Production
This long-running ABC News series of special reports/documentaries explores different aspects of life in the United States, featuring the most prominent ABC News correspondents of their times.
During the fertile early years of Drew Associates following the breakthrough of Primary, came this seldom-seen portrait of David Allen, a jazz trumpeter struggling in the Santa Monica drug rehabilitation center Synanon House. Pennebaker’s love of music drew him to David and the film prefigures later portraits such as Dont Look Back. He teamed with Life photographer William Ray and producer Gregory Shuker.
"This film follows one week in the life of a jazz trumpeter and heroin addict named David Allen, who is living in a communal drug rehabilitation center in Santa Monica, California called Synanon House, where individuals struggling with addiction voluntarily join together to help each other stay off drugs. The film is a Drew Associates production that was executive produced by Robert Drew and directed by Gregory Shuker, D. A. Pennebaker, and William Ray" (US National Archives).
Story of the last flight of TWA pilot Harold Blackburn and his retirement at age 60 after 40 years.
Documentary focusing on 25 year-old actress Jane Fonda as she and her director Andreas Voutsinas prepare a stage play called The Fun Couple for Broadway.
In 1960, Robert Drew founded his production company Drew Associates; joining him were a number of well-known or soon-to-be well-known documentary filmmakers including Richard Leacock, Albert Maysles and D.A. Pennebaker. Between 1960-63, Drew Associates produced 17 documentary films for television. Aga Khan was part of a 12-film subset of these known as The Living Camera, which were funded by Time and broadcast in syndication around the country. It shows the young Prince Karim at a time when he recently took over as spiritual leader of his Ismaili Muslim community. The film follows him to Switzerland, France and Africa as he steps out of the shadows to lead as the hereditary Imam.
During a two-day period before and after the University of Alabama integration crisis, the film uses five camera crews to follow President John F. Kennedy, attorney general Robert F. Kennedy, Alabama governor George Wallace, deputy attorney general Nicholas Katzenbach and the students Vivian Malone and James Hood. As Wallace has promised to personally block the two black students from enrolling in the university, the JFK administration discusses the best way to react to it, without rousing the crowd or making Wallace a martyr for the segregationist cause. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 1999.
Follows a crusading lawyer as he embarks on a campaign to save an African-American man, Paul Crump, from the electric chair. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 2007.
The first candid film made on a foreign chief of state, three weeks in the life of Jawaharlal Nehru.
Susan Starr is a talented young concert pianist preparing for the biggest competition of her life. She also happens to have a terrible cold that keeps her in bed and an omnipresent mother. Battling against 34 of the most talented pianists in the world at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, Susan hopes to win not only prize money in the Dimitri Mitropoulos International Piano Competition, but also the recognition that could launch the musical career for which she has been working since she was three years old. Following Susan through the hectic days leading up to the event and through the competition itself, the film captures the intense reality of an aspiring young artist facing the challenge of her life.
