Gregory Shuker

Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment

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.

The Chair

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.

Susan Starr

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.