An American March. 1941. USA. Directed and animated by Oskar Fischinger. 3 min.
Fischinger was a pioneering figure of visual music, and this abstract animation features a syncopated succession of rapidly mutating, polychromatic forms, set to the classic Sousa march “Stars and Stripes Forever.” 35mm print courtesy Center for Visual Music.
Down Argentine Way. 1940. USA. Directed by Irving Cummings. 89 min.
Screenplay by Darrell Ware, Karl Tunberg. Music by Harry Warren. With Betty Grable, Carmen Miranda, Don Ameche. Twentieth Century Fox’s splendidly garish south-of-the-border Technicolor musical, about the romantic trials and triumphs of an American heiress and an Argentine horse breeder, marked Carmen Miranda’s explosive Hollywood debut and launched Betty Grable’s box office-shattering wartime career. The show-stealing Nicholas Brothers perform a virtuosic tap routine that is one of classic Hollywood’s greatest. 35mm print courtesy Twentieth Century Fox.