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Manka Bros. Film Library
The World's Largest Film Library
1910s
1920s
1930s
1940s
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2024 Film Slate
1930 - 1939
Who's Minding The Chimp (1930)
Who's Minding The Chimp? (1930)
- One of Manka Bros. first screwball comedies, ‘Who’s Minding The Chimp?’ was released and became a huge hit, spawning seven sequels in the 1930s.
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Curse Of The Darkened Hallway (1931)
Curse Of The Darkened Hallway (1931)
- Creepy Soviet emigre Van Puchlovsky made his horror film debut in this tale of a mystical light fixture in an otherwise cheery Pennsylvania home.
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Scalpel, Please! (1932)
Scalpel, Please! (1932)
- Real-life conjoined triplets - The Lombardo Sisters - mortified the world with this tale of three nurses assigned to three different wards in the three different hospitals! After leaving the medical field, they became Vaudeville stars.
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The Brothers Kielbasa (1932)
The Brothers Kielbasa (1932)
- The classic Bulgarian story of two juggling brothers who risk everything to come to America from Bulgaria to juggle in order to send money home to their starving, oppressed family. [The movie was so successful, studio head Khan Manka was able to buy a 300 room, 100,000 square foot mansion on the 'Gold Coast' of Long Island's North Shore. The film was remade in 1964, directed by then studio head Harry Manka, to lesser returns. Harry Manka actually had to sell one of his houses after that debacle.]
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Ham Sandwich (1932)
Ham Sandwich (1932)
- A comedy of errors about a family of Bulgarian ventriloquists on the run from starvation in their native Bulgaria.
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Rachel, The Demon's Cousin (1932)
Rachel, The Demon's Cousin (1932)
- The World's First Animated Feature With Sound! [This fact is disputed by several different studios in several different countries.] Tells the story of milkmaid Rachel Bramowitz who has always had a horrifying secret that she has kept from her Bulgarian village - that she has a cousin who is a demon and he coming to visit over the Easter holidays!
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Sweet Tooth Clifford On The S.S. Ho Ho Ho (1933)
Sweet Tooth Clifford On The S.S. Ho Ho Ho (1933)
- Starring Little Jimmy as Clifford, the little adorable boy with an incredible sweet tooth (and singing voice).
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The Little Match Girl (1933)
The Little Match Girl (1933)
- Little Jimmy stars as the poor little girl from the famous fairy tale.
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Society Gals (1933)
Society Gals (1933)
- Cocktail drinking Society Gals mixing with millionaire playboys, movie stars and politicians was exactly what America wanted to watch during the Great Depression and Prohibition.
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Tractor (1934)
Tractor (1934)
- The first and only American film by acclaimed Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein about a small Iowa town that takes on collective farming. [Society Gals from 1933 proved much more popular at movie theaters.]
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The Missouri Compromise (1934)
The Missouri Compromise (1934)
- Dramatic retelling of the controversy surrounding the admittance of Missouri as a state.
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The Amazing Mr. Torso (1934)
The Amazing Mr. Torso (1934)
- Johnny Eck (Johnny The Half from Tom Browning's 'Freaks') portrays the Amazing Mr. Torso - a magician from Bulgaria that can bring back the dead.
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The Self-Flagellants (1934)
The Self-Flagellants (1934)
- True story. At the height of the Depression, modern day priests break from the Catholic Church to march across America, beating themselves to rid the world of evil.
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Sink The Titanic! (1935)
Sink The Titanic! (1935)
- Controversial film that revealed the (true?) details behind America's plot to torpedo the Titanic on its maiden voyage to kill everyone.
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Boris Godunov (1935)
Boris Godunov (1935)
- Famous Russian opera by Modest Moussorgsky - filmed before a live audience [but stopping every five minutes to reload the camera - which in those days took 45 minutes].
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Home On The Mange (1935)
Home On The Mange (1935)
- First appearance of the cowboy funnymen Jackboot Jimmy and Keester McCoy in a western tale of evil land barons, saloon lovelies and parasitic mites.
