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Mabel Beaton's marionettes star in this short about Santa trading in his reindeer for a rocket ship

Der Struwwelpeter is a popular German children's book. It comprises of ten illustrated and rhymed stories, mostly about children. Each has a clear moral that demonstrates the disastrous consequences of misbehavior in an exaggerated way. Writer/director Fritz Genschow adapted Hoffmann's book to the big screen. He made a career doing such films, he had done Hansel and Gretel and would go on to adapt Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and other family films. Der Struwwelpeter, however, is weirder and darker than the Grimms' tales. They are heavy morality lessons in which children are burned to death, starved to death, or have their thumbs cut off. In Hoffmann's world the punishment usually far outweighs the crime. Genschow provided a happy ending: through the wonders of reverse action children are brought back from their fiery deaths, their thumbs are reattached, and their misdeeds undone through the power of St. Nicholas and some sort of Christmas miracle. (via forcesofgeek.com)

Due to his gambling addiction, farmer Hans Sværke has brought his farm to the brink of bankruptcy, thereby opening up the opportunity for the wealthy landowner Karius to achieve his goal of taking over the farm. However, parish bailiff Mikkelsen vouches for Sværke and saves him for the time being, and Sværke then leases the farm. Sværke dies, and his talented son Niels takes over the lease. He and the farmer's daughter, Grethe, are happy together, and Niels manages to get her hired at the farm. But Karius' daughter, who is in love with Niels, burns with jealousy and persuades her father to take advantage of Niels' difficult financial situation and take over the farm. Things look bleak for Niels, who has been cornered by the wealthy landowner. But one day while plowing, he sees something glinting in the soil...

Hidden in a box of carrots, Bugs lands in Tasmania, where he matches wits with the Tasmanian Devil.

The adventures of two guys looking for a man who left his address book in a telephone booth.

A mysterious hero must intervene when a nefarious presence from outer space arrives to steal a powerful new rocket fuel.

Finn and Claus are best friends and both have a thing for their cute friend Eva. They both go to Copenhagen to study law but Claus would rather study music/piano and takes private lessons and Finn isn't the academic type. Who gets Eva?

A poor young man finds a lamp with a genie trapped inside. The genie promises to grant the man three wishes if he frees him from the lamp.

In winter, the little white rabbit found two radishes in the snow, ate the small one by himself, and decided to give the big one to the deer. The little deer was not at home, so the little white rabbit put down the radish and left. When Xiao Lu came home, he saw a big carrot on the table. He felt very strange. When he just wanted to eat it, he thought of it.

A poor cobbler feeds his last crust of bread to some birds that are really elves, who show their gratitude by finishing all his work while he sleeps.

Radio personality Rolf Kirkvaag, playing himself, is appointed to design an apartment to be given out as the main prize in a lottery. He is in over his head, but is assisted housewife consultant Eva Lund. The third in a series of Norwegian commercial compilations addressed to "the modern housewife".

Following the death of their miller father, his eldest son inherits the mill, the middle one a donkey, and the youngest a cat. While initially disappointed, the lad soon learns not only that the cat can talk but is quite resourceful.

...another short film for children about a young girl leading her friend to Christ by means of a “wordless book,” a 1950s evangelistic tool used in many conservative churches. A “wordless book” contained colored pages with no commentary, from black pages to show a person’s sinfulness, through the red blood pages of Jesus’s sacrifice, to a heart made whiter than snow, to the gold streets of heaven. It was used in evangelism to show and tell about the plan of salvation. - Terry Lindvall and Andrew Quicke, CELLULOID SERMONS: THE EMERGENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN FILM INDUSTRY 1930-1986

A small vessel is caught in a storm at sea. With no fuel and no radio, Boatswain Pukhov — an amateur pigeon breeder — sends two pigeons carrying a message about the tugboat’s dire situation. One of them, named Pilot, reaches land. The crew is rescued, and Pilot is given to a schoolboy from Moscow who took part in this difficult voyage.

New teacher Heider takes up his post with great enthusiasm. His unconventional ideas meet with incomprehension and mistrust from the old head teacher Ruppert. When a boy has an accident on a school trip, the children blame Heider. The parents turn against him and he is suspended from his job. But Ruppert has come to respect the new boy. He does not believe he is to blame. Meanwhile, the children are preparing the next mischief. They want to blow up a ruin with explosives found in the forest. Heider is able to prevent this at the last minute. He is rehabilitated and everyone happily awaits his return to school.

