Allen Is My Brother

Allen Is My Brother. A 50s housewife gets frustrated when her 3-year-old son, Allen, keeps getting into mischief, so she does what any good 50s housewife would do—she gets his big sister Karen to look after him. Karen doesn’t think much of this, but once Mommy explains that family members help each other, she cooperates and eventually has fun with her little brother. This is a very cute film that has that white-bread, Dick-and-Jane feel so often seen in films of the period. It takes place in 50s Sitcomland, where there are no problems bigger than a lost puppy, and children get into no worse mischief than squirting the hose on the laundry on the clothesline. This should bring back lots of memories for any baby boomers watching it.

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

Arabian Children

Arabian Children. This Encyclopedia Brittanica film shows us the lifestyle and customs of one Arab family. It’s portrayed pretty much without bias or commentary, just straightforwardly. Despite the desert setting, this is not nearly as “dry” a film as many EB films. It’s actually pretty interesting to watch a family of a different culture pursue its everyday life, while narration helps us understand what’s being done. This was probably a mild mind-expander to the schoolchildren it was shown to. Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: **. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ***.

Agriculture in Virginia

Agriculture in Virginia. Rural teenager Bud Wilson (Why does that name sound familiar to me? This name must have appeared in other educational films.) is planning on following in his farmer father’s footsteps, so he takes Ag 101 class in high school, but that’s not enough for his father, who has the county extension agent take him all over the state and explain how the state government supports agriculture in great detail. This is a pretty dry film, but there are some fun images of 50s farm products, as well as some coverage of home economics, complete with attractively-dressed 50s farm wives and colorful 50s grocery products. Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ***. Weirdness: **. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ***.

Belonging to the Group: Respect as a Human Value. This 50s EB social guidance film shows us two families that are newcomers to a small town, one of average 50s folks, and one that are first-generation immigrants from an unnamed European country. They both have minor problems with getting accepted into the town’s social fabric, with the immigrants having a few more problems than the white-bread family. But all the problems are on the 50s sitcom level, i.e. they’re problems we’d all like to have because they’re so minor. There’s a slight hint of discrimination towards the immigrant family, but it all gets resolved in the end when the boy impresses kids at school with his woodcarving skills and the mom wins a cake baking contest at church. This is one of those 50s films that hints at larger problems and then denies the seriousness of them, which makes it slightly campy and somewhat disturbing at the same time.

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

Bees and Spiders. Another early silent classroom film, this one about bees and spiders. Beekeepers show us how bees live in the hive, get food, and reproduce. And, oh, did I say that animals are always fun to watch? Not spiders—they’re creepy. Though they do hold your attention. Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: **. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: ***. Overall Rating: ***.

Bargain Basement Clip. Before HSN and QVC, there was Bargain Basement, an early 60s TV show that hawked “As Seen on TV” type products. Since they only had a small time slot, rather than a 24-hour network, to fill, the pitches come fast and furious. Bottle openers, skin cremes, battery-life extenders, pearl necklaces, and, of course, food choppers are pitched one after the other at an amazing rate. This TV clip is a lot of fun and campy as all get out. And if you send, not $5, not $10, but only $1.98 to LBC, Box Q, Chicago, you’ll get a beautifully framed printout of this review, and the snake knives, Mrs. Presge! (Whew!) Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: ****. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ****. More Stars for Absolutely Free: ****.

Attending Information Management. This early 70s film appears to be a training film for group counselors in some sort of social services job training program. A counselor has an initial session with five job program participants and goes through some initial information-gathering with them about their previous job experiences and their interests. The participants all seem to me to be somewhat troubled individuals who need help getting and keeping employment, such as a guy who likes working with kids but doesn’t like bosses, or a shy young woman who didn’t finish high school and has no work experience of any kind. The group leader is kind of awkward, but that just adds to the realism of the film. This is interesting enough that I would like to see more of what happens with this group, though I don’t know if the other films in the series stay with this same group or not. Overall, this is an interesting snapshot of social service practices in the early 70s. Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: **. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ***.

The Atom and Eve. Oh my. A conglomerate of New England power companies in the early 60s decided to go for nukes in a big way, except they felt they needed to sell women on the concept. Except they obviously had very little contact with real women, so they had to rely on stereotypes. So we get a pretty model in a diaphanous gown dancing around appliances, since that’s what women mainly need electricity for. And we also get detailed descriptions of how the nuke plant will be designed, since women care about the look of things. This is a short film, but it packs a wallop of camp. Some of the scenes with the dancing woman will have you shaking your head in disbelief. The fact that its trying to sell nuclear power is the least of its problems, and that’s saying a lot. Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: *****. Weirdness: *****. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: *****.

