Reviews of film ephemera, including such things as educational films, industrial films, military and propaganda films, tv commercials, movie trailers, shorts, experimental films, and movies made for non-mainstream audiences.
Act Your Age (film #20 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Educational]
High school student Jim gets frustrated doing a math problem and expresses his feelings by carving his initials into his desk. The teacher sends him to the principal's office and the principal, after confiscating Jim's prized mechanical pencil, starts spouting off about teens in general and their "infantile reactions" to things. After even the school janitor complains about teens "acting like babies," Jim decides to take action on the problem by making a "How Old Am I?" chart and having his parents and friends rate him on his maturity in various areas. This earns his pencil back and totally solves the problem of immature behavior at his school. This is probably the quintessential Coronet film. It epitomizes Coronet's tendency to reduce complex psychological problems into simple, easy-to-follow rules that would make everything just ducky if kids would just follow them to the letter. Jim's solution to the complex problem of immature and out-of-proportion emotional reactions is so simplistic it's laughable, yet the film is so earnest and innocent, you almost get convinced, until you return to the real world anyway. Particularly innocent is the principal's final question in the film: "Wouldn't you like to rate yourself on a chart like this?" What answer do you think most teens would give?
