Ex-convicts try to stop a Chinese smuggling ring.

The Mills Brothers sing "Lazy River".

At a cottage with his family, an elderly man gets away to smoke a cigarette. Staring into the current, memories come back to him and he remembers being in the exact same spot with a girl when he was thirteen years old.

He has the most important things – a bicycle, a racket and tennis balls. She has a river, wind, sun and faith in magic. Between them, they only need a few words to drift together.

Crafted from the endless wealth of images filmed in 16mm on a Bolex by Kirchheimer and Walter Hess, Up the Lazy River is the conclusion of the triptych begun with Dream of a City and Free Time. Beginning with paired images of boulders planted in the middle of the urban landscape and outside the city, the connection between the beauty of the city and the natural world begins to form. There are modern skyscrapers above, and the horse-drawn carriages below. The film is filled with motifs that Kirchheimer has made his own: the camera traveling majestically through buildings, pointing skyward, light reflecting off glass, sweeping through the streets filming storefronts and daily life, always with an uncanny ability to capture small moments between neighbors, and the faces of a metropolis, culminating to the ecstatic sound of Louis Prima and the peaceful sounds of the river. Look close: you will even catch a glimpse of Manny himself.

In the 1850s, in a logging town on the Mississippi River, a conflict between the people of a mill town and the lumberjacks who work downriver. Romance and deceit are catalyzed by the arrival of the gambling river boat, River Lady, owned by the beautiful Sequin. Bauvais, a representative of the local lumber syndicate and Sequin's business partner, is trying to convince H.L. Morrison, the mill owner, to sell his business.

Tattooed Lady of Riverview

"The once teeming Riverview Park was shut down in 1967 (with Tom Palazzolo on hand to document the bitter end). The Tattooed Lady of Riverview is a portrait of its final occupant, Jean Furella, the titular tattooed lady of Riverview's sideshow. Furella first tells how she used to work at the sideshow as a bearded lady but fell in love with a man who asked her to shave. Then gives her carnival barker's spiel one more time for the camera. Quick cuts between frenetic shots of Riverview Park, in use and full of life, and later images of its demolition-in-progress lend to the carnival atmosphere of this early Palazzolo film." —Tom Fritsche (Fandor)