The Golden Hunch (1945)

Angel of Mercy

This MGM Passing Parade series short tells the story of Clara Barton, the founder of the Red Cross.

People on Paper

Americans are preoccupied with the news, but need an escape from many of the events reported in the news. These escapes in the past have included dime store novels. The most accessible of these escapes is what are known as the funny papers, the set of serialized comic strips that are included within many newspapers. They appeal to all socio-economic classes, and all ages. Some of the earliest known from the late 19th century include the Yellow Kid, Little Nemo, Happy Hooligan, the Katzenjammer Kids, Mutt & Jeff, and Bringing Up Father. Many cartoonists are seen in action. Some originated their characters, while others have taken over following the passing of the originator. The joy of many comic strips are the absurd and the fantastical, which are limited only by the imagination of the cartoonist. Others are grounded in reality, which add to their poignancy within the public mindset.

The Seesaw and the Shoes

This short shows how two objects led to important discoveries. Children playing with a seesaw inspire French physician Rene Laennec to invent the stethoscope, and a pair of shoes made of caoutchouc lead Charles Goodyear to discover the process for vulcanizing rubber.

A Way in the Wilderness

This Passing Parade entry tells the story of Dr. Joseph Goldberger (1874-1929), a Hungarian immigrant who devoted his life to finding the cause of pellagra, a disease that killed hundreds of thousands in the southern United States. Although the medical community believed that the condition was caused by a virus, Goldberger proved that a healthy diet was the cure.

Stairway to Light

This John Nesbitt's Passing Parade short tells the story of 18th Century French physician Dr. Philippe Pinel, who initiated enlightened, humane treatment of the mentally ill.

Flag of Mercy

The 1939 dramatic short "Angel of Mercy," about Red Cross founder Clara Barton, is reedited to relate the story to America's involvement in World War II. Edited from Angel of Mercy (1939)

Utopia of Death

This short film focuses on the mysterious and legendary Seri Indians who live in a utopian colony off the west coast of Mexico.

My Old Town

Narrator John Nesbitt reminisces about his hometown and childhood in this Passing Parade series short.

Trifles of Importance

Part of John Nesbitt's Passing Parade series, this short shows how three seemingly unimportant things can affect people. The first is how the number 7 affects a student accused of theft charges. The second segment shows that a person's doodles can reveal personality traits. The final segment shows why certain items are on men's suits, such as lapels.

Our Old Car

In this John Nesbitt's Passing Parade short, a man traces his history by the succession of cars his father owned. [This short appears in its entirety during MGM's short feature "The Great Morgan".]

The Incredible Stranger

In December 1892, a silent mysterious and very private man, for whom a new house has just been built, arrives in the small town of Bridgewood to keep a promise.

Who's Superstitious?

This short film examines the origins of several superstitions including crossing your fingers, knocking on wood, rabbit's feet, and breaking champagne bottles to christen ships, plus the role of superstitions in the Flying Dutchman tale.

Goodbye, Miss Turlock

Narrator John Nesbitt laments the disappearance of the rural one-room schoolhouse in America. He reminisces about his own days as a student in such a school and how his teacher, Miss Turlock, influenced so many students. Many of them reunite at the school on Miss Turlock's last day, when the school was closed in 1940.

Hissatsu Shigotonin 2022

Hissatsu Shigotonin 2022 is a continuation of the Hissatsu Shigotonin series. This was the SP released in 2022.

The Final Days

The Final Days concerns itself with the final months of the Richard Nixon presidency.

Time, Forward!

The film is set in the 1930s in the USSR. The film tells about one day of the construction of the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works. The heroes of the film are simple construction workers who are burning at work. Upon learning that their colleagues in Kharkov have set a record, they mobilize to break it. The entire construction site was engulfed in immense socialist competition. The teams are ready to complete the work on time at any cost. A Moscow journalist who has come to cover the scale of the great construction project is looking for the hero of his report...

