Face of Youth (film #485 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Public Service]

This stark 50s mental health film shows us the role public health nurses have in safeguarding the mental health of a community’s children. Two boys in particular are featured, Alex, a class clown and troublemaker, and Ralph, a meek, anxious, people-pleasing kid. Alex’s problems are easily solved by putting him on the school safety patrol, where, supposedly, his desire for attention is channeled in a healthy direction. Ralph’s problems turn out to be more difficult, so he is referred to the local Child Guidance Center, where, after reassuring his mother that it is not “a place for crazy kids,” he is given play therapy. Pretty soon, he gets real angry, and this is supposed to be an improvement somehow, though this is hard to buy from today’s perspective. This film is similar to Angry Boy in subject matter, but in style it is stark and depressing. Although competent soundtrack music appears intermittently, many scenes are inexplicably silent. And the narrator sounds like he’s one of the walking dead. The boy who plays Ralph does a good job of looking genuinely anguished, and his pain seems understandable in the bleak black-and-white world he has to live in, a world where darn near everybody looks depressed. And whereas the therapist in Angry Boy was genuinely warm and caring, the therapist in this film seems wooden, as if he memorized his interventions from a book somewhere. The ending is disturbing, since although Ralph has plenty to be angry about, and obviously needs to move in the direction of more assertiveness, violent acting out will hardly make things better for him. The narrator tells us that limits were set on Ralph’s acting-out behaviors, but we are not shown this, and frankly, the therapist seems so bland that it’s hard to believe he could set and enforce any limits with an acting-out child. Overall, this is a dark, depressing, yet interesting film that has lots of footage to mine for video projects, especially if you’re making a video about depression.

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