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"This extraordinary 1952 Argentinian noir … is probably the most bedarkened, beshadowed film I've seen, full of extreme closeups, unexpected sound effects and music. It deserves to be restored and reissued."

- Paul Schrader

Preserved by the Film Noir Foundation in 2013 and now beautifully restored through the UCLA Film & Television Archive, Never Open That Door (No abras nunca esa puerta) is a significant example of the cross-cultural cinematic legacy shared by the United States and Argentina during the post-WWII…

In the early 1980s, documentary filmmaker Stephen Schaller was instrumental in the rediscovery and restoration of The Lumberjack (1914), the oldest surviving film made in Wisconsin, and produced by a group of itinerant filmmakers who traveled from town to town making "local talent" pictures. Schaller's lovely and sometimes deeply emotional, 63-minute journal/essay film offers a look at the making of the Wausau, Wisconsin classic, including interviews with the one surviving cast member and the relatives of others who appeared in…

Gathered from archives and attics and now seen for the first time, The Lost Kennedy Home Movies, by celebrated filmmaker Harrison Engle (The Indomitable Teddy Roosevelt), tells the story of the children of Joseph and Rose Kennedy, as they grew up in the 1930s and ‘40s through November 1963. The grainy, sun-streaked films provide behind-the-scenes views of the family at their Hyannis Port and Palm Beach homes, and on trips to Europe and Asia. Featured are never-before-seen home movies by…

Narrated by Leonard Maltin, Cinema’s First Colors surveys the elaborate history of inventions and evolutions in early technology to bring color to the motion picture screen, from 18th-century pre-cinema to the dawn of Technicolor. Grounded in a wealth of recent scholarship and illustrated with rare ephemera and excerpts from restored films preserved in eighteen international archives, the film offers a visually rich, engaging narrative of scientists, technicians, and businessmen working together to satisfy our desire to see color in motion.

Experience this influential story of progression and breakthrough that showcases color cinema’s gradual trajectory toward its status in mainstream feature production.

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Narrated by Leonard Maltin, Cinema Finds Its Voice tells the story of how sound was paired with images in the early era of cinema. Although combining sound with image had been considered since the birth of cinema, the technology needed would take years of enhancements before the industry was completely overhauled.

This documentary offers an in-depth look at the people behind-the-scenes and the technological innovations that culminated in Warner Brothers’ groundbreaking film, “The Jazz Singer” (1927); a renowned success that all but confirmed the industry’s conversion to the sound motion picture.

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In 1940, one year after filming the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Hitler’s forces, Herbert Kline and his team traveled to Warsaw and England to pursue and document the feared Nazi invasion of Poland. Narrated by Academy Award-winning actor, Fredric March, the surviving recordings of these life-threatening events would serve as evidence of the outbreak of the Second World War, bringing about one of the first completed and distributed documentaries on one of the most destructive international conflicts in history; Lights…

Herbert Kline made his breakthrough documentary Crisis: A Film of “The Nazi Way” as the storm clouds of impending war gathered over Europe in 1938. Narrated by illustrious American stage, film, and television actor, Leif Erickson, the film, which captures with evocative camerawork and ominous clarity the lead-up to the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, was shot at great personal risk to Kline and his crew members. Kline, a Jew born in Chicago and raised in Iowa, was in his late…

Foolish Wives (1922) was Erich von Stroheim’s third feature for Universal, serving as both film director and star in a classic silent drama comprised of seduction and extortion. Upon its release in 1922, the film was advertised as the “first million-dollar movie” and promised a legendary performance by von Stroheim, drawing fixated attention from American news outlets and audiences alike. Flicker Alley is honored to present a newly restored edition of the film, thanks to the dedicated efforts of the…