Labour Front

From the Canada Carries On series, this documentary emphasizes the importance of conservation and rationing, and the increased industrial production, during World War II. It suggests that "tomorrow's world" will be more prosperous and better planned because of the war efforts.

This short film from WWII focuses on the increasingly important roles women occupy on the various war fronts. In England, their more active jobs include ferrying planes from factory to airfield and operating anti-aircraft guns. In Russia, they are fighting on the front lines as well as acting as parachute nurses, army doctors and technicians. In Canada women have joined active service auxiliaries, and thousands labour day and night in factories turning out the tools of war. From the Canada Carries On series.

This short documentary was made near the end of World War II to introduce the subject of the need for labour-management committees. Government and industry in Canada were looking to a post-war era where production would have to be converted to peacetime. The objective was to improve productivity by reducing absenteeism, workplace accidents and keeping morale high.

This short film looks at the plans made at Dumbarton Oaks in 1945 for a renewed international organization devoted to world peace - the United Nations.

This feature documentary examines its own genre, which has often been called Canada's national art form. Released in the year of the NFB's 75th birthday, Shameless Propaganda is filmmaker Robert Lower's take on the boldest and most compelling propaganda effort in our history (1939-1945), in which founding NFB Commissioner John Grierson saw the documentary as a "hammer to shape society". All 500 of the films produced by the NFB until 1945 are distilled here for the essence of their message to Canadians. Using only these films and still photos from that era, Lower recreates the picture of Canada they gave us and looks in it for the Canada we know today. What he finds is by turns enlightening, entertaining, and unexpectedly disturbing.

This 1940s newsreel demonstrates how the U.S.A. and the Commonwealth countries contributed to the war effort during World War II.

This short documentary, produced by the NFB for the Department of Munitions and Supply, profiles Canada’s World War II-era munitions factories, which produced explosives in vast quantities. Looking at a typical munitions plant, we learn about the science behind the explosives, the strict safety precautions required in these workplaces, and the methodical work of the plant’s largely female wartime labour force.

From the World in Action series, this documentary looks at the history of the Balkan countries and their post-World War II problems and concerns.

This animated short produced during WWII shows how Plugger helped the war effort by renting out his spare room so that a new worker could be brought in to work an idle machine at the munitions plant.

This animated short by Norman McLaren serves as a wartime savings campaign. Symbolic figures, drawn directly on 35mm film stock, move and dance against a simple painted background. The score is "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie," by Albert Ammons.

This short documentary depicts the return of Canadian WWII veterans to civilian life, including those who, because of war injuries or lack of training, require special treatment or courses before taking on jobs. Throughout the program, emphasis is laid on individual adjustment to normal peacetime life and work. Part of the Canada Carries On series.