Prelinger Archives.
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English
Description
This Prelinger Archives film promotes the idea that "as serious as fallout is, we can cope with it through an active radiological defense program." With hyper-dramatic narration the film depicts various aspects of atom-blast scenarios, including people on the street shot through a red filter to indicate contamination, a man shown dying in a hospital bed (with a close-up of his hand going limp), and the declaration that "all of us live within fallout...
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English
Description
This Prelinger Archives film is an urgent message to 1950s America concerning the need for modern roads and highways, with the ultimate goal of creating the Interstate Highway System. Following an ill-equipped repair crew as it patches holes in pavement, the film bemoans an outdated transportation system that can't support "our growing greatness" (in other words, the rising numbers of cars in use) while scenes of rush-hour traffic warn that "we're...
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English
Description
The leaders of Russia tell us their only concern is the defense of their own nation. Is this so, or are they ambitious for world conquest? So begins this highly skeptical Prelinger Archives film on the history of Communism, from its 19th-century roots to the Cold War, and steps being taken by the Free World to counter Soviet ambitions around the globe. "For everyone we want freedom, not tyranny." Excellent documentary footage of key figures and events...
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English
Description
This Prelinger Archives film shows how the American railroad system developed and illustrates the vital role of train transportation in the economy of the 1950s. With enthusiastic narration and patriotic music, the film presents high-energy scenes of railroad technology in action, from its rather primitive-looking original forms to the thundering diesel-pulled trains that captured the imaginations of 1950s youth. Two young children are at the center...
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English
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This Prelinger Archives film is a Cold War-era effort to warn Americans about the possibility of an unconventional weapons attack, and to educate them in both preventing and coping with such attacks. The film shows how lab-cultivated germs and toxic chemicals might be used in biological warfare, how a germ-warfare strike could be launched (for example, a local attack with spray cans or other tools), and what citizens should do if a disease outbreak...
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English
Description
Facts speak for themselves in this Prelinger Archives film--"a pictorial record of a decade of war that led to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Western Hemisphere." Beginning with the destruction of the U.S. naval base on Oahu and President Roosevelt's denunciation of Japan, the motion picture flashes back to Japan's invasion of Manchuria; Italy's invasion of Ethiopia; the Anschluss; the Spanish Civil War, a proving ground for fascist forces; the...
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English
Description
This Prelinger Archives film concerns the development of the Salk polio vaccine and its mass production and distribution as the American public went on the offensive against the disease. Beginning in MacLean, Virginia, the film depicts Randy Kerr, the young boy who received the first inoculation. After a retrospective outline of polio's tragic impact in which numerous children are shown in wheelchairs and hospital rooms, the film moves on to show...
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English
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Shows socially-maladjusted boys 10 to 11 years old being benefitted therapeutically by "acting out" their disturbances upon their environment and each other in a realistic situation with an emotionally neutral therapist and concealed cameras and microphones. A fascinating mental health film produced for professional audiences, depicting truly anarchic behavior.
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Designed for children, this Prelinger Archives film--an icon of Cold War Civil Defense doctrine--boils down what to do in the event of an atomic attack to the simple concept of "duck and cover." The implicit message? That nuclear war with the Soviet Union was both unavoidable and survivable. Chilling! Selected for the 2004 National Film Registry of "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant" motion pictures.
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Description
This Prelinger Archives Cold War-era animated film uses humor to reveal the dangers of Communism and to extol the benefits of capitalism. "Working together to produce an ever-greater abundance of material and spiritual values for all. That is the secret of American prosperity.
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Like its precursor Name Unknown (1951), Girls Beware is a trilogy of tragedies brought about by teenage girls' attempts at independent behavior. Covers dos and don'ts in the babysitting situation. Develops the problem of the 'PICK UP' and the girls who go with boys that are too old.
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English
Description
This Prelinger Archives film pushed for the implementation of voting machines during the 1950s, promoting them as engines of governmental efficiency and practical democracy. It features what was then state-of-the-art technology--namely, a mechanical bank of switches and rotating dials that allowed voters to easily record their choices and stored the numbers in, according to the film, a reliable manner. The process is illustrated as citizens enter...
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English
Description
This Prelinger Archives film is a promotion of the "intervisitation program" that certain New York City schools began in 1952. The program was designed to integrate, on a temporary basis, black and white students in districts 1213 & up., and 14. The film shows specific examples of intervisitation program successes--how kids were paired up as pen pals, after which entire classes met in person and worked on a collective project about the United Nations...