Three American ballads

A series of humorous sketches and semi-abstract drawings are used to interpret three American ballads - “Acres of Clams”, “Old Dan Tucker” and “John Henry”. The artist, Alfred Kousel, has provided innumerable still sketches which combine colour, a feeling of strength and a variety of emotional effects in harmony with the moods and rhythms of the ballads. The ballads are sung by Cisco Houston.

How to watch

This work has not been digitised and is currently unavailable to view online. It may be possible for approved reseachers to view on-site.

Learn more about accessing our collection

Collection

In ACMI's collection

Credits

production company

University of California. Dept. of Theatre Arts. Motion Picture Division

Duration

00:07:07:00

Production places

United States

Production dates

1953

Collection metadata

ACMI Identifier

010878

Language

English

Subject categories

Animation

Comedy

Crafts & Visual Arts → Art and music

Crafts & Visual Arts → Drawing

Music & Performing Arts → Art and music

Music & Performing Arts → Folk music - United States

Music & Performing Arts → Music - Interpretation (Phrasing, dynamics, etc.)

Short films

Short films → Short films - United States

Sound/audio

Sound

Colour

Holdings

16mm film; Access Print (Section 1)

16mm film; Limited Access Print (Section 2)

Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. Sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are progressively filling these in with further research.

Cite this work on Wikipedia

If you would like to cite this item, please use the following template: {{cite web |url=https://acmi.net.au/works/73766--three-american-ballads/ |title=Three American ballads |author=Australian Centre for the Moving Image |access-date=2 October 2022 |publisher=Australian Centre for the Moving Image}}

United States, 1953

Please note