A narrator relates a variety of peculiar stories involving characters with the initials HC and their dealings with telephones. These are interspersed with artistic shots of telephone boxes in a variety of locations.
Peter Greenaway
as Narrator
The daring convict no. 23, known as The Eel, escapes from prison and, after mocking his inept persecutors, saves the lives of three people in peril: a beautiful girl, her mother and an annoying suitor, only to get exhausted and almost drowned. Once he regains his strength at Judge Brown's home, he participates on an upper-class social party where he competes with the suitor for the favors of the charming Miss Brown. But prison guards are still after him…
In this animated short, a terrible curse deprives Balthasar's kingdom of its stories. Taking the unicorn's horn back into The Belly of the Earth is the solution. Poppety will lead an expedition, by chance uncovering a hitherto closely guarded family secret.
Thelma and Patsy find themselves in a spooky house inhabited by a nut who is a mechanical genius and has made a robot who does everything. The inventor manipulates the robot's control board from a hidden room. The girls are soon in a panic. Patsy gets into an argument with the robot and loses the match of wits. Blackie Burke, an escaped convict, is using the house as a hideout, and this adds to the problems the girls already have.
At Thanksgiving, a tramp arrives in a homeless-hostile town.
Scrat tries to finish his rather large collection of acorns when things start going nutty.
The hilarious story of a restless young farm-thumb, Loke Groundrunner, and his tasty companion, Princess Bunhead, who go on an quest to combat Black Helmet Man and the Evil Thumbpire.
One of the two earliest horror films ever made. This film is presumed lost. In this black comedy scene, the bottom falls out of a coffin, the corpse tumble out, and is jolted back to life. Short sequences like this, as well as street scenes and dancing geisha girls were the main subjects of early Nippon cinema, pioneered by Shiro Asano and Shibata Tsunekichi from 1897 onwards. In creating dramatic, scenes, film-makers naturally chose the most striking or bizarre. Another undocumented film, recalled by cameraman Shiro Asano.
A touching story of an Italian book seller of Jewish ancestry who lives in his own little fairy tale. His creative and happy life would come to an abrupt halt when his entire family is deported to a concentration camp during World War II. While locked up he tries to convince his son that the whole thing is just a game.
This 12 minute short was released as part of the Choose Your Own Adventure option on the H&K Guantanamo Bay DVD. The blurb is: "Ever wonder what would have happened if Harold & Kumar had not been sent to Guantanamo and simply made it to Amsterdam? Here's a little something director Jon Hurwitz shot guerrilla-style all over Amsterdam in 3 days."
Newlyweds receive a build-it-yourself house as a wedding gift—and the house can, supposedly, be built in "one week". A rejected suitor secretly re-numbers packing crates, and the husband struggles to assemble the house according to this new 'arrangement' of its parts.
Max Fleischer draws the upper and lower halves of the Clown's body, which dance around separately before coming together. Max interacts with his creation before ultimately washing the Clown off the page with water.
Sid the Sloth takes a school of children out on a camping trip from home, only to find that in typical Sid style, he is not a very good guide and the children he takes with him don't have a very good time.
Bernie Cates requests the services of the most absent-minded waiter he's ever seen, who pours water before setting the glasses, endlessly repeats questions, brings wrong orders, and ruins everything- but the bill.
It's a classic boy-meets-girl story, boy-loses-girl, boy gets mistaken for an escaped convict and ruthlessly chased by armies of cops across the countryside in a thrill-packed stunt-addled climax.
A primer on proper phone manners produced for the New Zealand Post Office.
Dr. Cockroach comes up with a brilliant plan to break themselves out of Area 52 – but to implement the plan, he has to trick B.O.B. into thinking it’s his birthday.
A girl has to decide who to marry: a poor country boy or a rich nightclub owner.
