Bermuda Cockleshells

Private Smith of the U.S.A. is a 1942 American short documentary film directed by Slavko Vorkapić. Produced by RKO Radio Pictures, it was nominated for an Academy Award at the 15th Academy Awards for Best Short Subject, Two Reel. This is part of This Is America Series.

Made by RKO-Pathe, in Pathe color and three-dimension, in observance of the 150th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase from France at a cost of $15,000,000 (more than the annual income of the U.S.A. at the time). After a short narrative showing U.S. Ambassador Robert Livingston (Val Winter) negotiating the purchase with Napoleon and Tallyrand, the rest of the film, guided by Livingston's spirit, visits the 1953 territory of the purchase and shows the growth of such former outposts as Minneapolis, Minnesota; Des Moines, Iowa; St. Louis, Missouri; Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas, and Little Rock, Arkansas. Most of the footage is given to New Orleans, Louisiana and its Vieux Carre, docks, business district and museums, ending with the preparation for that city's annual Mardi Gras.

Cécile, Annette, Yvonne, Émilie and Marie, the Dionne Quintuplets, turn five years old and have a private birthday party in their garden. Other than the five little French-Canadian princesses-of-the-world, the attendees at the party for the sheltered sisters are their doctor-and-mentor Roy Dafoe; a priest and two nurses; radio's "Town Crier" Alexander Woollcott; and RKO-Newsreel cameraman Harry Smith.

This RKO-Pathe Screenliner short looks at the duties of the modern nurse. The story tracks the education of a student nurse as she works toward graduation and shows the earning of her cap during her student days, in retrospect. At the beginning, she wears the Student Nurse uniform dress and apron only, with no cap. She appears later in the movie as a more experienced Senior student with her cap already wearing a stripe. This was frequently done in the three year hospital programs to differentiate the Junior level students from the Seniors, more experienced and closer to Graduation. The capping ceremony illustrated shows the bare headed students receiving their plain white cap, and addressing it as something from her past that she will remember fondly.

A sailor, known as the Adventurer, searching for a lost American explorer discovers him being held hostage on a remote island in the South Sea. The man is held captive by the island's natives, who have placed him under a voodoo spell known as "obeah.

Saddled with a loveless marriage and three ungrateful children, Charlie Walker (Jeffrey Lynn) dreams of escape. When he falls overboard on a boating trip and is presumed dead, his fantasy comes true. He washes up on a Caribbean island and meets a lovely local (Leila Barry). He gets a fresh start at life, opening a resort on his island home. But guilt and a few insurance agents may cut Charlie's dream short.

Part of RKO's "This is America" series, this is an Oscar nominated short documentary from 1944 that follows the plight of European immigrants arriving in the USA looking for hope and safety.

This short follows a big city ambulance emergency crew, which sometimes includes a medical doctor, to car crash sites, fires, construction mishaps, a D.O.A., and the delivery of a baby.