FREE TO OBEY: CONTROL AND CONFORMITY Sunday, January 16 at 4:00 p.m. We know that conformity was a big part of mid-century American culture, but most people are too young now to remember the intensity of the effort to regulate and control individual behavior at home, school and on the job. It was never easy to set the limits of acceptable conduct, and filmmakers invented many unusual and interesting ways to define them. At the same time, there was real transgression in Fifties America, and such films as Anger at Work and Perversion for Profit show how it was combatted. YOU AND YOUR FAMILY Produced by B.K. Blake, Inc. for Cowles Magazines, Inc. (Look magazine). Distributed by Association Films. 1946, 7 min., 16mm. Director: George Blake. Script: A.R. Perkins. Cinematography: Don Malkames. Editor: Leonard Anderson. One of the first social guidance films to be produced after World War II, You and Your Family is also an early example of interactivity in the way it poses direct questions to the viewer and seeks viewer intervention and discussion. This invitation runs against the stream of most postwar social guidance films, which tended to supply answers rather than encourage questions. (The major exception: Young America Films' Discussion Problems in Group Living series.) You and Your Family also hints at the war-induced fragmentation of the American family unit, which we discuss above in the SOCIAL GUIDANCE CLASSICS program. In essence, this film is a series of exercises in re-exerting parental control over independent adolescents -- but the adolescents are supposed to do all the figuringout about how best to fit in. THE BENEFITS OF LOOKING AHEAD Coronet Instructional Films, 1950, 11 min., 16mm. Director: Ted Peshak. Cinematographer: Dale Sharkey. Written by George Tychson. Editor: Dick Kirschner. Taking the "Goofus and Gallant" comparison to the ultimate, The Benefits of Looking Ahead shows destiny awaiting the Fifties slacker, and it is not too swift. Why are the bad kids and failures in old social guidance films always more engaging than the good ones? Perhaps because they fail in such interesting ways. When our hero fails to plan his shop project properly and is criticized by a fellow student, his fantasies quickly turn to becoming a full- fledged bum. Like all Coronet films, though, everything is resolved within ten minutes and the future turns brighter. OFFICE COURTESY: MEETING THE PUBLIC Encyclopedia Britannica Films, 1952. 10 min., 16mm. Produced by Hal Kopel. Depicting a detailed nightmare -- a common device in films abou white-collar behavior -- Office Courtesy follows the "Goofus and Gallant" model once again. As usual, however, transgression is so much more interesting than obedience, and the priorities of the film shift away from what the script literally says. MENTAL HOSPITAL 1953. 20 min., 16mm. Produced for the Mental Hygiene Division, Oklahoma Department of Health. Directed by Ned Hockman. Written by Dwight V. Swain. The films of Swain and Hockman are true lost classics recently rediscovered and popularized by film collector and exhibitor Jack Stevenson. In an article in Brutarian (Vol. 1, No. 1), Stevenson writes: "Mental Hospital is the story of typical patient Fred Clanton and his stay at the hospital for treatment of paranoid schizophrenia. Fred's wife, Betty, and a peripheral male, George, are introduced to set the ever vague dramatic context. Featuring excellent black and white photography and scored with period music that effectively if heavy-handedly accents the changing tenors and tones of the film, it seeks to humanize and demythologize the mental hospital by providing an overview of admittance procedures and patient diagnosis and treatment. The results are less than comforting, however, as we see patients undergo electroshock, ice pack and hydrotherapy -- the later two discredited by modern medical advances. The comforting narration and musical scoring wraps over some shocking visual images -- including spinal injections -- to give the film a creepy and bizarre cold bloodedness in places. On the other hand, a humane approach to patient treatment is constantly underscored. The mental hospital is depicted as a place of protection for those unable to cope with the outside world, a place of reorientation where increasing levels of freedom are afforded to responding patients. "Mental Hospital is well paced, well photographed and well written if horribly acted. It's a motley mix of the comforting, the creepy, the unintentionally hilarious and the intermittently bizarre, and yet it still very effectively communicates its original message." Stevenson further notes that Swain used producers, crew and friends to play mental patients since actual patients weren't legally competent to sign releases. Dwight Swain taught at the University of Oklahoma School of Journalism and published a number of texts on movie screenwriting which are still used today. Ned Hockman made "informational" films through the motion picture unit at the University; all were set in Oklahoma and made with Oklahoma actors. ANGER AT WORK: THE STORY OF THE HEADACHE SWITCH Produced by the University of Oklahoma for the Mental Hygiene Division, Oklahoma State Dept. of Health, 1956. 20 min., 16mm. Distributed by the International Film Bureau. Director: Ned Hockman. Writer: Dwight V. Swain. Assistant Director: Carl Stevenson. Cinematographer: Wayne Rock. With Guy Brown (Ed Wilson); Loren Brown (Frank McCoy); Garner Collums (Carter); Barbara Hughes (Sarah Wilson); Douglas Marrs (Joey Wilson); Alice Spann (Mrs. Nugent); Merola Grover (Miss Howell); John W. Dunn (Mr. White); and Charles Suggs (Tony Luciano). Another Swain/Hockman collaboration, this film shows methods of socializing workers who bring anger and uncontrollable emotions into the workplace. A description published at the time of its release said: "Anger at Work explains the 'headache switch,' one of the mental mechanisms of the human personality which involves displacement of anger onto other people and impairs one's efficiency. Presents several incidents depicting some of the techniques people have developed for handling such overwhelming feelings as anger, resentment and frustration. Tells the story of Ed Wilson as he begins a new job and what happens when he uses the 'headache switch' when he becomes angry with his boss." SOCIAL CLASS IN AMERICA Produced by Knickerbocker Productions for McGraw-Hill Films, 1957. 16 min., 16mm. "These three babies are equal under the law, but they are not equal in terms of class..." This straight-across sociology lesson breaks educational film taboo by speaking directly about social class, thus shocking the ears with its frankness, even though it ultimately remains within the realm of sociology. But what a bleak film! Beginning in a maternity ward, it follows three boys -- a working-class kid, a middle-class boy and the son of a factory owner -- from birth to adulthood, and shows how their destinies are largely determined by the class into which they are born. Centering on middle-class Ted Eastwood, who wants to be an artist but can't afford to take the risk of passing up a steady job, and who loses his girl to his rich Ivy League-bound classmate, the film emphasizes the frustration of those trapped between "happy workers" and upper classes. Along the way, it indulges in many stereotyped notions about how members of different classes interact, move and behave, and ends bleakly with closeups of the next generation in the nursery, who will most likely end up as their parents have done. And how, finally, does Ted Eastwood, trapped for life in the middle class, come to terms with the American social structure? (Hint: he begins by moving to New York City). PERVERSION FOR PROFIT Produced by an unknown producer for Citizens for Decent Literature, ca. 1962. 28 min., faded Eastmancolor, 16mm. With "Outstanding News Reporter" George Putnam. Produced by Charles Keating (yes, the banker implicated in the S&L scandals) as part of his early-Sixties anti- pornography crusade, P for P links homosexuality, lesbianism, violent crime, the Communist conspiracy and Satan. In essence, this film (which was produced to be shown in local communities seeking to promulgate anti-pornography legislation) sexualizes anti-Communist conspiracy theories by linking them with the mere existence and ready availability of pornographic materials. Although this film takes great pains to block out all the obscene portions of the examples it shows, the cumulative effect of the red censor bars and obsessional narration is to achieve new heights of prurience. .