Canadian adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s story “The Tell-Tale Heart”.
256 Matches Found
A film about winter railroading in the Canadian Rockies and the men who keep the lines clear. The stretch between Revelstoke and Field, British Columbia, is a snow-choked threat to communications. The film shows the work of section hands, maintenance men, train crews and telegraph operators.
Railroaders
Télesphore Légaré, garde-pêche
Liz tries to keep her friend from making the worse mistake of her life.
Is This Love?
The melodramatic story of a widow, Marie Paradis, as she becomes an elderly dependant. Taking charge is her daughter-in-law, the cruel and stingy Céleste. Marie answers to all the stereotypes of the traditional mother: she's generous, loving.
Mom's heart
This short documentary visits the 3 Quebec border towns of Rock Island, Stanstead and Beebe, and the Vermont town of Derby Line to see how residents and officials cope with a civic life that is cut down the middle by an international boundary.
Two Countries, One Street
The story of a Machiavellian plan hatched by a money-grubbing stepmother to push aside the young lover of her stepdaughter whom she wants to marry a wealthy idiot. The woman devises the most abominable machinations to achieve her ends, going as far as to try and murder her own husband. This melodrama in which evil attempts to prevail over love was adapted from the play THE SPIRIT OF EVIL by Quebec’s prolific playwright of the 40s and 50s Henri Deyglun.
L'esprit du mal
Pierre Chambrac, a French industrialist, and Canadian Paul Laforêt, two former brothers in arms, meet again by chance in Paris five years after the end of World War II. Pierre is engaged to a beautiful foreign young lady by the name of Helen Bering. He introduces her to his friend, which seems to trouble him. To his amazement, Helen and Paul disappear without notice. Pierre, who was beginning to feel jealous, sees his suspicion confirmed. He decides to fly to Montreal where he thinks the couple has taken refuge. Once there, he learns that his dear Helen is actually a criminal and that Paul is a policeman whose duty was to arrest her.
Fugitive from Montreal
A playful exercise in intermittent animation and spasmodic imagery. Playing with the laws relating to persistence of vision and after-image on the retina of the eye, McLaren engraves pictures on blank film creating vivid, percussive effects.
Blinkity Blank
Jour de juin
Carnival time in Quebec, Canada, is also time for racing with sled-dogs, horse-drawn sleighs, hockey, curling the carving of ice-statues, obstacle races by youngsters, fireworks, and also the selection of a Carnival Queen.
Canadian Carnival
Saguenay and Lac-Saint-Jean: history, economy, tourist attractions, agriculture, wood and paper industry, and especially the gigantic aluminum industry whose products are found in all parts of the world; images of a blueberry field, the Lac Bouchette sanctuary, a religious gathering, a dam, a power plant, the Arvida plant, angling, Cap Éternité, construction canoes, etc.
Kingdom of the Saguenay
An animated film drawn entirely in pastels. Various fantastical plant-like things "grow" from the ground, eventually launching five spheres. The spheres drift in space while changing shapes and come back down to another setting, which eventually becomes more fantastical and symbolic than the opening one. The soundtrack has a jazz slant, with an ensemble of four saxophones and synthetic sound (i.e. sound created by drawing directly on the soundtrack).
A Phantasy
An overview of the social, emotional, mental and physical changes which occur in the adolescent with suggestions on how adults can help.
Meaning of Adolescence
This short fictional film features the picturesque seaside landscape of Prince Edward Island as the setting for a summer romance between a girl from Winnipeg and a young fisherman from North Rustico, PEI. The young couple visits historic and scenic sites such as Government House in Charlottetown and Cavendish, of Green Gables fame. The film is a classic summertime romance and a nostalgic visit to the delightfully sun-soaked PEI of the past.
Island Romance
In a city the size of Montreal with thousands and thousands of motorized vehicles, traffic problems are difficult to solve. Here is a panorama of such problems. This film includes an interview with Mayor Jean Drapeau, when Montreal was still the metropolis of Canada.
Circulation à Montréal: 2e partie
L'abatis
People are interviewed in Dresden, Ontario, to sample local attitudes towards racial discrimination against black people that brought this town into the news. After a round-up of the opinions of individual citizens, white and black, commentator Gordon Burwash joins two discussion panels, presenting opposite points of view. The rights and wrongs of the quarrel are left for the audience to decide.
Dresden Story
The story of the settlement of Canada, illustrated with cheerful animated cartoons. The arrival of Jacques Cartier, the fishing and fur trades which followed, and the rival colonization by the French and British, climaxed by the battle of the Plains of Abraham, are depicted. The coming of the United Empire Loyalists is seen; then the west-coast gold rush and the completion of the transcontinental railway. New branches were added to the family tree when many European settlers came to fill the great spaces of the Prairies. Finally, we see the whole country matured into a nation, its traditions enriched by those of many peoples.