Bashi-Achuki

The 17th century rebellion in Kakheti masterminded by Bidzina Cholokashvili gets about the whole Georgia. An Imeretian youth nicknamed as Bashi-Achuk is a real exterminator of the Persians. He attacks the Persian escort and sets free the Georgian women who were supposed to be locked up in the Shah’s harem. Bashi-Achuk’s twin sisters are among the rescued captives. Abdushahil, a Persian warrior who was defeated by Bashi-Achuk in wrestling, falls in love with Mzisa, Bashi-achuk’s sister. Mzisa brings Abdushahil to the camp of the Georgian rebels. Abdushahil learns that he is a Georgian too. As a child he was kidnapped and brought up in Persia. Abdushahil’s army gives up and the Georgians win the battle.

Evita Peron

Aspiring actress Eva Duarte rises from a minor celebrity to the wife of a powerful Argentine dictator, but her all consuming fiery rage, ambition, and hatred eventually become her downfall.

Earth

It's 1947 and the borderlines between India and Pakistan are being drawn. A young girl bears witnesses to tragedy as her ayah is caught between the love of two men and the rising tide of political and religious violence.

Rang De Basanti

After a group of friends graduate from Delhi University, they listlessly haunt their old campus, until a British filmmaker casts them in a film she's making about freedom fighters under British rule. Although the group is largely apolitical, the tragic death of a friend owing to local government corruption awakens their patriotism. Inspired by the freedom fighters they represent in the film, the friends collectively decide to avenge the killing.

Zhang Zhi Dong

Zhang Zhidong movie is about a businessman, but this Chinese name comes from Zhang (Chang). He was a Chinese politician who lived during the late Qing dynasty. Along with Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang, Zhang Zhidong was one of the four most famous officials of the late Qing dynasty. In addition to serving as governor of Shanxi Province, viceroy of Huguang, Liangguang, and Liangjiang, and a member of the Grand Council, he advocated controlled reform and modernization of Chinese troops. In 1905, he played a big part in abolishing the Imperial examination system. During the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards destroyed his tomb. He was reburied in 2007 after his remains were rediscovered.

The Lone Sabre

In the late Qing Dynasty, the policeman Wang Wu (played by Zheng Haonan) was dedicated to arresting imperial criminals for the court. He was called the "Wang Wu of the Big Sword" because of his good use of a big knife. An Xiaoren, the imperial censor of the time, spoke bluntly, impeaching the eunuch Li Lianying for interfering in the government, which angered Cixi. Xi ordered Wu to suppress and kill Ren's family, and Wu to avoid killing Zhongliang by mistake, but he openly disobeyed the order, thus incurring the disaster of exterminating the family. Wu's wife Ao Xue (played by Lan Jieying) was brutally murdered, and Wu Sui and her young son wandered around the world. Sado (played by Yin Yangming), the governor of the imperial court, was ordered to hunt down the five fathers and sons. Although the five and many cherished each other, the two still could not escape a life-and-death battle in the end...

An Emissary of No Return

An Emissary of No Return retells the story of a real historical event in 1907 known as the Hague Secret Emissary Affair. Korea had been colonized by Japan. In order to protest to the international community, the Korean emperor king Gojong sent three secret emissaries to the talks of the Hague Convention of 1907, to get the great powers to overturn the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1905.

Kundun

The Tibetans refer to the Dalai Lama as 'Kundun', which means 'The Presence'. He was forced to escape from his native home, Tibet, when communist China invaded and enforced an oppressive regime upon the peaceful nation. The Dalai Lama escaped to India in 1959 and has been living in exile in Dharamsala ever since.

Kokoda

A bitter battle is fought between Australian and Japanese soldiers along the Kokoda trail in New Guinea during World War II.

My Brother Is an Only Child

Accio and Manrico are siblings from a working-class family in 1960s Italy: older Manrico is handsome, charismatic, and loved by all, while younger Accio is sulky, hot-headed, and treats life as a battleground — much to his parents' chagrin. After the former is drawn into left-wing politics, Accio joins the fascists out of spite, but his flimsy beliefs are put to test when he falls for Manrico's like-minded girlfriend.

Ivan the Terrible, Part I

Set during the early part of his reign, Ivan faces betrayal from the aristocracy and even his closest friends as he seeks to unite the Russian people. Sergei Eisenstein's final film, this is the first part of a three-part biopic of Tsar Ivan IV of Russia, which was never completed due to the producer's dissatisfaction with Eisenstein's attempts to use forbidden experimental filming techniques and excessive cost overruns. The second part was completed but not released for a decade after Eisenstein's death and a change of heart in the USSR government toward his work; the third part was only in its earliest stage of filming when shooting was stopped altogether.

