The City

Commissioned by the American Institute of Planners for the 1939 New York World's Fair, The City argues its way from an idealized New England town through coal-country blight and Manhattan congestion to the planned "greenbelt" communities of the New Deal. Ralph Steiner and Willard Van Dyke photographed it, Aaron Copland wrote his first film score, and the result is both advocacy and a superb piece of filmmaking — the "Lunchtime Rush" montage alone is a silent-comedy set piece. Released for civic distribution without a copyright renewal, the film is in the public domain.