Studs Terkel

Buck Weaver and Hap Felsch are young idealistic players on the Chicago White Sox, a pennant-winning team owned by Charles Comiskey - a penny-pinching, hands-on manager who underpays his players and treats them with disdain. And when gamblers and hustlers discover that Comiskey's demoralized players are ripe for a money-making scheme, one by one the team members agree to throw the World Series. But when the White Sox are defeated, a couple of sports writers smell a fix and a national scandal explodes, ripping the cover off America's favorite pastime.

The story of Jack Johnson, the first African American Heavyweight boxing champion.

During World War II, hard-luck farmer Colvis Nevels leaves his rural Kentucky home to take a factory job in bustling Detroit. Reluctantly accompanying Colvis is his long-suffering wife, Gertie, a talented woodcarver set in her traditional ways. When the perils of city life and Colvis' reckless squandering of money send the Nevels into precarious financial straits, Gertie starts a business making hand-carved dolls in order to provide for her family.

This musical adaptation of the Studs Terkel book examines the average worker's viewpoint--showing that he or she is anything but average. Based on a series of interviews with real working people--construction workers, waitresses, firemen, secretaries, and cleaning women, Working is both an exploration of the individuals' occupations and a lament for lost hopes and dreams.

Harley Cokeliss's Chicago Blues filmed in 1972 was a remarkable film; remarkable in that it was not just a competent documentary but a film crafted with care by professionals with a love and understanding of music and a respect for its history and artists. The music and its artists of Chicago Blues reflect faithfully the structure of the city's Blues activity of the late '60s from unknown amateur to world famous stars, from house to small bar, from traditional down home to modern city style. Thus Johnny Lewis, a housepainter who played for his own amusement at home and was almost a discovery of the film team, to Muddy Waters, Chicago Blues' most famous figure.

This documentary examines the experiences of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, using interviews with survivors more than 50 years later. First, the film sets the context with the rise of Fascism. Then, in 1936, Spain's military revolts against the elected government, and the U.S. and Europe agree not to intervene. In response, volunteers snuck past border guards into Spain to fight with the Republicans. The men and women veterans describe the perils of reaching Spain, limited training, responsibilities of command thrust on the very young, deprivations of a soldier's life, lack of matériel, horrible rates of casualties, and ultimate vindication at the end of World War II.

Documentary narrated by Paul Winfield, this documentary follows the course of Mahalia Jackson's extraordinary life - from her humble beginnings as a sickly child singing in New Orleans churches to her breakthrough with Columbia Records and her ascendancy to Carnegie Hall and Europe's great stages. Her story's told through archival footage and interviews with those who knew her best.

On May 8th, 1945, writer, director Norman Corwin broadcast ON A NOTE OF TRIUMPH, an unforgettable homage to the end of war in Europe. This film shines a light on a lost work of genius, and examines it's haunting resonance to today's current events.

A BBC documentary by Denis Mitchell offering an impressionistic portrait of Chicago, filmed circa 1960. Structured as a “city symphony” with recorded speech, it presents street-level observation and voices from the city. Assisted by Studs Terkel, the film became locally controversial: though originally intended for Chicago’s WBKB (Channel 7), its first Chicago-area broadcast was delayed until 1966, when it aired on WFLD.

An in-depth feature length documentary of one of America's greatest and least understood authors, Nelson Algren. This never before told compelling life story reveals a unique literary voice through rare interviews, archival footage and the gritty noirish voice of Algren on Algren. Kurt Vonnegut and Studs Terkel, literary giants in their own right, sing songs of praise along with many of his old friends, which makes this film seem like a hymn from the grave. This stylishly produced film embeds us in the 1950's cold war world when Algren worked. Algren's touching love affair with Simone de Beauvoir weaves it's way through the film along with the damaging impact of FBI and CIA surveillance.

A PBS documentary on the life and work of writer Raymond Carver. It features interviews with his family and friends, and provides an insightful look at his short stories and poems.

World in Action was Granada Television’s flagship ITV current affairs series, running from 7 Jan 1963 to 7 Dec 1998, and built a reputation for film-led investigative reporting and a forceful editorial stance. Its journalism produced major public and political repercussions—including investigations associated with miscarriages of justice such as the Birmingham Six—and it also served as a platform for landmark documentary projects, including the first broadcast of “Seven Up!” as part of the strand in 1964.

A documentary on the American Civil War narrated by Ken Burns, covering the secession of the Confederacy to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.