A restless young girl yearns to leave her rural environment and "get away from it all". One day she stumbles upon a film crew shooting a western near her home. She makes friends with the film's leading man, who encourages her to try her luck as an actress. So she leaves her small town and goes to the big city to break into the picture business. However, things don't turn out quite the way she planned.
Wallace Carlson walks viewers through the production of an animated short at Bray Studios.
Sue Graham is a small town girl who wants to be a motion picture star. She wins a contract when a picture of a very pretty girl is sent to a studio instead of her picture. When she arrives in Hollywood, the mistake is discovered and she starts working in the props department of the studio instead. Her parents then come out to California and invest some money with a very shifty individual.
The movie makers are filming the next installment of the western serial "Get Your Man". The movie's leading man wants his stunt double to do the next dangerous stunt. Purely by accident, a hapless, cross-eyed aspiring actor named Joe Magee ends up doing the stunt perfectly. He ends up doing dangerous stunt after stunt, all by accident, that fit the movie so perfectly that the movie's leading lady wants him in the picture. The exasperated director finds that getting Joe to do the stunts on command is an entirely different story.
In the summer of 1924 Claude Friese-Greene, a pioneer of colour cinematography, set out from Cornwall with the aim of recording life on the road between Land’s End and John O’Groats. Entitled The Open Road, his remarkable travelogue was conceived as a series of shorts, 26 episodes in all, to be shown weekly at the cinema. The result is a fascinating portrait of inter-war Britain, in which town and country, people and landscapes are captured as never before, in a truly unique and rich colour palette.
Hollywood hopeful Peggy Pepper arrives at a major studio, from Georgia, to become a great dramatic star. Things don't go entirely according to plan.
Georgie Price tells Bryan Foy, who is to direct his short film, that he is nervous about performing to a camera and microphone instead of an audience. He then sings a couple songs, in an Al Jolson/Eddie Cantor style.
Sassy and ambitious waitress Mary Evans amuses and befriends amiable seldom-sober Hollywood film director Max Carey when he stumbles into her restaurant. Max invites Mary to his film premiere and, after a night of drinking and carousing, Mary is granted a screen test. A studio contract follows. Just as Mary finds her dreams coming true, Carey’s life and career begins its descent.
Broke lion tamers travel to Africa to make a movie about Amazon women, from a distance.
The making of Cleopatra (1934), showing pre-production, DeMille directing a scene, and the addition of music to the soundtrack.
This short shows the entrances of the various Hollywood studios, then specifically visits Warner Bros. / First National Studios. We start at the casting office, then see Busby Berkeley and choreographer Bobby Connolly working with chorus girls on production numbers. Then come some candid shots of several contract stars. Finally we see comedian Hugh Herbert filming a scene for an upcoming release, then the various behind the scenes steps that transition the raw film in the camera into the finished product.
In this reportage, film professionals offer the viewers a peek behind the scenes at the Barrandov studios. We see how sets are constructed and we find out what sorts of things are stored in the prop department. The friendly commentary describes the journey from camera negatives to a film on the big screen. We learn about film technology and take a glance into film laboratories and editing rooms. The film also presents unique footage from the filming of The White Disease, namely the dramatic scene with five hundred extras in which the Marshal announces his declaration of war.
A look at London Film Productions' studios at Denham.
Film producer Lee Yeong-il is introduced to Jeong-hee, his friend's little sister. Unable to find an appropriate slot for her in his movie, he gets her a job in a record company and watches out for her. In time, their love grows deeper. Meanwhile, director Heo Hoon, who is making the film 'The Story of Chun-hyang' with Yeong-il, fires the lead actress of the film, Anna, when she causes too much trouble. Instead, Jeong-hee is hired in her place. Just as Jeong-hee proves herself worthy of the casting and the film-making progresses smoothly, Yeong-il and Heo Hoon face financial difficulties. Yeong-il turns to embezzlement in desperation and is thrown in jail.
This short focuses on the job of the costume designer in the production of motion pictures. The costume designer must design clothing that is correct for the film historically and geographically, and must be appropriate for the mood of the individual scene. We see famed costume designer Edith Head at work on a production. The Costume Designer was part of The Industry Film Project, a twelve-part series produced by the film studios and the Academy. Each series episode was produced to inform the public on a specific facet of the motion picture industry. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.
A documentary showing Norman McLaren working on the hand-drawn sound process he uses for his short film, Loops.
Designed to introduce the then-new widescreen process Cinerama, audiences experience the roller coaster at Rockaways' Playland, the temple dance from Aida, Niagara Falls, a Viennese choir, the canals of Venice, a military tattoo in Edinburgh, a bullfight, and more. The film concludes with a view from the nose of a low-flying B-25 while America the Beautiful plays.
A film about filmmaking.
When master monster make-up man Pete Dumond is fired by the new bosses of American International studios, he uses his creations to exact revenge.