Paul Robeson

An allegorical documentary about the workers of the world, whose common destinies and hopes for peace are symbolically united by the rivers that run through their respective lands. The film was shot on the Volga, the Mississippi, the Nile, the Yangtze, the Amazon and the Ganges and combines these images of five continents with the music of Dmitri Shostakovich and the poetry of both Bertolt Brecht and Paul Robeson.

Despite her mother's objections, the naive young daughter of a show boat captain is thrust into the limelight as the company's new leading lady.

Singing Marseilles docker Joe is hired by wealthy English couple, the Oliphants, to find their missing son Gerald. When Joe finds him, he learns Gerald escaped of his own will and takes him to stay with a local singer, who offers a refuge from his repressed white parents.

White hunter Allan Quartermain and his enigmatic guide help a young Irish woman locate her missing father in unexplored Darkest Africa.

Ten screenwriters collaborated on this series of tales concerning the effect a tailcoat cursed by its tailor has on those who wear it. The video release features a W.C. Fields segment not included in the original theatrical release.

A British District Officer in Nigeria in the 1930s rules his area strictly but justly. He struggles with gun-runners and slavers with the aid of a loyal native chief.

The film addresses issues of racism in the Jim Crow American South. Themes of racial injustice, racial violence, working-class solidarity dominate the film. It depicts black men working in a field, walking in chains, sitting behind bars, and being executed in an electric chair. In most scenes, a white authority figure is seen whipping or guarding the men.

A home movie version of the Dumas play. A young woman becomes a courtesan and tragedy befalls her. Appearances are made by many socialites of 1920s Paris and New York.

By the start of World War II, Paul Robeson had given up his lucrative mainstream work to participate in more socially progressive film and stage productions. Robeson committed his support to Paul Strand and Leo Hurwitz’s political semidocumentary Native Land. With Robeson’s narration and songs, this beautifully shot and edited film exposes violations of Americans’ civil liberties and is a call to action for exploited workers around the country. Scarcely shown since its debut, Native Land represents Robeson’s shift from narrative cinema to the leftist documentaries that would define the final chapter of his controversial film career.

Biographical notes on the American singer, actor and civil rights activist Paul Robeson (1898-1976). At the height of his fame and skill, Robeson’s career was cut short by Cold War anti-communist hysteria. This documentary includes historic footage of the US civil rights movement; clips of Robeson’s speeches, performances and visits to East Germany (GDR) and the Soviet Union; and interviews with his son, Paul Robeson Jr., and the musicians and activists Harry Belafonte, Pete Seeger and Earl Robinson. Co-produced by the GDR’s DEFA Studio for Documentary Film and the West Berlin production company Chronos, with scenes shot in the U.S.

Sylvia Fine hosts this musical show featuring some great American singing and dancing stars, featuring music by Gershwin, Rodgers & Hart, Berlin and Kern.

When a black couple vacations at a resort in Switzerland, an interracial affair stirs racial tensions among the townsfolk.

The top 100 songs of the past 100 years chosen by the American Film Institute are presented by host-actor John Travolta.

In a Welsh coal mining valley, a young man with a beautiful singing voice is called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice when a pit disaster threatens.

John Zinga, a descendent of slaves, has an ancient medallion around his neck and a fragment of song passed down generations. He is an English dockworker with a magnificent voice and a yearning to learn his roots.

The house he lived In: A conversation with Fred Baker (1932-2011) filmmaker , director , screenwriter , film producer, actor and jazz musician. A shining example of America's bohemian underground that has been around since the days of Walt Whitman. A sensualist. His favorite topics are sex, art, food and politics. To the rhythm of New York and Lenny Bruce.

Unscrupulously ambitious, Brutus Jones escapes from jail after killing a guard and, through bluff and bravado, finds himself the emperor of a Caribbean island.

A convict escapes to a Southern town and passes himself off as a reverend, giving him the perfect cover to swindle the townspeople and corrupt an innocent young woman.

In 1951, the Council on African Affairs produced a twenty-two minute agitprop documentary film about apartheid in South Africa, narrated by Paul Robeson and edited by Hortense Beveridge (also known as Tee Beveridge; her first complete film). South Africa Uncensored is a raw and gritty piece of black-and-white agitprop, full of firsthand testimonial footage of the appalling conditions endured by Black South Africans under apartheid. The film portrays the filth in Black shantytowns lacking proper sewage systems, the country's segregated public spaces, and the vile white leisure spectacle of enjoying forced fisticuffs between Black workers.

In this concert from Canterbury Cathedral, Willard White takes a musical journey through the life of the noted performer Paul Robeson.

An unjustly condemned corporal flees to Africa, chased by the captain blamed for his escape.