Family Tree
We witness the race for marriage of thousands of young people, wanting at all costs to escape conscription, then we are transported to the war factories and we thus witness the difficulties of work in this place. Then it's the Italian campaign in 1943 and, finally, the return to Quebec where readjustment to civilian life proves more difficult than it seems. These events are experienced and told by the voice of a young man.
Il était une guerre
In Toronto, early twenty-somethings Judy Monroe and Roy Kirby are in love and are planning to get married. They understand the obstacles they are facing as husband and wife as Judy is white and Roy is black.
Crossroads
Why does a housewife concerned for her family's welfare feed them so inadequately that she endangers their very lives? The film is a humorous and satirical attempt to remind the average housewife that it is not enough to be aware of modern food facts; they must also be applied in daily food purchasing and preparation. (NFB)
Mystery in the Kitchen
This film shows the scientific study of fires set to buildings in Aultsville, Ontario, a town evacuated for flooding by the St. Lawrence Seaway. Scientists at Canada's National Research Council devised instruments for recording the progress of a fire in all its stages, to help the country's fire fighters lessen fire's tragic toll.
Setting Fires for Science
Ethnologist Marius Barbeau introduces us to indigenous mythology. Masks, dances, songs, and totems are used to give the audience a highly suggestive representation of the "biblical" history (Mr. Barbeau's word) of Indigenous tribes.
Marius Barbeau et l'art totémique
A humorous survey of the history of the development of transportation technology in Canada.
The Romance of Transportation in Canada
This short puppet animation from the fifties tells the story of Magic Bow, a First Nations boy endowed with magic gifts. Magic Bow is in the big city for the first time, thrilling audiences with his tricks at the Wild West Rodeo. Outside the arena, cars, trucks and buses zip by at dizzying speeds. With the help of some savvy city dwellers, Magic Bow learns a few important traffic rules to help him navigate the streets safely.
One Little Indian
The Living Stone is a 1958 Canadian short documentary film directed by John Feeney about Inuit art. It shows the inspiration behind Inuit sculpture. The Inuit approach to the work is to release the image the artist sees imprisoned in the rough stone. The film centres on an old legend about the carving of the image of a sea spirit to bring food to a hungry camp. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.
The Living Stone
This film, made especially for television in 1956, embodies the conventional myth that women indirectly exercise power through their ability to manipulate men through sex and marriage.
Is It a Woman's World?
Joe and Roxy, at 15 and 16 respectively, face more than the average teenage problems. Roxy, a child of divorced parents, tries to keep her illusions about love and life alive despite her upbringing, while Joe unsuccessfully seeks guidance and direction from his less-than-capable father.
Joe and Roxy
A young indigenous man contracts tuberculosis and is sent to the Charles Camsell Indian Hospital in Edmonton. He struggles with the aftereffects of the illness but tries to move forward and get a job.
The Longer Trail
This short film is a telling portrait of the discourse about and treatment of alcohol addiction in the middle of the 20th century. In a fictional setting, the film examines the insecurities and inner motivations that cause the protagonist to lean on alcohol. His job and home life are threatened by his addiction, and the doctor to whom he finally turns explains the medical and other resources available to him.
Profile of a Problem Drinker
Norman McLaren instructs Grant Munro on the movements he is to make. The film technique for Two Bagatelles is pixillation, where the actor is animated frame by frame, as in the film Neighbours/Voisins.
Two Bagatelles
Here is a graphic picture of the tobacco harvest in southwestern Ontario. At the end of July, transient field workers move in for a brief bonanza when the plant is ripe. The tobacco harvesters call it "the back-breaking leaf."
The Back-breaking Leaf
This 1954 documentary short presents the famous Musical Ride of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In a display of brilliant horsemanship, scarlet-coated Mounties take their horses through the many intricate patterns of the Ride, performed to the accompaniment of band music. Other language versions: Le Carrousel de la Gendarmerie royale du Canada
The Musical Ride
This short documentary records the rural sights and sounds of the Eastern Townships of Quebec. The day of the big stationary threshing machine is almost over, as the machine is pushed into obscurity by the combine harvester. But there are still parts of Canada where crops are gathered in the old-fashioned way as the men work out in the fields and the women manage the kitchen. This film offers a rare and charming glimpse into mid-20th-century rural and family life in Canada.
Country Threshing
A documentary showing Norman McLaren working on the hand-drawn sound process he uses for his short film, Loops.
Pen Point Percussion
This short puppet animation gives life to 3 traditional folk songs: The Riddle Song, Who Killed Cock Robin? and The Cooper of Fife.