Young scientist Jamal Zakhidov is convinced that the ruins of the ancient city of Aran are located in Azerbaijan. Zakhidov is seeking to organize an expedition to the area where he believes Aran is located. Zahidov's friend, a young archaeologist named Jalil, is also well versed in geology. He believes that the rocks he accidentally found at the foot of Gyzyl-Gaya contain valuable materials. But Imam-zade, a secret agent of a foreign intelligence service, steals these samples. The expedition members meet an old man named Murtaz. The old man recognizes Imam-zade as the son of Suleiman-bek, the former ruler of these lands, who killed geologist Karimov, who was conducting research here in 1920. Realizing that he has been exposed, Imam-zade blows up the cave in an attempt to destroy the expedition. But the locals rescue the expedition members. Imam-zade is detained by MGB officers. Uranium is found in the rocks discovered by Jalil at the excavation site...

The story of Little Peter and his sister Anneli, who help a May beetle named Mr. Zoomzeman (German: Herr Summsemann) to retrieve his missing sixth leg from the Moon. After a fantastic and dangerous overnight adventure they recover the leg and are returned to their beds at home.

Barney gets involved in Good Neighbor Week by helping out the local beaver - help the beaver could do without.

This is one of four fairy tales master animator Ray Harryhausen made between 1949 and 1953 by hand, using stop-motion photography perfected as an apprentice under mentor Willis H. O'Brien of "King Kong" fame.

Hye-ok and doctor Jeong, are happily married, but she worries that they are childless. While the doctor is away on business, a boy shows up saying he's her husbands son from a one night affair during the war. He's been raised in secret, but now that she's on her death bed he has no choice but to meet his father. Hye-ok feels betrayed and tries to send him to an orphanage, but he refuses. While he lives with her, Hye-ok begins to feel for him, and he for her. Upon her husbands return Hye-ok is set to leave, and Jeong begs for forgiveness. Meanwhile the boy waits for his real mother by the train tracks and nearly falls to his death by a train. She is killed saving him. Will the boy reunite with his step mother and finally know his father?

Daffy Duck is an insurance peddler, who arrives uninvited at Porky Pig's door to persuade him to purchase an accident policy on the pretext that his home is loaded with hazards. When Porky rejects Daffy's claim that accidents in the home are "waiting" to happen, Daffy rigs some.

A Polish boy runs away from his unkind foster mother in Edinburgh and finds a new home in a lakeside village for orphans of all nations, after encountering trouble through his innocent implication in a robbery.

Masuo and Sazae are enjoying their newlywed life in their new house, even though they are in company housing. Masuo's colleague is invited to thank him for the newlyweds, but Masuo has been told by Managing Director Hanamura to go on a business trip to Kansai. Before long, Masuo contacted Sazae to come to Osaka.

Restored to its original glory by the National Film Preservation Foundation back in 2005, this little Christmas film is one of our holiday favorites. Margaret Conneely (Chicago amateur filmmaker & CFA Collection namesake) frames stop-motion animation and trick photography with live action footage to fuel her very own Christmas fairy tale. FAIRY PRINCESS (1956) was Margaret Conneely's most successful amateur film, winning a slew of local awards, and being named one of the Photographic Society of America's 'Ten Best films of 1956.' Conneely's film was also awarded the PSA's 'Harris B. Tuttle Trophy'; named after Eastman Kodak's innovator of the 16mm format, this trophy was awarded annually for the best amateur storytelling film on a family theme. - Chicago Film Archives

Orphan Jirka lives alone with his grandfather by the river. He spends all his free time by the water and does not grow up with the other children. His biggest dream is to catch a big pike, which he knows that he can't do without friends. ► International Film Festival of Documentary and Experimental Films Montevideo - 1956 - 1st Main Prize (Distributor's Official Text)

Arne Sucksdorff’s celebrated nature film follows two brothers in rural Sweden as they witness a fox raid and secretly raise an orphaned otter. Told through an adult’s memories, it reflects on childhood, nature, and the fragile balance between wilderness and civilization. The film won the International Prize at the 1954 Cannes Film Festival.

