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The Living Desert (1953)
Avademy Award Winner
Great little piece of vintage Disney...
The Living Desert won the Academy Award in 1953 for Best Documentary - the archives section of the Go Disney website contains a bit of the history: "Academy Award® winner for Best Documentary Feature. The film stands as a landmark of factual film-making."
I saw this film on The Wonderful World of Disney as a child and thought it was great. Having remembered the impression it made on me and despite the age of this film, I have used it and the accompanying book in my elementary school classroom. The kids seem to enjoy 'the old Disney' - poor color quality and all. Certainly there are excellent PBS or National Geographic documentaries on the subject, but Disney's The Living Desert has a certain charm.
Let's Try Again (1934)
Think of it as an interesting antique.
Despite the silliness of the plot, the movie is worth a look simply for the 30's set styles. Also of interest is the actors' speech patterns and ridiculous accents ("oh, let's do try again!"). After 1930 when "talkies" came out, actors were required to take diction classes. This movie has all the makings of a "good" film - for its day: "upper class" characters (those silly rich people), beautiful sets (this was The Depression and most Americans had humble homes), and, of course, "sexual tension" (as sexually tense as it could be in 1934).