Ben Maddow

The war in the South Pacific, a country doctor in Colorado, victims of industrial pollution in a Japanese village — all were captured in unforgettable photographs by the legendary W. Eugene Smith. This program showcases over 600 of Smith’s stunning photographs and includes a dramatic recreation in which actor Peter Riegert (Crossing Delancey, Local Hero) portrays the artist using dialogue take from Smith’s diaries and letters. Interwoven through the program are archival footage and interviews with family and friends of this brilliant, complicated man, whose work developed from twin themes of common humanity and social responsibility.

The neighbors of a frontier family turn on them when it is suspected that their beloved adopted daughter was stolen from the Kiowa tribe.

Recently paroled from prison, legendary burglar "Doc" Riedenschneider, with funding from Alonzo Emmerich, a crooked lawyer, gathers a small group of veteran criminals together in the Midwest for a big jewel heist.

On the outskirts of town, the hard-nosed Vienna owns a saloon frequented by the undesirables of the region, including Dancin' Kid and his gang. Another patron of Vienna's establishment is Johnny Guitar, a former gunslinger and her lover. When a heist is pulled in town that results in a man's death, Emma Small, Vienna's rival, rallies the townsfolk to take revenge on Vienna's saloon – even without proof of her wrongdoing.

In the mid-19th century, Senator William J. Tadlock leads a group of settlers overland in a quest to start a new settlement in the Western US. Tadlock is a highly principled and demanding taskmaster who is as hard on himself as he is on those who have joined his wagon train. He clashes with one of the new settlers, Lije Evans, who doesn't quite appreciate Tadlock's ways. Along the way, the families must face death and heartbreak and a sampling of frontier justice when one of them accidentally kills a young Indian boy.

A frustrated pianist himself, music journalist Myles Clarkson is thrilled to interview virtuoso Duncan Ely. Duncan, however, is terminally ill and not much interested in Myles until noticing that Myles' hands are ideally suited for piano. Suddenly, he can't get enough of his new friend, and Myles' wife, Paula, becomes suspicious of Duncan's intentions. Her suspicions grow when Duncan dies and Myles mysteriously becomes a virtuoso overnight.

During World War II, Italian villagers hide their wine from the German army.

In Korea, on 6 September 1950, Lieutenant Benson's platoon finds itself isolated in enemy-held territory after a retreat. Soon they are joined by Sergeant Montana, whose overriding concern is caring for his catatonic colonel. Benson and Montana can't stand each other, but together they must get the survivors to Hill 465, where they hope the division is waiting. It's a long, harrowing march, fraught with all the dangers the elusive enemy can summon.

An American scientist is sent to Red China to steal the formula for a newly developed agricultural enzyme. What he is not told by his bosses is that a micro-sized bomb has been planted in his brain so that should the mission ever look likely to fail, he can be eliminated at the push of a button!

Two friends return home after their discharge from the army after the Civil War. However, one of them has had deep-rooted psychological damage due to his experiences during the war, and as his behavior becomes more erratic--and violent--his friend desperately tries to find a way to help him.

Truck driver Mike Lambert is a down-and-out mining engineer searching for a job. When his rig breaks down in a small town, he happens upon a venomous seductress. When her boyfriend robs a bank, they intend to frame Lambert.

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.

Claude is a ruthless and efficient contract killer. His next target, a woman, is the most difficult.

A government agent, out to destroy a crime ring, finds himself in the middle of a mob war.

The film takes place in rural Tennessee, where communities have experienced economic and environmental devastation created by the coal mining industry. The introduction of the Highlander Folk School in 1931 by educator Myles Horton and the movement to bring labor union representation to the region are shown as means of empowering the population. Efforts are made to stop the union activities with the murder of a local organizer, but eventually the union movement is able to take root with the local workforce.

American-born Anna Vorontosov teaches school in a remote, primitive section of northern New Zealand. Her experimental teaching methods have won her the love and affection of her pupils and their parents and the admiration of the unhappily married school inspector, Abercrombie. Her personal life, however, is less secure; frightened of love and sexually inhibited, she has always been aloof with men. Eager to break down this barrier is Englishman Paul Lathrope, a somewhat irrational and immature fellow teacher who aspires to be a singer. Though Anna is attracted to him, she refuses to submit to his advances.

The Madam of a brothel satisfies the erotic fantasies of her customers, while a revolution is sweeping the nation.

The Madam of a brothel satisfies the erotic fantasies of her customers, while a revolution is sweeping the nation.

Rural Mississippi in the 1940s: Lucas Beauchamp, a local black man with a reputation of not kowtowing to whites, is found standing over the body of a dead white man, holding a pistol that has recently been fired. Quickly arrested for murder and jailed, Beauchamp insists he's innocent and asks the town's most prominent lawyer, Gavin Stevens, to defend him, but Stevens refuses. When a local boy whom Beauchamp has helped in the past and who believes him to be innocent hears talk of a mob taking Beauchamp out of jail and lynching him, he pleads with Stevens to defend Beauchamp at trial and prove his innocence.

A neurotic woman, her unhappy husband and three other New Yorkers share a complicated relationship.

A neurotic woman, her unhappy husband and three other New Yorkers share a complicated relationship.

A neurotic woman, her unhappy husband and three other New Yorkers share a complicated relationship.

Burt, a WW2 veteran suffering from battle fatigue, is deathly afraid of rain and confined to an asylum, but showing improvement. He wants to live with his sister's family, but they have young children.

Resentful after an ugly divorce from her unfaithful husband, Judith McGuire moves to Los Angeles. Adrift and detached, she spends her days and nights wandering through her new city, cynically remarking on the hypocrisy, vanity and brutality of the modern world and humanity's alienation from themselves and each other.

Resentful after an ugly divorce from her unfaithful husband, Judith McGuire moves to Los Angeles. Adrift and detached, she spends her days and nights wandering through her new city, cynically remarking on the hypocrisy, vanity and brutality of the modern world and humanity's alienation from themselves and each other.