Assignment: Tomorrow. This postwar film, made by the National Education Association, tells us how great teachers are, because they shape the future. They also explain why teachers have to get politically involved sometimes. It’s a valid message, but the film is so strident that it invites msting. Also, there are just lots of great images here of schools in the late 40s, including non-white schools, so there’s lots of historical interest. I do agree that teachers are generally unappreciated and need to be paid more, but I couldn’t help msting this film as I was watching it. I guess I could thank Mr. Hodgson for that. Warning! The end of this film is not really the end, even though it says “the end.” You’ll still have to sit through a bunch of footage about the NEA and how great it is before the bell rings. Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ****.

The Assessment of Lingual Tactile Sensation and Perception. This 70s educational film for speech language pathologists is about as technical as its name would suggest. It starts with a very boring lecture by a guy in a 70s brown suit, but forget that. The lecture is followed by footage of a male lab technician giving a series of tests to a female patient on how sensitive her tongue is to tactile stimulation. Dots are drawn on her tongue with a non-toxic ink, she is blindfolded, and her tongue is touched with various items and in various places to see if she can feel them properly, while the boring narrator drones on in the background. Although this is somewhat dull to watch all the way through, the images of the tests are striking and have great creative potential for video artists to use out of context. Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ***. Weirdness: ****. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ***.

And Women Must Weep. This dramatic, anti-union film supposedly tells the story of a wildcat strike in Princeton, Indiana. The strike was supposedly called by a tiny committee within the union, after the union president had been fired after breaking some rules that were in the union contract. The firing causes him to call the strike as a personal vendetta against the company, and out-of-state goons came into the town to railroad the union members into supporting the strike, and to harass members who crossed the picket line. It all ends with an anonymous gunner shooting at a trailer home of one of the union members who crossed the picket line, hitting his baby. This is all presented as God's truth about unions who require membership of all company employees. Except it didn’t happen that way. We learn in the union’s rebuttal film, Anatomy of a Lie, that the strike was not wildcat, there was no secret union committee, the female union president discouraged the union from striking because of her firing, there were no out-of-state goons, and the police determined that the shooting at the trailer home had nothing to do with the strike. This totally undercuts the message of this film and makes you wonder about the real motives of the filmmakers. Even without the information in Anatomy of a Lie, there are aspects of the film that don’t hang together. For instance, if the strike was wildcat, where did the out-of-state goons come from? Certainly not the union, if it didn't approve of the strike. This film is the very essence of propaganda: overly emotional and not too concerned with the facts. The fact that the National Right to Work Committee still touts it as truth does not speak well for that organization. Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ***. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ***.

Anatomy of a Lie. This 1962 film is a refutation of another film, And Women Must Weep, which is also on my list to review. That film was an anti-union film that dramatically showed how a machinist’s strike in Princeton, Indiana supposedly damaged the community. Anatomy of a Lie was made by the union who voted to strike and interviews the workers who were involved in it, mostly women. The workers all point out that the anti-union film grossly misrepresented the facts of the strike, making it sound like it was not supported by the workers (actually it was overwhelmingly supported by them), that the picket lines exploded into violence (they didn’t), and that the union hired out-of-state goons to harass people who tried to cross the picket line (the sheriff even corroborates that there were no out-of-state goons, and the workers point out that the company hired out-of-state strikebreakers to cause problems on the picket lines). It all comes off as very convincing, since the interviewed workers are all real people and not actors. My favorite part is when they interview the tough old woman who was union president at the time of the strike. Part of the company’s dirty tricks was when they fired her on a trumped-up pretext. The anti-union film turned her character into a bitter, rabble-rousing man who gets the union to strike in revenge for his firing. When the interviewer asks the real union president about this, she says she actually discouraged the union to strike because of her, because “I’m fat, old, and ugly enough to take care of myself.” Yeah, you go, sister! Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: **. Weirdness: **** (mainly for being an ephemeral film that rebutts another ephemeral film). Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ****.

The ABCs of Film Direction. This 60s film on the basics of film direction is a lot of fun to watch, not just because of its lively and somewhat campy Calvin Workshop style. It’s also really interesting for those of us who are into badfilm, as it shows us just how some directors are so incompetent that they screw up directing basics that are taught to beginners. In particular, there is a scene that shows how you can show an actor crossing a room and going up the stairs without showing every last little bit of it, a mistake I’ve seen many a time in bad films. The film also provides some great scenes for miners of video footage; I have a feeling that many of the scenes are a lot campier out of the film’s context. There's some mstable content in a scene of a male boss a female secretary that the narrator keeps referring to as a “girl.” Don’t forget to ask a member of the Calvin staff if you have any questions about this film! Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: ****. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ****.

