A re-enactment of one of the biggest frauds of all time. In 1969, the Equity Funding Corporation of America lacked the facts to make an accurate profit forecast because of computer troubles. They made a guess – two million dollars too optimistic. So two young executives fed fictitious insurance polices in the computer – all prefixed “99” so that they could easily be cancelled when the temporary loan was paid off. But the temptation to escalate the fraud became irresistible.
Category: Television
Made on a wind-up Bolex camera, The Sound of Seeing announced the arrival of 21-year-old filmmaker Tony Williams. Based around a painter and a composer wandering the city (and beyond), the film meshes music and imagery to show the duo taking inspiration from their surroundings. The Sound of Seeing served early notice on Williams’ editing talents, his love of music, and his dislike of narration. It was also one of the first independently-made titles screened on Kiwi television. Composer/author Robin Maconie later wrote pioneering electronic music.
A portrait of Raymond Francombe, jobbing gardener and composer. Ray is a familiar figure around the centre of Bristol. What will not be known by most of those who pass him every day is that for years he has been composing sacred music – and, until this programme was made, he had never actually heard a note of it performed. In this film Derek Jones gets to know Ray, and attempts to have his music professionally assessed.
William Nicholson’s dramatization based on the true story of the race to solve the riddle of DNA. The film reveals how Crick and Watson’s success depended on personality, friendships, emotional conflict and enmity fuelled by wild guesses, some borrowing and sheer luck.
A dramatization of key episodes in the life of Sojourner Truth, a freed slave who was born in 1797 and died in 1883, and became one of the first fighters for the civil rights of the Negro. Actress Pauline Meyers plays Sojourner in this vivid topical profile.
A thoughtful discussion between German film director Marcel Ophuls and CBS News producer Perry Wolff about political and historical documentaries with special emphasis on Ophuls’ masterful four-and-a-half-hour film about the fall of France in World War II, “The Sorrow and the Pity,”. Clips from the award-winning documentary are shown.
Rodgers’ friends and colleagues pay tribute to him in this long-unseen television special produced by the Souvaine Corporation and broadcast on NBC. Among the original Broadway cast members reprising the songs they introduced are Vivienne Segal (“Bewitched” from “Pal Joey”) and Alfred Drake (“People Will Say We’re in Love” from “Oklahoma!”). Vera Zorina dances “Rodgers in Three Quarter Time,” a ballet created expressly for the show set to three Rodgers waltzes, and Mary Martin sings “Wonderful Guy” as Rodgers himself accompanies her on piano.
Film director Alfred Hitchcock discusses his life and career in long talks with Pia Lindstrom (newscaster and daughter of Hitchcock star Ingrid Berman) and with film historian William Everson. Excerpts from several films illustrate these interviews. Discussion topics include: what is fear?, method acting vs. film acting, the difference between the usual “Who Done It” mystery and what he considers to be real suspense. His choice of leading ladies and why (Bergman, Baxter, Kelly, Marie Saint, Leigh, etc.).