United 93

A real-time account of the events on United Flight 93, one of the planes hijacked on 9/11 that crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania when passengers foiled the terrorist plot.

Judgement of God

Bavaria, 1433. Reason of state rules that Prince Albert is to marry Princess Bertha of Wurtemberg. But the fine-looking young man is loath to become the husband of a woman with pimples,flat feet and no breast. Nevertheless, he has to obey his authoritarian father, Duke Ernest, and accompanied by faithful Count Törring, he mounts his steed and sets out for Würtemberg. Stopping in Augsburg, he falls in love with the daughter of a local barber-surgeon, pure and beautiful Agnès Bernauer. The couple is soon secretly married and both take refuge at the castle of Margravine Josepha, Albert's aunt, waiting for Ernest's consent. Unluckily Albert's father will not accept his son's union with a commoner and Albert, supported by Josepha and an army of common people, declares war on the Duke. They seem about to be victorious when Brother Enrique, a monk formerly in the Holy Inquisition, finds a way to reverse the situation: accusing Agnès of witchcraft...

Twa-Tiu-Tiann

Through a famous painting "South Street Festival", a Taiwanese college boy unexpectedly travels 100 years back in time, back to the 1920's, when Taiwan was under Japanese rule. He is stuck, he panics, he wants to return to 2014 but soon changes his mind, not just because of the prettiest geisha girl in town...

Joseon Chefs

Aimless after failing in several public tenders, a young man ends up meeting the best chef in the region and falls in love with the world of cuisine that he shows him.

Telekinesis

Moscow, 1977. Scientists are studying paranormal phenomena in a full secrecy. A professor-physicist, an expert in telekinesis and hypnosis, encounters an inexplicable force, the existence of which is impossible to believe in. Сonsequently, his daughter Anna finds out she is gifted with a horrifying deathful power.

The World's Fastest Indian

The life story of New Zealander Burt Munro, who spent years building a 1920 Indian motorcycle—a bike which helped him set the land-speed world record at Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats in 1967.

Glory Road

In 1966, Texas Western coach Don Haskins led the first all-black starting line-up for a college basketball team to the NCAA national championship.

Here Is Your Life

A working class teenager comes of age in 1910s rural Sweden, moving through a series of jobs and romances that gradually shape his future.

Flyboys

The adventures of the Lafayette Escadrille, young Americans who volunteered for the French military before the U.S. entered World War I, and became the country's first fighter pilots.

Glory

Robert Gould Shaw leads the US Civil War's first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices of both his own Union army and the Confederates.

The Lost City

In Havana, Cuba in the late 1950's, a wealthy family, one of whose sons is a prominent nightclub owner, is caught in the violent transition from the oppressive regime of Batista to the Marxist government of Fidel Castro. Castro's regime ultimately leads the nightclub owner to flee to New York.

Corianton: A Story of Unholy Love

Corianton is unsure of his father Alma's religious teachings until God strikes down a religious foe. Converted, he becomes a successful missionary until seduced by the harlot Isabel. Struck with guilt, he runs away until discovered by his brother Shiblon who is then killed. While mourning, Corianton has a vision of Jesus and leads his people in victorious battle.

Adriana's Pact

Lissette's favorite aunt Adriana, who lives in Australia, is arrested in 2007 while visiting her family in Chile and accused of having worked for dictator Pinochet's notorious secret police, the DINA, and of having participated in the commission of state crimes. When Adriana denies these accusations, Lissette begins to investigate her story in order to film a documentary about her.

The White Moor

Adapted from a folk legend, it tells the story of a bad-tempered nobleman and his chronically useless younger son - who dreams of being the mythical hero Harap Alb.

Bugatti: A Thirst for Speed

The story of the Bugattis of Milan and Molsheim, the eccentric family behind the brand: Carlo, the patriarch and furniture designer; Rembrandt, the troubled sculptor; Ettore, the gifted engineer; Jean, the unfortunate heir. Art and design. Beauty and luxury. The fastest cars. Races. The need for speed.