Crowded Out (film #373 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Public Service]

This 50s film exposes the problem of school overcrowding during the baby boom and how it makes it hard for teachers to teach effectively. An elementary school teacher labors over her letter of resignation after a school year in which her class size doubled, causing her to have to get rid of the piano, the class library, and tables containing class projects in order to make room for more desks, and to neglect the individual needs of her students. One little girl, Kathy, has trouble with reading, and after her incredibly bitchy and intrusive aunt complains to her single mother, the mother gets all up in arms and meets with the school principal to try to get the teacher fired. But the principal asks her to take a tour of the school before judging, and this gives her a chance to see classes being held in hallways, the school library, the auditorium, a Quonset hut, and even the boiler room in the basement! This gives her a pretty clear idea of why Kathy’s teacher has no time for her. Unfortunately, but perhaps more realistically, the film offers no solutions for this, other than perhaps getting parents more involved, but it even acknowledged that parents have lots of demands on their time already. This message of this film is still relevant today, and its still a difficult problem to solve, making this one of the more realistic of the public service films from this period. However, I can’t help but think in Kathy’s case that things would improve quite a bit if her mother would tell her aunt to shut up.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: **. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ****.