Dancers, shown in photographic negative, perform a series of ballet moves, solos, pas de deux, larger groupings. The dancers glide and rotate untroubled by gravity against a slowly changing starfield background. Their movements are accompanied by music scored for a small ensemble of woodwind and percussion.
fantasy tale about a young Zulu who leaves his village to go to the city, falls in love with the new music he hears there, and returns home to form a Zulu jazz band. The South African production and distribution company African Films followed up the success of Zonk! with Song of Africa. This is a fantasy tale about a young Zulu who leaves his village to go to the city, falls in love with the new music he hears there, and returns home to form a Zulu jazz band – which then goes to the city to compete with other bands, and comes out on top. As in the earlier films, the impact of American jazz and popular music is enormous. Like African Jim and Zonk!, Song of Africa draws on the best talent from the townships. Director Emil Nofal and director of photography Dave Millin ensure high production values, making it an above-average B-movie.
Tom and Ellen are asked to perform as a dance team in England at the time of Princess Elizabeth's wedding. As brother and sister, each develops a British love interest, Ellen with Lord John Brindale and Tom with dancer Anne Ashmond.
An American actor, impersonating an English butler, is hired by a rich woman from New Mexico to refine her husband and headstrong daughter. The complications increase when the town believes the actor/butler to be an earl and President Roosevelt decides to pay a visit.
Jim decides to leave his tribal area to seek his fortune in Johannesburg. As soon as he arrives, three gangsters mug him. When he regains consciousness, a friendly night watchman takes care of him. With the watchman's help, Jim gets a job in a nightclub as a waiter.
The story of seven scholars in search of an expert to teach them about swing music. They seem to have found the perfect candidate in winsome nightclub singer Honey Swanson. But Honey's gangster boyfriend doesn't want to give her up.
Light bio-pic of American Broadway pioneer Jerome Kern, featuring renditions of the famous songs from his musical plays by contemporary stage artists, including a condensed production of his most famous: 'Showboat'.
Maya Deren’s shortest, two-minute A Study in Choreography for Camera seems like an exercise piece to capture a dancer’s movement on celluloid, which later on developed into her masterpieces such as Ritual in Transfigured Time and Meditation on Violence.
On the day that United Broadcasting System's new building is dedicated, bumbling vice-president Harold L. Montgomery, Sr. discovers that he gave the wrong survey to the builders...
Razz accidentally shoots his wife Martha when his hunting rifle drops on the floor and discharges. The church congregation gathers at Martha’s bedside to pray for her recovery, and during this period an angel arrives to take Martha’s spirit from her body, but she is tempted by the slick Judas Green, who is an agent for Satan.
Jimmy, the owner of a failed music shop, goes to work with his uncle, the owner of a food factory. Before he gets there, he befriends an Irish family who happens to be his uncle's worst enemy because of their love for music and in-house band who constantly practices. Soon, Jimmy finds himself trying to help the band by getting them gigs and trying to reconcile the family with his uncle.
A young woman tries to repay her adoptive parents' kindness by shielding their biological child, who has gotten involved with an embezzler, from the police.
It's midnight in a graveyard. The principal characters are spooks, ghosts, bats, bells, and, at the end, the sun. As midnight strikes, 12 spooks appear, then two ghosts. They move to the music's rhythm. Against the black night, they are blue and yellow. Bats appear as does a xylophone of bones. Mist rises, spooks swirl. A bell tolls. The sky turns light blue, the ghosts' dance slows. Then black night returns bringing intimations of frenzy. Bones play snare drums; spooks peek out of square graves. Scary faces appear. Frenetic movement takes over. A rooster crows and all return to earth as the sun's light appears.
In this Eric Porter animation of ‘the grasshopper and the ant’ fable, Willie Wombat lazes and plays all summer. He laughs at his animal mates devoting time to collecting and depositing food in their local bank. Winter arrives and Willie, starving and cold, tries to withdraw food from the bank. The teller can find no record of any deposits for Willie. Dejected, Willie looks on as the other animals eat heartily and stay warm in their cosy homes. Willie collapses from hunger in the snow, but his friends come to the rescue just in time. The following summer Willie, having learned his lesson, deposits food in the bank with dedication and enthusiasm.
In a Polish shtetl, two young men who have grown up together betrothe their unborn children, ignoring the advice of a mysterious traveler not to pledge the lives of future generations. Soon after, one of them dies, and the wife of the other dies in childbirth. The children grow up in different towns, without ever knowing of the betrothal, but the power of the vow leads them to meet each other when they are marriageable. The young woman, Leah, is promised to another man, but Channon, the son of the father who died, is a practitioner of mysticism, and seeks to win his bride through sorcery.