By Ken Smith. 1999, Blast Books.

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Review by Scott Adams
Readers of a certain age will remember the excitement of walking into a classroom and seeing the film projector set up. Whether viewing a film on the horrors of drugs and alcohol, the spreading of cold germs, or how to apply for a job, students were promised at least 10 minutes of diversion from the boring classroom.

Teachers liked the films as well because they provided them with 10 minutes to hang out in the faculty lounge. Today, most of these short films are used as a source of campy laughs, or in commercials as a contrast to today's "extreme" roller blading kids. In Mental Hygiene, Ken Smith takes a different view of these often-ignored films. Smith, the author of Roadside America, takes a rather straightforward approach to these films that were designed to influence the behavior of a generation of children.

Thousands of these films were produced from 1945 to 1970. Rigidly defining right and wrong, there is no room for shades of gray in these films. Millions of children viewed these films, as they circulated throughout schools for years. Although most of these films were out of circulation by the mid-seventies, I remember watching a movie in high school around 1987 where a crew-cut wearing "social scientist" explained how "thousands of schoolchildren spend each weekend getting stoned on beer."

Mostly made in the Midwest, these films capitalized on postwar fears about teens and their new freedoms. World War II training films showed that film could be an effective teaching tool, and progressive educators embraced the idea. Many of the films had open endings ("What would your class do?") and were designed for classroom discussion afterwards. One thing that tends to be forgotten today is that these were idealized pictures of America. The kids were square, but that was the point. These were views of a society as it should be, not necessarily the way it was, in the hopes that children would imitate the images on screen and not turn into goofball-selling punks. As evidenced by their behavior in the sixties and early seventies, the lessons didn't always take.

These films strongly emphasized fitting in and conforming to society's norms as a solution to your problems. While this may seem alien to contemporary viewers, the people behind these films were mostly servicemen who had experienced the virtues of fitting in and "being a team player" on the battlefield.

Smith explores these films by genre and producers, uncovering the fascinating stories behind the films' birth. The producers of these films were a varied lot, mainly ex-servicemen and businessmen who had been bitten by the movie bug. Classroom films were made quickly and cheaply and guaranteed an audience.

Coronet, the gold standard of mental hygiene films, churned out a film every 4.2 days. David Smart, the founder of Coronet was the super-suave publisher of GQ and Esquire. How suave was he? Well, Smart was the owner of an early Matt Helm like motorized round bed, in the thirties. Coronet films were more like "real" movies than other films, and are the ones that showed up most frequently on Mystery Science Theater and compilation tapes.

While most of the films demonstrated how fitting in and following the rules would make you happier and healthier, a number of them took the "let's scare the crap out of the little punks" approach. In these films, children who drove recklessly, took drugs or horsed around during shop class would be blinded or jailed if they were lucky, with an unsympathetic narrator intoning something like, "Well, how do you feel now?"

Danger was around every corner, and even your own home wasn't safe, what with all those exposed wires and fire hazards. Sid King was a master of this genre, tackling subjects such as drug abuse and child molesters. King's harsh looking films usually had a stern narrator who knew all about teenaged "wise guys." This genre also included the driving films featuring the grisly aftermaths of traffic accidents. After just reading the descriptions, I'm surprised these didn't result in a nation of children who would rather take the bus or walk.

Smith rounds out the book with capsule synopsis of about 300 films. Since a large portion of these films are damaged, destroyed or unavailable to the general public, this might be the only place to learn about a young Frank Sinatra teaching racial and religious tolerance while calling kids "first class fatheads."

Labels: Film Studies