Mental Hygiene: Better Living Through Classroom Films 1945-1970
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Between 1945 and 1970, millions of public school students were subjected to hundreds of films designed to keep them on the straight and narrow. These cultural gems “enlightened” the nation’s youth about proper dating, good table manners, the evils of dope, and what happens to teens who drive too fast on prom night.
Author Ken Smith embarked on an exhaustive nine-year search for these obscure educational films. The result is this fascinating stroll down memory lane. Smith has gathered titles such as Worth Waiting For, Posture Pals, Last Date, Highways of Agony, and Soapy the Germ Fighter. Included are interviews with writers and directors, detailed descriptions of these unintentionally hilarious films, and commentary on the social engineering behind them.
Publisher : Blast Books; First Edition (November 19, 1999)
Language : English
Paperback : 240 pages
ISBN-10 : 0922233217
ISBN-13 : 978-0922233212
Item Weight : 1.6 pounds
Dimensions : 7.25 x 0.75 x 10.25 inches
Customers say
Customers find the book informative, detailed, and scholarly. They also say it’s easy to read and does a good job of describing the films.
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6 reviews for Mental Hygiene: Better Living Through Classroom Films 1945-1970
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LM in DC –
Hilarious treasure chest of AMerican camp!
what a terrific book! I laughed, I cried, I spent the whole weekend reading aloud Ken Smith’s synopses to my roommate.I expected the book to make fun of the films and condemn the filmmakers’ obvious authoritarian attempt to control teenagers. But in giving a social history of the films, Ken Smith actually paints a sympathetic picture, explaining that these films were made in an attempt to deal with postwar social turmoil and anxiety. He clearly thinks the films are funny as hell, but he also has a lot of respect for the filmmakers, and that comes through.In the second half, he gives hilarious synopses of his favorites. This is clearly a man who devoted a lot of time and attention to his project. Not only does he spot returning actors, he even points out props that were re-used. This is truly an indispensible guide for any fan of these campy classics.One correction (or update) to the book… Ken Smith writes that you can’t see these films anywhere unless you go hunting for the original 16mm versions. I actually found a website that sells video compilations, including many of the films Smith mentions. if you do a Yahoo search on “mental hygiene films” you should turn it up fairly easily.also, if you *do* want to track down the 16mm originals, they’re available on online auction sites.
Molly McGee –
Hilarious
The best way to use this book is to turn to the actual descriptions of the films in the second half of the book. Once you’re finished either laughing or being horrified, go back to the beginning and read the history of the various low- budget production companies involved.Subjects vary widely and include personal hygiene, dating, atomic bombs, and drug abuse. My favorite are the dating films. Boys wearing patent leather shoes, suits and neckties, looking like tiny Baptist ministers ask out girls wearing saddle shoes, long wool skirts, and fuzzy sweaters over white cotton shirts. Both go somewhere very public and follow many, many rules of etiquette, after which the boy drops the girl off at her front porch and…shakes her hand! They’re so stiff and awkward, and hilarious.The most disturbing one is about the duck-and-cover drills. My dad saw this film in school. You’d have to believe the filmmakers were either totally naive or just distributing government propaganda here. Is there any way the makers of this film really believed that putting a newspaper over your head or ducking under a blanket would really help if an atomic bomb went off in the vicinity? It seems likely the public believed it, which makes this gem all the more surreal- at once hilarious and terrifying.Note that there are only small black-and-white pictures and lots of text, though the text does a really good job at describing the films. To get the full effect, I recommend the “shorts” dvds that are produced by MST3K or RiffTrax.
Elvis-from-Hell –
Great but I wish there was more.
As a connoisseur of vintage mental hygiene films, and driver’s ed. scare films in particular, I found the back story about how these films got made both fascinating and engrossing. I especially enjoyed reading the story behind “Signal 30” (now widely considered to be the “Citizen Kane” of the driver’s ed scare film genre). The only shortcoming of the book is that I wish there were reviews of more films. The author is upfront about not purporting to catalogue and review all such films (there are literally thousands of them) but I would have liked to see a more comprehensive treatment of the subject in order to help me track down the obscure gems still locked away in some high school janitor’s broom closet. Could it be that I smell a sequel: “Mental Hygiene – Volume II???”
Chuck Donegan –
A most unusual, yet fascinating, film history book!
Ken Smith has offered a fine chronicle on the history of a unique-for-its-time learning device: the educational film. Once regarded w/suspicion by conservative school authorities, the post-WWII years changed all that and showed just what an effective tool it really was, leading to a boom in this one-of-a-kind “genre” that lasted about 25 years, and Smith has really done his homework here, viewing countless films and offering some fascinating information. Highlights include:- The rise and fall of the 2 biggest educational film studios, Coronet and Centron- A bio of the largest independent educational producer, Sid Davis- Mini-summaries of more than 150 filmsOne highlight comes in the opening “primer”, when Smith laments that “neither the public archives nor the private footage libraries seem inclined to release these films for viewing, but perhaps this will change” (remember, this book was written in 1999). And change it has, thanks to video sharing sites like YouTube, Google Video, the Internet Archive, etc…they’ve given new life to these films and provided them w/a whole new audience!
Douglas Glassman –
A Must-Have for MSTies
The shorts were some of the best parts of MST3K episodes, and Rifftrax continues to perfect the short-form riff. Ken Smith’s book catalogs the subjects, filmmakers and histories of the mental hygiene film in an easily-read manner. The narrative he creates is fascinating, as the shorts’ subjects change from dating tips and women’s hygiene to drug prevention and the infamously gory driving films. In the second half of the book, Smith guides the reader through the most interesting and notable films. Fittingly, MST3K and Rifftrax have taken on many of them, but there are so many more they can do. This deserves a spot on your shelf next to the Amazing Colossal Episode Guide and Leonard Maltin’s film guides.
John E. Palmer –
An OK read… wish I hadn’t spent …
An OK read…wish I hadn’t spent the money on it, though.