The historic, original, live airing of what would become an annual Christmas tradition throughout the 1950s, this opera tells the story of Amahl, a crippled shepherd boy, and his destitute mother, who provide temporary shelter to three men who are following a star to the newly-born Christ child.

In the year 1520, during a violent hurricane in the North Sea, a ship in distress. The sailors are convinced that the abbot they have aboard is causing this. They throw him overboard with his holy scriptures.

Rocky Jones, Space Ranger fights space pirates over an invisible spaceship.

Buffalo Bill Cody battles a gang of outlaws secretly headed by an unscrupulous lawyer.

Jim Newton and his adopted son Joey navigate life on the Broken Wheel Ranch, with their close bond to the wild black stallion Fury.

The von Trapp family are struggling to survive in America, where their performances of European church music are not popular with the audiences. Only when they start performing more upbeat Austrian folk songs and even some American numbers do they become a success and finally find security and a new home.

This is a musical version of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol". Ebenezer Scrooge is given a chance to reform and save his soul. He is visited by 4 ghosts and is shown visions of his past life and the consequences of his life on others.

With the grand opening of Disneyland just a matter of days away, Walt Disney brings us an update on the construction of the new magic kingdom. Winston Hibler narrates scenes depicting the construction on the attarctions and settings in the park as work speeds up to meet the deadline before opening day.

A school student finds a magical store where he can buy things which help to get straight A's with no working at all.

In Calcutta at the turn of the century, two families (one wealthier than the other but both belonging to the same caste) live in adjoining properties. Their respective patriarchs fall out over the repayment of a loan and the intervention of a member of a lower caste in the families' financial arrangements. The rift causes much heartache to the younger members of the families, two of whom have secretly plighted their troth to each other.

A job in the jute mill drive Sitesh away from his brother Nitesh and sister-in-law and lands him into a stream of marriage proposals and attempts by colleagues to make him their son-in-law. What will happen when he falls in love and is not accepted by the father of the girl?

A bulldog adopts an adorable kitten, but he can't let his owner know.

A lonely boy finds companionship with a horse.

Through various misunderstandings young Basia gets into the custody of several people after her mother's death.

A drunken stork delivers the baby of a giant to a normal-sized couple instead, and they try to raise him as well as they can.

Just after World War Two ends, an American woman takes in a Polish war orphan boy, a concentration camp survivor. But conflict arises when her husband, a returning Air Force bomber pilot,hates the boy and his psychological baggage.

Daffy Duck does Superman as Stupor Duck (aka mild-mannered reporter Cluck Trent) takes on the villainous yet nonexistent Aardvark Ratnik.

Airing on Christmas Day, 1950, this holiday special was the first Disney TV production. It features Edgar Bergen with Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd at Walt Disney's Christmas party. The show includes clips of movies and animated shorts and the first appearance of the Fire House Five Plus Two jazz band.

Hibari no komoriuta (ひばりの子守唄, literally "Hibari's Lullaby") is a 1951 black-and-white Japanese film directed by Koji Shima. The movie is based on Das doppelte Lottchen, a novel later adapted as The Parent Trap.

The story of the piper Švanda, who went abroad for money and fame, but whose love for his homeland ultimately wins.

An "electronic puppet" version of the Humperdinck opera, adapted for children and using spoken dialogue as well as Humperdinck's music.

Eloisa works hard, sewing, to his son Juan de Dios. He learns that he is the bastard son of Cecilio, who owns almost a whole town named: San Juan de Dios, Durango.

Peter and his friends find unexpected and exciting adventures when all their wishes are granted by a magic marble.

A look at Goofy's rise to stardom, leading into several of his cartoons-Moving Day, Moose Hunters, How to Ride a Horse, and Motor Mania.

Ralph gets sent to his room for breaking a window. There, he passes the time in Walter Mitty-type fashion, daydreaming that he's a parent-saving jungle explorer, an alien-fighting jet ace and a convict.

Deciding to start a school for girls named after his wife, a zamindar looks for a married couple to manage the establishment. They apply for and get the job. The two are not actually married; they posed as a couple to obtain the job. After a series of complications and delicate situations, love blooms between the two and they marry.

It's quail-hunting season and Barney goes out to buy a bird dog. He unexpectedly winds up with one that love birds. Barney insists, nonetheless, that the dog find him some game. It comes across a quail and confides in it that he doesn't mean any harm but that Barney does. The dog and bird team up to outfox Barney.