Encyclopædia Britannica Films

Casting her devious filth hex on pig farmers, house painters, and football-playing children, The Dirt Witch delights in making everyone as unclean as herself, until one day a young girl takes pity on her and instructs the soiled sorceress in the ways of hygiene. Produced by the Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corporation as part of their “Joy of Growing” series of educational shorts for elementary grade children.

A short film explaining the difference between amphetamines and barbiturates in sometimes hilarious and often heartbreaking ways, through animation, stock footage shots of pills flying through the air, and meaningful interviews with doctors and addicts about their conditions.

Educational film about exclusion and anger meant to be shown in classrooms, with a discussion afterwards.

Every year, on June 27th, in a small village in New England, inhabited by no more than 300 people, a lottery is held in which a family is chosen as part of a ritual to ensure a good harvest.

Encyclopedia Britannica: the best repository of knowledge we have.

Marty, a "good boy," experiments with marijuana and experiences "profound mental and emotional disturbances." As in all anti-drug films of this vintage, marijuana leads straight to "H," and Marty's decline continues until he is busted, rehabbed and reformed. Drug Addiction's stilted view of the urban drug culture and unrealistic portrayals of stoned slackers make it entertaining viewing today. It belongs to that little-known "second wave" of anti-drug films, the postwar scare stories about middle-class kids overcome by junkiedom. What this wave of films reveals is that drugs were an issue for white adolescents long before the psychedelic Sixties, and that the official response to the threat expressed a general, not specifically targeted paranoia.

Life of a teenage outsider: what makes him that way and how his anger flares into violence.

This 1971 color anti-drug use and abuse film was produced by Concept Films and directed by Brian Kellman for Encyclopedia Britannica. “Weed: The Story of Marijuana” combines time-lapse, montage, illustrations, animation (by Paul Fierlinger and emigre Pavel Vošický) and dramatized, documentary-style interviews to survey the evolving role of cannabis in U.S. society, with emphasis on the legal risks faced by young people. A unique score of experimental synthesizer music is provided by Tony Luisi on an EMS VCS 3 “Putney”

A sea captain harbors a mysterious swimmer who comes aboard at night. From the story by Joseph Conrad.

This educational documentary describes the political, social, and religious conditions of sixteenth century Europe. It also Interprets the reforms of Martin Luther as a part and/of these conditions as indications of future trends.

Dramatization short on British romantic poet John Keats.

Thomas Hart Benton demonstrates the main steps in planning and executing a mural: beginning designs, sketches, layout, clay model, small painting, larger clay model and all stages of painting.

An introduction to Walt Whitman, American poet, essayist, and journalist. A world poet-a latter-day successor to Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Shakespeare.

An educational film about frogs produced by Encyclopædia Britannica Films, an educational film production company in the 20th century owned by Encyclopædia Britannica Inc.

Bartleby, an enigmatic man who calmly refuses to carry out his duties, is introduced in this period dramatization of Melville’s haunting story as a scrivener in a 1969 film production of Encyclopedia Britannica Educational Corporation.

Follows Chaucer's pilgrims on their way to Canterbury, telling stories as they ride. Chaucer's England (1958) Shows some background scenery taken in England. Presents a dramatization of the 'PARDONER'S TALE.'.

Dr. Heidegger invites four of his respected friends to try out the elixir of youth.

One in a series of twelve films in which the great French mime Marcel Marceau performs some works from his repertoire. In his introduction he describes this pantomime as having a theme that goes beyond time, an allegory showing a man trying to escape an enclosure of invisible walls. He also suggests that it stands for our freedom of choice, stating that for the limited span of our life on earth, we must struggle for the enlightenment of humanity and search for a way out of the cage

A story of a circus clown with a toothache dramatizes the need for proper dental care. The dentist's work of repairing the cavity is demonstrated. For elementary grades. Part of the "Joy of Growing" series.

The Ways of Water was made with the Earth Science Curriculum Project and the Environmental Studies Project of the American Geological Institute. A study of the water cycle on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, the narratorless, poetic film is enriched by Blank’s characteristically graceful and fluid camera movements. Its musical soundtrack was created using an analog synthesizer." - Dan Streible, notes from The 57th Robert Flaherty Film Seminar