon of the church, to the post. Unfortunately, Becket takes the job seriously and provides abler opposition to Henry.

In the years before the Second World War, a tomboyish postulant at an Austrian abbey is hired as a governess in the home of a widowed naval captain with seven children, and brings a new love of life and music into the home.

A musical about an unhappy couple and the man that stands between them. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2015.

Two brothers are stood up and lament through song. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2015.

A short comedy by Curt McDowell. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2015.

Curt McDowell relates an idea for a film to Ted Davis. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2016.

Dark blood red slow shifting tones (often embedded in dark) / (often shot-thru with parallel wave-like lines) composed of all previous shapes and flowers as if trying, linearly, to evolve a glyph-script. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.