Winter Magic Around the World

Known for his commentary-laden chronicles of key moments in winter sports history, the late John Jay is considered by many to be the founding father of the modern-day ski film. This installment of the "Classic Ski Films" series presents Jay's coverage of the 1960 Winter Olympic Games in Squaw Valley, Calif., which includes the opening and closing ceremonies, the 90-meter ski jump and the dramatic USA vs. USSR hockey game.

Not long after opening the first ski school in the United States to an impressive roster of celebrity students, Otto Lang became a noted ski film director and earned an Oscar nod for his efforts. Ski Flight, which premiered at the iconic Radio City Music Hall in 1938 is the first-ever theatrical ski film.

Skifully Yours by noted ski film director Otto Lang, offers a charming look at the Sun Valley, Idaho, ski scene of the late 1930s.

A film about three ski-bums (Run Funk, Mike Zuetell and Ed Ricks) that are followed by another ski bum (Dick Barrymore),with a 16mm Bolex camera, who filmed a four-month part of their nomadic and vanishing-breed way of life across four continents. These are four people doing every day what others work fifty weeks of the year to buy for two weeks. They were also becoming a vanishing breed who were becoming unwelcome from Aspen to Val d'Isere.

Shot in 1941, this black-and-white instructional film (featuring actor Alan Ladd) serves as a veritable time capsule on the history of the sport, with advice on ski design, schussing, lacquer, wax and toe plates.

The story of five skiers, sponsored by K2, who tour the U.S. in a red, white and blue van that matched their skis. They travel like a pack of joyful wolves, devouring powder and looking for challenges. Just 26 minutes in length, the film offers ferocious detail, with ski footage that still holds up today. The film revealed the ski culture as a surrogate family. In an interview years later, skier Charlie McWilliams recalled how people came up to him to explain how they deeply identified with this happygo- lucky skiing clan. He saw the film as a groundbreaking portrayal of skiing as a tribal experience. “It was the first time anybody had gone out and made a film of a group of guys traveling around the country having a great time skiing.”

Before the high-tech advancements of Fiberglas, aluminum poles, release bindings and artificial powder, it was a simpler time in the world of winter sports: It was just you, your skis and the snow that lay ahead. Rounding up works produced in the 1940s, '50s, '60s and '70s by iconic ski-film director John Jay, this retrospective sampler offers a nostalgic look at what's called "the golden age of American skiing."

Beginning in picturesque Taos, New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range Jay continues on a laugh a minute cruise through Vail and Aspen, Colorado; Klosters and Zermatt, Switzerland; Japan; Sun Valley, Idaho; Mount Snow, Vermont; Persia; and New Zealand. Highlights are numerous and include the daring race on an avalanche slope by world champion skier Helli Lantschner as well as the camel safari to ski the Atlas Mountains in Africa.