All Films

Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected: The Landlady

1979 • 24 min • United Kingdom

The unnamed Landlady (Siobhan McKenna) is the titular main villainess from "The Landlady", episode 1.05 of Tales of The Unexpected (airdate April 21, 1979), based on the Roald Dahl short story of the same name. The episode begins with Billy Weaver (The main protagonist), arriving in Bath as part of a work trip. While there, he looks for accomdation, and sees a bed and breakfast sign in the window of a house. The unnamed woman then invites him in, claiming that a hotel he had been planning to stay at was booked out. Although finding the landlady's overly friendly demeanour off-putting, Billy decides to spend the night.

Norman Granz’ Jazz in Montreaux presents Ella and Basie '79—"The Perfect Match"

1979 • 45 min • France

The two musical masters swing out.

First Case, Second Case

1979 • 53 min • Iran

A documentary about a teacher who sends a group of pupils out of the classroom when one of them does not own up to talking behind the master's back.

Squirrel On My Shoulder

1979 • 25 min

The story of an abandoned baby grey squirrel found by chance in the Oxfordshire countryside.

Seven Women of Different Ages

1979 • 16 min • Poland

Each day of the week is represented by a ballerina beginning with a young child and ending with an older ballet teacher.

Punk Can Take It

1979 • 19 min • United Kingdom

Julien Temple's wartime documentary parody "Punk Can Take It" (1979) - a theatrically released promo for the UK Subs, complete with narration by BBC voice-over veteran John Snagge - paints a glorious picture of England in a punk rock "identity crisis". Punk morale was higher than ever before. Punks were fused together not by fear, but by a surging spirit of revenge, immortality, and the courage never to submit or yield. This proved that punk won't go away and that punks themselves are becoming younger and nastier everyday. They have no time for the precarious thrills of nostalgia nor for its trivial rules.

Martha

1979 • 56 min • East Germany

Martha Bieder is the last rubble-woman in Berlin Rummelsburg. Every day, rain or shine, she stands at the conveyor belt - as she has for decades - sorting through rubble. After a retirement party thrown for her by her male colleagues, she tells her story of being a rubble-woman in post-war Germany.

City Lights: John Huston

1979 • 48 min • Canada

American film director John Huston is interviewed in this episode of a Canadian television series.

Pig Earth

1979 • 49 min • United Kingdom

“Pig Earth” marked John Berger’s first return to television after “Ways of Seeing”. The film, boldly using mostly still photographs, is based on John’s book of the same name, which was both a work of fiction as well as a history of French Peasant experience, as told by John ‘the story teller’, as if in the peasant’s own voices. All of which was given brilliant visual expression in the film through a series of beautifully edited sequences, each constructed from vivid and moving photographs of peasants and their lives, in black and white and colour, by John’s friend and long-time collaborator, the Swiss photographer Jean Mohr.

But Still We Sing

1979 • 48 min • United Kingdom

This BBC Bristol documentary, Narrated by Bert Lloyd looks at the Gaelic music of the Outer Hebrides. It won the Silver Harp award. Directed by Barrie Gavin.

Golgotha

1979 • 16 min • Yugoslavia

Millstones have always been produced in Lesnovo, placed in the Zletovo area, by cutting the rocks at the surrounding mountains. The production of these millstones and their transport through the steep slopes is a real Sisyphus labor.

Every Child

1979 • 6 min • Canada

This animated short follows an unwanted baby who is passed from house to house. The film is the Canadian contribution to an hour-long feature film celebrating UNESCO's Year of the Child (1979). It illustrates one of the ten principles of the Declaration of Children's Rights: every child is entitled to a name and a nationality. The film took home an Oscar® for Best Animated Short Film.

Heimlichkeiten

1979 • 27 min • East Germany

It's Gretel's birthday. Not only Kasper, but all his friends prepare surprises. The devil causes confusion as he tries to steal Kasper's book of inventions.

Big Wheels and Sailor

1979 • 55 min • United Kingdom

Children of long distance lorry drivers, travelling with their fathers, become involved in attempted hijacking.

The Wizard of Speed and Time

1979 • 3 min • United States of America

In the original short film, a young man in a green wizard costume runs throughout America at super speed, much like the superhero The Flash. Along the way, he gives a pretty girl a swift lift to another city, gives golden stars to other women who want a trip themselves. He then slips on a banana peel and comically crashes into a film stage, which he then brings to life in magical ways.

Scénario de 'Sauve qui peut la vie'

1979 • 21 min • France, Switzerland

Jean-Luc Godard proposes a diary of his creative process. Looking at photos of three actors, Jacques Dutronc, Isabelle Huppert, and Miou-Miou, who were previously cast to play in "Sauve qui peut (la vie)," Godard speaks about great image makers: Dreyer and Wim Wenders, the painters Edward Hopper and Pierre Bonnard.

A Woman Like That

1979 • 54 min • Turkey

The story of a woman who takes revenge on those who raped her mother when she was a child by returning to her birthplace after growing up.

The Making of 'Nosferatu'

1979 • 13 min • Germany, United States of America

Werner Herzog discusses the making of "Nosferatu" on set.

Well, Just You Wait! Forbidden Technique

1979 • 3 min • Soviet Union

Hare is working at a construction site with a welding machine, from which sparks fly off and hit the Wolf. Wolf notices Hare and starts a chase, but the Hare defends himself with the welding machine. At the end of the issue Wolf crashes into an advertisement for a polytechnic technical school and expresses his desire to learn to operate welding machines there, but it turns out that this technical school accepts only athletes. The episode focuses on the problem that some technical schools and universities at that time, accepted students not based on knowledge, but by athletic merit, so that the institution could show sports results.

La paloma

1979 • 10 min • Yugoslavia

A teacher who wanted to become a ballerina came from Skopje to a remote village. She teaches physical education at school and in her free time she gives the girls ballet lessons. Girls created the ballet equipment themselves and are learning the first ballet steps to the sound of the old “La Paloma” record

All Star Tribute to Ingrid Bergman

1979 • 52 min

Frank Sinatra, Goldie Hawn, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart and many more pay tribute to Ingrid Bergman.

Hérésie pour Magritte VIII

1979 • 4 min • France

Reparaturbrigade Zementwerk

1979 • 18 min • East Germany, Germany

A documentary crew follows the December 1978 “big repair” at the Bernburg (Saale) cement works, normally shut only for maintenance, where management has cut the planned 16-day turnaround to 14, with a 15 000 M bonus (rising to 20 000 M if finished a day early). As cameras roll through cement dust, crew and workers discuss the twice-yearly overhaul, familiar crews, and gritty camaraderie. They learn that chronic spare-parts shortages force constant improvisation, and that bureaucratic red tape weighs heavier than the hardest labor. Amid pride in their long-running plant, workers confess simple hopes for health, peace, and family. By film’s end, the crew realizes the true “core” of the factory lies not in its machinery, but in its people’s hands and minds.

Bugs Bunny's Christmas Carol

1979 • 8 min • United States of America

Yosemite Sam is miserly Ebenezer Scrooge in this spoof of Charles Dickens' classic tale. Porky Pig, as Scrooge's clerk, Bob Cratchit, is fired on Christmas eve for the unpardonable act of using coal to keep warm. When Scrooge evicts Cratchit and his family from their modest dwelling, heroic Bugs Bunny decides to dress like a ghost and teach the hot-tempered miser a lesson on the meaning of Christmas.