Folksong Fantasy
Made in 1957, this film glamorizes a service job in which minor emergencies appear as serious and absorbing challenges. Marriage is assumed to be the natural end of the middle-class woman's working life. No. 97 in the Eye Witness film series.
Eye Witness: Service in the Sky
Jeunesses musicales
This film looks at the formation and forecasting of weather systems and at the effect weather has on individuals in three different Canadian communities.
The Winds of Weather
A story of friction between two groups in an average Canadian town reproduces in miniature the problems of national ill-will and rivalry facing the United Nations. The necessity for tolerance between individuals and countries is illustrated.
Our Town Is the World
In a city the size of Montreal with thousands and thousands of motorized vehicles, traffic problems are difficult to solve. Here is a panorama of such problems. This film includes an interview with Mayor Jean Drapeau, when Montreal was still the metropolis of Canada.
Circulation à Montréal (1re partie)
The big whale round-up at Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, is brought to the screen with a realism not often found in fish stories. Cameras are on hand to record the annual sea drama as herds of pothead whales are driven inshore by fishing boats and killed in shallow water. There is tense excitement as, their escape cut off, the marine monsters fight for their lives. Reporter Fred Davis is told about the commercial uses of whale meat and whale products, particularly in mink farming.
Encounter at Trinity
Canadian concert pianist Glenn Gould enjoys a respite at his lakeside cottage. It is an aspect of Gould previously known only to the collie pacing beside him through the woods, the fishermen resting their oars to hear his piano, and fellow musicians like Franz Kraemer, with whom Gould talks of composition. (First of two parts.)
Glenn Gould: Off the Record
A film aimed at helping amateur theatre groups stage plays. There are practical tips on casting, rehearsing, sets, and costumes.
On Stage!
A gay fantasia of patterned sound in which Norman McLaren salutes the West Indies, painting the spirit of fiesta on film to the lively beat of an island tune by Trinidad's Grand Curacaya Orchestra.
Serenal
This film is centered on a mini-drama in which a successful design engineer encounters many problems when he is promoted to a managerial position. The film raises questions about the sources of job satisfaction, the perils of promotion from within the organization, and the demands that are put on a person placed for the first time in an administrative or managerial role.
The Department Manager
A cross-hatched fantasy about nocturnal furniture love.
A to Z
A beautiful country girl and a seductive nightclub singer vie for the same good-looking man.
Les lumières de ma ville
Ten-year-old Ti-Jean's feats dwarf those of even the strongest lumberjack as he fells timber, cuts, carries and piles heavy logs, and comes out the victor in every contest. This short French-Canadian folk tale portrays typical life and work in a winter logging camp.
Ti-Jean Goes Lumbering
This animated film shows what happens to two picnickers who had never heard the warning 'Leaflets three--let it be.' Colour photographs of the various types of poison ivy will help others avoid their plight.
Poison Ivy Picnic
This short documentary (the second of two parts) follows Glenn Gould to New York City. There, we see the renowned Canadian concert pianist kidding the cab driver, bantering with sound engineers at Columbia Records, and then, alone with the piano, fastidiously recording Bach's Italian Concerto.
Glenn Gould: On the Record
Elevation to the position of Vice-President brings prestige responsibility and freedoms of action, but it also means a shifting of loyalties and the losing of personal contact. This is shown in the dramatised story of John Harvard who rising from Branch Director to Vice-President finds himself having to put pressure on the men who a short time ago were his near equals. Only by going against their wishes can he serve the best interests of his company.
The Vice President
This short film from 1958 compiles 3 short reportages on different ways kids are schooled in remote areas. To School by Boat follows children of isolated fishing hamlets along a stretch of British Columbia coastline as they travel to school by sea-going bus. In Classroom on Rails, we hop along a railway coach that brings school to children in a logging area of northern Ontario. Northern Schooldays introduces us to First Nations children educated in a residential school in Moose Factory.
Off to School
This short documentary depicts Christmastime in Montreal. The milling crowds, department store Santas, Brink's messengers, kindergarten angels and boisterous nightclubs all combine to make a vivid portrait of the holidays.
The Days Before Christmas
Let's sing now
Highlights in the life of Idlouk, Inuk hunter, and his family during the long day of the midnight sun on Baffin Island.
Arctic Saga
In this pre-Christmas reminder to mail early, filmmaker Norman McLaren used an electric vibra-drill to engrave the images on black film, and included the occasional "subliminal" burst of lettering, which he hand-scratched on a few frames.
Mail Early for Christmas
The first feature-length animated film in Canada. The story of a new village somewhere in Abitibi, it's people, it's church and a werewolf causing trouble.
The Enchanted Village
This short film depicts Canada as it was a hundred years ago, as seen through the paintings of artist and adventurer Cornelius Krieghoff. The changing seasons, the Quebec countryside, village life — all were an unending inspiration to Krieghoff.