Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

Aug 6, 1975

1h 47m

★ 6.1

The lean, mean 30's, when America laughed… to keep from crying!

Overview

Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.

Genres

Documentary

History

Production Companies

Goodtimes Enterprises

VPS Studios

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Self (archive footage)

Laverne Andrews

Self (archive footage)

Maxene Andrews

Self (archive footage)

Patty Andrews

Self (archive footage)

Fred Astaire

Self (archive footage)

Warner Baxter

Self (archive footage)

Wallace Beery

Self (archive footage)

Brooks Benedict

Self (archive footage)

Constance Bennett

Self (archive footage)

Jack Benny

Self (archive footage)

Busby Berkeley

Self (archive footage)

Irving Berlin

Self (archive footage)

Willie Best

Mel Schwartz escaped the Great Depression on a bicycle adventure he'd remember for the rest of his life... until Mel lost his memory to Alzheimer's. Now over seventy-five years later, his grandchildren set out to recreate his life-changing journey and find those memories before they slip away. Cycle of Memory explores the importance of intergenerational connection, healing painful pasts, and leaving a meaningful time capsule for the future.

7.5

The Money Masters

Jan 1, 1996

A documentary that traces the origins of the political power structure that rules our nation and the world today. The modern political power structure has its roots in the hidden manipulation and accumulation of gold and other forms of money.

0.0

Painting with Light

Jan 1, 2001

An examination of the great advances in cinematography achieved by Jack Cardiff.

8.5

You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story

May 15, 2008

Jack L. Warner, Harry Warner, Albert Warner and Sam Warner were siblings who were born in Poland and emigrated to Canada near the turn of the century. In 1903, the brothers entered the budding motion picture business. In time, the Warner Brothers moved into film production and would open their own studio in 1923.

0.0

Woody Guthrie: Ain't Got No Home

Jul 12, 2006

Every American who has listened to the radio knows Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land." The music of the folk singer/songwriter has been recorded by everyone from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to U2. Originally blowing out of the Dust Bowl in Depression-era America, he blended vernacular, rural music and populism to give voice to millions of downtrodden citizens. Guthrie's music was politically leftist, uniquely patriotic and always inspirational.

7.2

Phar Lap

Aug 11, 1983

Phar Lap, the big bold chestnut reigned as the king of the turf in the depression that gripped Australia of the 1930s. From his humble beginnings the New Zealand bred horse raced on to become the hero of a nation.

6.8

King of the Hill

Aug 20, 1993

Based on the Depression-era bildungsroman memoir of writer A. E. Hotchner, the film follows the story of a boy struggling to survive on his own in a hotel in St. Louis after his mother is committed to a sanatorium with tuberculosis. His father, a German immigrant and traveling salesman working for the Hamilton Watch Company, is off on long trips from which the boy cannot be certain he will return.

6.5

Videosyncracy

Sep 7, 2010

As the dissociated convenience of the Internet and globalized corporate culture continue to shut down brick-and-mortar video stores, what will happen to the longstanding, local hangouts with their rugged individuals known as clerks and the communities who love them? Videosyncracy follows three very different video rental stores as they negotiate their survival in three distinct Los Angeles neighborhoods: Old Bank DVD in the Downtown arts district, Vidiots in sunny seaside Santa Monica, and Eddie Brandt’s Saturday Matinee in bustling North Hollywood. Their stories chronicle not only the birth and twilight of a particular kind of corner store, but also decades of personal lives intertwined with those of their communities, the new challenges and facilities of a rapidly changing world, and an enduring love of the movies, a slice of Americana on the brink of disappearance yet defiant to the end.

6.2

Cleanflix

Sep 11, 2009

When a small Utah-based edited movie company is caught sanitizing Hollywood's copyrighted material, the film industry strikes back with a devastating blow.

7.6

My Voyage to Italy

Sep 11, 1999

World-renowned director Martin Scorsese narrates this journey through his favorites in Italian cinema.

6.7

Schlock! The Secret History of American Movies

Apr 2, 2001

Hollywood is a town of tinsel and glamour; but there is another Hollywood, a place where maverick independent exploitation filmmakers went toe to toe with the big guys and came out on top.

7.1

Chuck Norris vs Communism

Nov 12, 2015

In late eighties, in Ceausescu's Romania, a black market VHS bootlegger and a courageous female translator brought the magic of Western films to the Romanian people and sowed the seeds of a revolution.

7.1

Universal Horror

Oct 8, 1998

A documentary about the era of classic monster movies that were made at Universal Studios during the 1930s and 1940s.

6.2

40,000 Years of Dreaming

Nov 23, 1996

Australian-born filmmaker George Miller offers a personal view of Australian films. He suggests that they can be regarded as visual music, public dreaming, mythology, and song-lines. In extrapolating the idea of movies as song-lines he examines feature films under the following categories: songs of the land; the bushman; the convicts; the bush-rangers; mates and larrikins; the digger; pommy bashing; the sheilas; gays; the wogs; blackfellas; and urban subversion. He then concludes that these films can be thought of as "Hymns that sing of Australia."

6.9

Rewind This!

Aug 27, 2013

Home video changed the world. The cultural and historical impact of the VHS tape was enormous. This film traces the ripples of that impact by examining the myriad aspects of society that were altered by the creation of videotape.

6.7

The Eternal Road

Sep 15, 2017

Jussi Ketola, returns to Finland from the great depression struck America only to face growing political unrest. One summer night of 1930, nationalist thugs violently abduct Ketola from his home. Beaten and forced to walk the Eternal Road towards a foreign Soviet Russia, where cruelty seems to know no end, his only dream is to return to his family cost it what it may. Hope dies last.

7.6

Ni Muy, Muy... ni Tan, Tan... simplemente Tin Tan

Oct 27, 2005

"Ni Muy Muy, Ni Tan Tan, Simplemente, Tin Tan. Tin Tan was one of the greatest comdedian-actors in the history of Mexican Cinema. He began his film career during the early years of what became the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema. Throughout the majority of his movies he plays the character of a pachuco; the Chicano/Mexicano in zoot suit, throwing out the tirili phrases and words, and jammin the jitty-bug. With the style and the slang down to a tee, he was picked up in Cd. Juarez Chihuahua by an acting troupe. Touring extensively through-out Mexico with the troupe landed him in Mexico City with film contracts. It was in those films that Tin Tan exposed the image of the pachuco, which Mexican Youth adopted. From the desert border-towns of Juarez y El Paso the style took off in various parts of the country, most notably in Mexico City

6.5

Adjust Your Tracking: The Untold Story of the VHS Collector

Apr 5, 2013

A documentary capturing the modern day VHS culture and VHS collectors.

7.2

12 Mighty Orphans

Jun 18, 2021

Haunted by his mysterious past, a devoted high school football coach leads a scrawny team of orphans to the state championship during the Great Depression and inspires a broken nation along the way.