1945

Years before Akira Kurosawa changed the face of cinema with such iconic works as Rashomon, Seven Samurai, and Yojimbo, he made his start in the Japanese film industry with four popular and exceptional works, created as World War II raged. All gripping dramas, those rare first films - Sanshiro Sugata; The Most Beautiful; Sanshiro Sugata, Part Two; and The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail - are collected here and include a two-part martial arts saga, a portrait of female volunteers helping the war effort, and a kabuki-derived tale of deception. These captivating films are a glorious introduction to a peerless career.

"On the 30th of April, 1945, American troops marched into Munich. One week later, on the 8th of May, came the unconditional surrender of the German Reich under Admiral Dönitz. Munich was one of the cities that had suffered the greatest devastation. 90% of the inner city lay in ruins, it had lost 22,346 soldiers in battle, 6,632 people to bombings, and the injured and homeless came to, respectively, 15,000 and 30,000.

In France, in 1930, the supervisor of a reformatory for young offenders seeks to awaken in them the love of music by forming a choir, despite the skepticism of the institution's director.

A documentary account of the allied invasion of Europe during World War II compiled from the footage shot by nearly 1400 cameramen. It opens as the assembled allied forces plan and train for the D-Day invasion at bases in Great Britain and covers all the major events of the war in Europe from the Normandy landings to the fall of Berlin.

John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie, along with Charlie Parker, ushered in the era of Bebop in the American jazz tradition. He was born Cheraw, South Carolina, and was the youngest of nine children.

John Huston's World War II documentary on the battle of San Pietro is easily up to the high standard that he set with his numerous classic dramas. It is impressive in describing both the events and the atmosphere of a desperate and costly struggle, and it is memorable in preserving its effect on those who had to live through it. Even on a purely historical level, this would serve as a valuable description of one stage in the grueling Italian campaign, one of the war's least-remembered and least glamorous aspects.

Professor Vernon Bogdanor delivers a lecture on the 1945 general election at the Museum of London.

Richard Mason is slightly hurt in a car accident but pretends that his injuries are worse so that he cannot accompany his wife, Kathryn on a trip to the mountains. He does, however, kill her on a lonely mountain road. Or did he? He smells her perfume, finds her jewelry, sees an envelope addressed in her handwriting. He goes back to the scene of the crime to find … what?

Laurent van Horn is the leader of a band of Dutch refugees on a ship seeking freedom in the Carolinas, when the ship is wrecked on the coast of Cartagene, governed by Spanish ruler Don Juan Alvardo.

Heading west for his health, Colonel Lambeth takes his daughter Rill along. Lost on the desert they are saved by Pecos and Chito. The Colonel hires the two and the Lambeths soon find themselves mixed up in Pecos' trouble.