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Dr. Tindoor's Amaazzing Blont Of Fazur (1936)
Dr. Tindoor's Amaazzing Blont Of Fazur (1936)
- The fantastical fantasy film premiered at Radio City Music Hall in April 1936. The ten seconds of ‘third dimension excitement’ sends hundreds to the hospital.
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High Horse (1936)
High Horse (1936)
- Singing cowboy movie starring Johnny Rider. He's the best rodeo cowboy around... he knows it, the ladies know it. [This movie also featured Keester McCoy who was hated by everyone on the set for his drunken prima dona behavior. He was 'accidentally' shot in the back during filming. He survived but no one really wanted him to.]
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Idaho! (1936)
Idaho! (1936)
- Helluva state! Helluva movie!
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The Adventures Of Jackboot Jimmy And Keester McCoy: Spine And Dandy (1936)
The Adventures Of Jackboot Jimmy And Keester McCoy: Spine And Dandy(1936)
- The boys come back East for the reading of the will of a rich uncle.
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The Mouse, The Bird, And The Sausage (1937)
The Mouse, The Bird, And The Sausage (1937)
- Manka Bros.’ ‘The Mouse, The Bird, And The Sausage’ (an animated feature based on a Brothers Grimm fairy tale) is released months ahead of another Brothers Grimm-based feature - Walt Disney’s ‘Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs.’ While Manka’s was first (and many say better), Disney’s was slightly more successful.
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Wagner's Parrot (1937)
Wagner's Parrot (Khan Manka's Death) (1937)
- Bird with a Svengali-like influence over famous German composer Richard Wagner. [Studio founder Khan Manka (Sr.) dies mysteriously (many say he was murdered) during a private screening of ‘Wagner’s Parrot.’ He was 55 years old.]
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The Adventures Of Jackboot Jimmy And Shinny McFarland: Coeds Are Better Than One (1937)
The Adventures of Jackboot Jimmy And Shinny McFarland: Coeds Are Better Than One (1937)
- After the untimely demise of Frank 'Keester' McCoy, Jimmy teams with former child star McFarland in this kooky campus romp, featuring the new element of Jimmy kicking McFarland in the shins whenever they're in a pinch.
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Three Hares (1937)
Three Hares (1937)
- Manka Bros.' second animated feature. Things get confusing when three hares named 'Harry' all live in the same forest.
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Too Many Eskimos (Documentary - 1938)
Too Many Eskimos (Documentary - 1938)
- True story documentary about Teddy Roosevelt's disastrous National Parks plan for Alaska in the early 20th century.
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Spur Of The Moment (1938)
Spur Of The Moment (1938)
- Johnny Rider and Shinny McFarland are city boys who buy a couple of horses and sing and joke their way through the Wild West.
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Classic Story (1938)
Classic Story (1938)
- The classic story of a Nobel Prize-winning novelist and his search for non-fictional love.
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Aluminum Zirconium (1938)
Aluminum Zirconium (1938)
- The incredibly compelling true story about the inventor of modern day deodorant, all those who died testing the product and the competitors that murdered him.
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The Adventures Of Jackboot Jimmy: Life's A Kick! (1938)
The Adventures Of Jackboot Jimmy: Life's A Kick! (1938)
- Jackboot Jimmy bravely goes solo in this horrible movie about a Texas ranch hand that joins the Radio City Rockettes.
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Love In Flames (1939)
Love In Flames (1939)
- Producer Joseph Rothchild's epic 225-minute three-way love story set amid New York City's Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911.
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Sour Kraut (1939)
Sour Kraut (1939)
- Chester Billington's last film (and only talkie) takes on the Third Reich. Here he plays an angry German who wants to kill Hitler and take over the world himself.
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Barrel Of Gangsters (1939)
Barrel of Gangster (1939)
- Directed by David Sedan. Anti-violence crime story starring a very underused Spaulding Mawkish and Wilma Harry.
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