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Out of the Vault 2005 – The Modern World, The Working Life & Fantastic Planet

May 24 - May 26, 2005

TUESDAY, MAY 24, 2005, 7:00 p.m.

THIS MODERN WORLD (TRT 82:00)

Ballet Robotique
Bob Rogers, 8:00, 1982
Bob Rogers’ Academy-award nominated General Motors musical, featuring an automated cast of thousands.

The Detached Americans
Dan Matticks, 32:00, 1964
“Forty people in New York City stand by and watch a murder and do nothing. Sixty Chicagoans ignore a policeman’s cry for help.” Produced for WCAU-TV in Philadelphia, this mid-sixties “special report” attempts to diagnose America’s psyche, as the country comes to terms with suburbia, changing family life, civil rights, and foreign policy on the cusp of the Vietnam War.

Future Shock
Alex Grasshoff, 42:00, 1972
Hosted by Orson Welles, this adaptation of Alvin Toffler’s 1970 bestseller envisions the future as predicted from an era of wildcat strikes, massive protests, and equal rights.
Welcome to a “precooked, prepackaged, plastic wrapped instant society” characterized by super sonic jets, androids, cryonics, facelifts, artificial organs, group marriages, and test tube babies.

LIFE DURING WARTIME, PART 1 (TRT: 69:00), 8:45PM

The Anderson Platoon
Pierre Schoendoerffer, 69:00, 1967
This Academy award winning documentary by French war correspondent Pierre Schoendoerffer captures the Vietnam War from the perspective of those on the front line. A veteran of France’s own Vietnam conflict, Schoenfoerffer accompanied an integrated combat unit for six weeks of hellish search and destroy operations, following them on exhausting patrols, ambushes, interrogations, and off-duty visits to Saigon in 1966, the second year of ground warfare.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 25. 2005, 7:00 p.m.
THE WORKING LIFE (TRT: 86:00)

Game
Abigail Child and Jon Child, 38:30, 1972
This rarely-seen 1970s documentary by celebrated experimental filmmaker Abigail Child is a concise portrait of two hustlers; Tina, a prostitute, and Slim, a yogi and her pimp. The two talk shop, women’s lib, and the power games of life on the street.

The Badge and the Bottle
Max Miller and Jeff Miller, 20:00, 1977
How would you deal with a gun-toting, law-enforcing alcoholic employee? Solutions for the men in blue.

Chuck Hansen–One Guy
Olle Comstedt and Maurice Groen, 27:00, 1959
A peak into early diversity training as seen through the eyes of one Chuck Hansen, who is diagnosed with a “psychological disease called prejudice.”
8:45 p.m. THE SPORTING LIFE (TRT: 71:00)

I Was A Ninety Pound Weakling
George Dufaux and Wolf Koenig, 25:00, 1960
A roundup of gym culture, circa 1960. In wrestling clubs, body-building studios, yoga schools, and flesh-shrinking lofts, modern man resolves to erase what rich food, idleness, and age have put on.

Runner
Don Owen, 11:00, 1962
Written and narrated by W.H. Auden, a lyrical portrait of Bruce Kidd, long distance runner from Toronto.

Contouring Your Figure
Patricia White, Cynthia Chapman, and Fred Chapman, 10:00, 1962
A film for those ladies concerned with the areas of the waist, abdomen, hips, thighs, and “bustle.”

Ski the Outer Limits
Roger Brown and Barry Corbet, 25:00, 1968
An early example of “extreme” skiing, this classic is a stunning assemblage of death-defying runs, jumps, and flips, including the leg-breaking fall of U.S. Olympic skier Jim Barrows forever immortalized on ABC Wide World of Sports’ “Agony of Defeat.”

THURSDAY, MAY 26, 2005, 7:00 p.m.
FANTASTIC PLANET (TRT: 81:00)

Carnivorous Plants
Thomas Stanton, 10:00 1979
Photographed by micro-cinematographer Ken Middleham, this little film examines those plants who have flipped the evolutionary deck and feast upon flesh.

Elsa and her Cubs
Joy Adamson and George Adamson, 35:00, 1970
While living in Kenya in the late fifties, Joy, and her game warden husband, George Adamson took a young lion cub into their care, eventually reintroducing her to the wild and writing three bestselling books about their experiences (Born Free, Forever Free, and Living Free). This film documents their extraordinary cross-species friendship with Joy and George’s home-movie footage of Elsa and her offspring.

Secrets of the Underwater World
James Algar, 16:00, 1956
Walt Disney, one of the behemoths of educational film, produced numerous animal documentaries throughout the fifties and sixties. This one, excerpted from Disney’s feature- length “true-life adventure film” Secrets of Life, examines the life aquatic-from the microcosmic biology of a single-cell protozoa to the adventures of walking kelpfish and decorator crabs.

Baobab: Portrait of a Tree
Alan Root, 30:00 1973
A fascinating study of the African baobab by premier wildlife filmmaker Alan Root. Root, who suffered numerous injuries while filming his pictures (a hole gauged in his leg from a hippopotamus attack, bites by snakes, a leopard, and a gorilla) captures the numerous insects, birds, reptiles, mammals, and flora who make their home in the tree’s massive trunk and root-like branches-an intricate ecosystem unto itself.

8:45 p.m. LIFE DURING WARTIME, PART 2 (TRT: 59:00)

Sad Song of Yellow Skin
Michael Rubbo, 59:00, 1970
Michael Rubbo’s extraordinary award-winning documentary captures everyday life in Saigon and an island shrine on the Mekong as experienced by three young American journalists at the height of the Vietnam war. The three navigate a city swollen with refugees and war orphans, many crippled by disease and poverty, all seeking respite from the devastation of battle.

**Programming and notes by Amy Beste

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