Catalog Search Results
Language
English
Description
The rugged Rocky Mountains in western Canada with their glacial peaks and pristine lakes are the backdrop for Gordon Sivell's tour of British Columbia. He visits a working cattle ranch, mountain bikes with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, enjoys a hearty pancake breakfast on the Trans-Canada Highway, and tours a pioneer village where he discovers the spirit of early settlers is alive and well in the Okanagan Valley region of Vernon.
Language
English
Description
A sensitive and insightful program about the poetry of William Wordsworth and the landscape and personality that lay behind and within it. With David Warner playing Wordsworth, this dramatization by Ken Russell presents some of the major poems against the background of Wordsworth country, and shows us his intense and troubled relationship with his talented sister Dorothy, who is the subject (or object) of many poems and whose specter and editorial...
Language
English
Description
A warm, insightful and informative portrait of the Welsh poet who spoke with the tongue of angels and looked like an unmade bed-or so said The New York Times. If poetry can be explained through an understanding of the poet, and if a poet can be understood through a knowledge of his childhood, his home environment, his schooling, his friends, his childhood memories, and the landscape he selected to write from and about, then this program is a genuine...
Language
English
Description
In 1952, the Mau-Maus launched a rebellion against the British foreign rule in Kenya. The Mau-Mau's killed European settlers and African "loyalists" with equal abandon. The uprising continued until 1956 when British troops finally defeated the Mau-Mau's. The ultimate political impact of the rebellion was to make the injustices of European colonialism in Africa more visible to the world. In the two decades following, other African countries launched...
5) Scrooge
Language
English
Description
This 1935 adaption of A Christmas Carol was the first sound version of Dickens's classic novel. Sir Seymour Hicks, who played Scrooge in many stage versions, stars in the title role.
Language
English
Description
Destined by a spell, cast by his stepmother, to love only Olwen, Culhwch begins his quest to seek her hand, but the road to marriage is paved with seemingly insurmountable obstacles set by her father, the evil giant, Ysbaddaden. Thus begins one of the loveliest of the Tales of the Mabinogion, some manuscripts of which are at least 700 years old. The legends themselves are of course far older, though their spell is as powerful today as it was when...
9) She
Language
English
Description
This 1935 adaptation of H. Rider Haggard's greatest adventure novel features a group of explorers looking for the fabled fountain of youth. The travel through Arctic wastes before they find the lost civilization of Kor.
10) Vanity Fair
Language
English
Description
This 1932 adaption of William Thackeray's classic novel stars Myrna Loy in one of her earliest roles, the conniving orphan Becky Sharp. Also starring Conway Tearle, Barbara Kent, Walter Byron, and Mary Forbes.
12) Sabotage
Language
English
Description
This classic suspense film, Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, is an adaptation of one of Joseph Conrad's greatest novels, The Secret Agent.
Language
English
Description
Influenced and educated by her parents, Frankenstein’s author, Mary Shelley, grew up in a world of radical artists and writers. Her immortal novel explores various themes of early-19th-century Romanticism. This clip looks at Mary Shelley’s background and major influences on her thinking and writing, giving students of English literature a broader understanding of the nature and significance of this notable work.
Language
English
Description
An ambitious stepmother, a pragmatic father, impassioned sweethearts, and starry-eyed suitors are all sent spinning in Oliver Goldsmith's classic comedy of manners-and errors. Directed by Max Stafford-Clark and recorded at The Theatre Royal in Bath, this production of She Stoops to Conquer played to rave reviews. Staged with authentic costumes and sets, the commonly anthologized play makes an excellent introduction to 18th-century theater.
Language
English
Description
What makes the promise of Camelot still resonate in the 21st century? In this program, Barbara and Alan Lupack, authors of King Arthur in America and Arthurian Literature by Women; Debra Mancoff, author of The Arthurian Revival in Victorian Art; and Kevin J. Harty, author of King Arthur on Film, New Essays on Arthurian Cinema, discuss the enduring fascination with King Arthur in Britain and America since the Victorian era. Tennyson's Idylls of the...
Language
English
Description
This program examines the life and times of John Milton through his major and autobiographical writings. The visuals-period art and location photography of the London and Cambridge sites associated with Milton-combined with the music of the time and Milton's own words, together trace the rise and fall of a tragic figure caught between the worlds of ancient glory and contemporary politics-a Renaissance man in the maelstrom of the Baroque.
Language
English
Description
This program begins with the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, whose failure became both the basis for the deeper entrenchment of Britain and the textbook for subsequent Indian struggles for independence from Britain. The program follows the bloody trail of Indian insurrection and Gandhi's efforts to counter violence with nonviolence; India winning independence from Britain in 1947; and shows how, despite the best efforts of Gandhi and Nehru, the nationalist...
19) Othello
Language
English
Description
Ian McKellen gives an awe-inspiring portrayal of Iago in this unique production of Shakespeare's Othello. McKellen, opera singer Willard White in the title role, and the rest of the cast have all been cited for their sterling performances. Based on the Royal Shakespeare Company's stage performance in Stratford, the film was presented by the BBC. The quality of this production reveals why director Trevor Nunn, the theatre phenomenon whose resume includes...
20) George Orwell
Language
English
Description
This documentary biography offers a perceptive look at the George Orwell who saw through the temptations of Communist propaganda, behind the promises of Utopia. Analysis of his work, visits to the places where he lived and worked, interviews with those who knew and understood him best, and footage of the author himself explore and explain the development of Orwell as a thinker and stylist.