Mechanics of the Brain

"Though not given a New York showing until 1935, V. I. Pudovkin's Mechanics of the Brain (Mekhanika Golovnovo Mozga) was written and directed by Pudovkin in 1926. A full year in the making, this scientific documentary concentrates on the behavioral studies conducted by Prof. Ivan Pavlov. The laboratory dogs used in Pavlov's research don't seem too happy about it, and as a result this film might be hard to take for the more sensitive viewers (the vivisection sequence is particularly rough). The progress of the research is detailed with charts...

In the Name of the Motherland

The film deals with a Russian battalion under siege by the Germans during the Second World War.

The Murderers Are Coming

Brecht's play Fear and Misery of the Third Reich consists of a series of playlets, portraying National Socialist Germany of the 1930s as a land of poverty, violence, fear and pretence. Nazi antisemitism is depicted in several of the sketches, including "the Physicist", "Judicial Process", and "the Jewish Wife".