Actor Vincent Price stars in "Born in Freedom" and Alan Ladd appears in "Unfinished Rainbows" before he made any features. Folk legend Woody Guthrie sings 3 songs in "The Columbia." "Fill 'Er Up" and "Destination Earth" are Technicolor cartoons. These rare films tell highly entertaining stories for all ages while educating about industries that built a great nation from our natural resources.

• Unfinished Rainbows
  (1940, color) 26m. Rare documentary produced by Alcoa that tells the history of aluminum from Napoleon’s role through the outset of WWII. Alan Ladd is featured in his first credited (and color) role as inventor Charles Martin Hall who discovered how to refine aluminum cheaply.
• The Columbia
  (1942/49) 36m. Scarce documentary is famous for featuring 3 songs performed on the soundtrack by Woody Guthrie. Powerful images depict construction of the Grand Coulee Dam in a film produced before the war but not released until after in 1949 due to issues associated with a national debate over public vs. private power.
• Born in Freedom: the Story of Colonel Drake
  (1954, color) 30m. In 1857 Edwin L. Drake, played by Vincent Price, is sent to investigate an oil seep in a creek near Titusville, Pennsylvania. Drake believes it should be feasible to increase the yield beyond the 3 to 6 gallons a day. After many trials a drilling method succeeds in August of 1859 and the oil industry is born.

• Fill 'Er Up
  (1954, color) 12m. Animated tale about the discovery, development and uses of gasoline in modern industry, starring a genii/muscle-man oil drop character. Presented by the Du Pont company.
• Asphalt Through the Ages
  (1957, color) 13m. The petroleum derivative asphalt paves 80% of our highways and binds together the arteries of civilization.
• Destination Earth
  (1953, color) 14m. Fanciful, funny cartoon about a martian flying to earth to discovery the power source of our mobile vehicles - gasoline!

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