Aeronautics and Space Report 1977. OK, it’s the 70s now, and NASA has calmed down quite a bit. (Told you the drugs were just a faze.) It's now in the space shuttle business and even has a pointy-haired boss in charge of finding customers for the shuttle’s payload area. Watch this after America in Space: First Decade to get an idea of what “settling down” looks like if you’re a space agency. No more MAN talk here; they’re even considering hiring women astronauts! Mostly, though, this film is about as interesting as your first real job was. Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: **. Weirdness: **. Historical Interest: ***. Overall Rating: **.

All My Babies: A Midwife’s Own Story. This 1952 film shows us the work of Mary, an African-American midwife who helps poor rural African-American women to give birth. We get to see her work specifically with two different women: Ida, a woman who lives on a family prosperous farm, and who is well-prepared for the birth of her baby; and Maybelle, a woman who lives on a very poor farm and has miscarried the last two of her pregnancies. Mary works hard and manages to do well with both cases, helping Ida to deliver a big, healthy boy, and helping Maybelle deliver a premie. This is an incredibly heartwarming film that shows the birth process in great detail and under what we would today consider very primitive conditions. Mary takes her job very seriously and scrupulously follows the sanitation rules laid down by the public health doctor and nurse that she works with. She also provides lots of encouragement and emotional support to the new mothers she works with, as well as plenty of education on the importance of pre-natal care and good nutrition. Since this was made in the deep south in the early 50s, there’s a subtle backdrop of the Jim Crow realities black people had to deal with back then, such as the fact that the professional doctor and nurse are both white, the black women studying to be midwives practice on a white baby doll, and all of Mary’s clients seem to live in grinding poverty; even Ida’s house, which is the better of the two, doesn’t have electricity, and is heated with a wood stove (so is Mary’s, in fact). Still, this is a film that treats its subject with respect for the most part. It has tremendous historical interest for portraying childbirth practices in its time and place. And it stimulates lots of compassion for Mary’s clients, as well as respect for Mary and her profession. Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: N/A. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: *****+. Overall Rating: *****.

Accuracy First (https://www.filmpreservation.org/preserved-films/screening-room/accuracy-first-ca-1928): This silent Western Union film from 1928 warns telegraph operators that small mistakes can cost their customers thousands of dollars. A female transmitter is interrupted by a coworker (and I’m wondering why she’s stroking her hair, but never mind) and this causes her to transmit an error in the telegram she’s sending. The female worker at the other end sees the error and thinks she can “correct” it, but actually doesn’t know what she’s doing and thus ends up printing a telegram with the wrong message, causing a stockbroker to make an expensive mistake on the trading floor. This is pretty lively for a training film, with characters that are shown to be real people, rather than drones. It also has lots of historical interest in showing what it was like to work as a telegraph operator during the 20s. And don’t forget to sell one October and two December! Or is that buy? Sell, no buy! Arrgh!! No wonder the stock market crashed! Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ***. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ****.

Lady Lifeguards (available for download on Prelinger Archive. Also available for viewing on You Tube).

This newsreel featurette shows us the intensive training female lifeguards received at New York’s Manhattan Beach during the 30s. They were trained in speed and distance swimming, rowing, breaking dangerous holds that drowning victims often subject lifeguards to, and the tedious out-goes-the-bad-air-in-comes-the-good kind of artificial respiration (which the narrator tells us sometimes goes on for hours before the victim is revived). After all this, they are qualified to “assist” the male lifeguards, and must undergo leering “inspections” by the potbellied head lifeguard, while the narrator says such clever things as, “This is a company anybody would love to inspect!” I’m sure they received “assistant” pay as well. The bland sexist assumptions of this film tell us just how far we’ve come in improving our view of women––the narrator seems throughout like he can barely believe that the “girls” can do all that lifesaving stuff. Another good film for an ephemera “ladies night.”

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

Ann and Eve Trailer (extra on The Toy Box/Toys Are Not for Children DVD (Something Weird, 2002)).

Lurid, over-the-top, slightly trippy trailer for an X-rated 70s Swedish film featuring two bad girls looking for sexual thrills. This is just what you’d expect, though it gets mildly campy in its over-the-top attempts to draw in the raincoat crowd.

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

Flower Fantasies (film #9 on Melies III: The Search for Munchausen (A-1 Video)).

And now, for the ladies in the audience, Melies presents some dainty magic tricks involving beautiful women and beautiful blossoms. Rather dull, but it might be better if the print was not so terrible and if the ending wasn't cut off. A Melies film.

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

Knife-Thrower and Children (available for download on Prelinger Archive).

Can you spell “child endangerment”? I thought you could. In this newsreel featurette, a mom who’s a circus performer throws knives at her two daughters, ages 5 and 2 1/2. Now I know she’s a skilled performer and the point is that she misses, but don’t scare me like that!

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