Non-Movies I Have Seen: Shorts

Stan fakes receiving a telegram so he can go to a club with Ollie and a bottle of his unsuspecting wife's liquor, but she overhears his plans.

Like the legendary Sisyphus, deliverymen Laurel and Hardy struggle to push a large crated piano up a seemingly insurmountable flight of stairs.

In this musical short, a condensed version of Cole Porter's "Fifty Million Frenchmen" (1929), a wealthy young American meets the girl of his dreams and makes a bet that they will be engaged without her knowing of his riches.

The prodigal son of a Yukon prospector comes home on a night that "ain't fit for man nor beast."

A young Scottish R. A. F. Gunner is debriefed by French officials about his escape from occupied territory, and in particular one person who may or may not have been a German Agent.

Edgar Appletree and his sister arrive at a mountain resort for a rest cure, only to find themselves in the midst of a shooting war between the McCarthys and their neighbors.

When the skeleton of a young man is dug up in an alley, a mysterious Chinese merchant and his eccentric upstairs tenants come under suspicion. The team of Inspector Carr and Dr. Crabtree use the skull of the victim to solve the murder.

Dramatized short film that investigates three possibilities for the identity of France's "man in the iron mask," who was imprisoned for life by King Louis XIV, forced to wear an iron mask, and was buried in the mask upon his death.

Movie historians and others discuss the making of Foreign Correspondent (1940).

An unconventional dentist deals with a variety of eccentric and difficult patients in slapstick fashion.

Orson Welles, on break from filming Othello, relates a tale he heard one spooky Irish midnight not so long ago when, driving through the countryside, he picked up a man with car trouble who told of a strange encounter with two hitchhikers.

The desert wilderness of New Mexico's Jemez Mountains.

Frank Sinatra teaches a group of young boys a lesson in religious tolerance.

Bob and his fiancé try to break the news of their engagement to her father, the mayor, who is having a very bad day.

This short promotes the premise that movies often create a demand for the fashions seen in them. It starts with a vignette in rural America. A father and his daughter go to town to buy a new dress. In the dress shop window is a designer dress worn by Joan Crawford in Susan and God (1940). Then the scene shifts to Hollywood and MGM's chief of costume design (Adrian) to show how multiple copies of a single clothing pattern are produced. The film ends with short segments of several MGM features.

A musical short in which a group of musician stable hands race a horse in the Hollywood Handicap at Santa Anita Park racetrack with many celebrities of the day in attendance.

The life and career of the great cartoonist Winsor McCay is warmly recalled by his former film assistant, John Fitzsimmons, with clips of classic McCay animated films.

A lesson for college students in billiards from trick shot expert Charles C. Peterson.

A documentary reviewing the making of the film The Great Escape, as well as some of the historical details on which it was based.

John Jones' daughter is rehearsing the Gettysburg Address in preparation for a school elocution when he is called away by an air raid alarm. He sits alone in the evening and contemplates how lucky he is in America, where no bombing occurs. He imagines "his baby" suffering in the war-torn nations of England, Greece, China, Yugoslavia, France, and Russia, and thanks God that no harm has come to her. When he returns home, his daughter completes her recitation of the Gettysburg Address with her parents as audience.

After a messy house party while his wife is away, Oliver asks Stanley to help him clean up the place, but free help isn't always a bargain.

Although they are successful fishmongers, Stan convinces Ollie that they should become fishermen too, but making a boat seaworthy is not an easy task.

The owner of an unsuccessful greeting-card store attempts to sell 'talking' greeting cards in the form of records.

A behind the scenes look at how A Charlie Brown Christmas was made.