It Happens Every Noon (film #772 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Public Service]

This mid-60s film encourages all schools to sign up for the Federal School Lunch Program. Different kinds of lunch programs are shown, from fancy hot lunches down to sandwiches in snacks, in different kinds of schools. Most striking is the clueless racism (while the white schoolkids get a hot lunch in a nice cafeteria, the black kids get sack lunches) and sexism (in the rural schools, the girls have to make the lunch so the teacher can “work with the younger children”, boys no doubt) and the portrayal of southern rural one-room schoolhouses, one where the teacher has to pick up the food from the local general store, which looks like it’s out of the mid-19th century, and where the kids have to wash up at the pump before eating. To see this in a mid-60s film is surprising, but it only shows how there are some parts of this country that live very different lives from the mainstream. The film has great historical value for that reason––it really gives a comprehensive portrait of the mid-60s school lunch program. The food, of course, looks just as bad as you remember it, even though it’s supposed to be a “type A” lunch. No wonder the teens would rather eat greasy chili dogs. A quintessential government film.

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