These films are for anyone who loves to laugh at the past. Fascinating US government sponsored classic films collection for young persons all about the right way make friends. These films are hilarious. This is a rare look into the past when the post-WWII campaign for strengthening family, marriage, and the community was full stride.
Included Films:
Are You Popular?
Are You Popular?
Produced: 1947
Length: 10 Minutes
Are You Popular? is now considered one of the seminal social guidance films of the post-World War II era of social conformity. It covers sexual mores, appropriate limits of female behavior, cliques, telephone and date etiquette for girls and boys, the workings of the nuclear family, and the importance of good physical hygiene and correct posture. Within the context of white suburban middle class families, social groups, and schools, the film offers a utopian vision of the way many educators, parents, sociologists, and leaders in 1947 thought the world should be. Some of the advice is standard manners and etiquette, but much of it is crude by todays standards. Girls are divided into the broad categories of bad and good or popular. Popular girls are well-groomed, polite, and prompt. These girls belong to the vicious cliques that decide who should be rejected by the herd. Bad girls are those who park in cars with boys, talk and act crudely, and allow scandal to follow them. According to the film, such girls are not popular. It is tempting to believe that what this film offers is a glimpse into the real world of post-war America. What it really shows is the desperate attempt by authority figures to rewrite the rules by which adolescents navigated their social and sexual development in a world that was irrevocably changed by WWII.
Friendship Begins At Home
Friendship Begins At Home
Produced: 1949
Length: 15 Minutes
Friendship Begins at Home shows how strong family relationships are like friendships, and offer the same benefits. Barry, a teen sulking amid his angelic family, decides not to go with his them on their annual 2-week vacation. This disappoints his parents, and his mother warns Barry, I do wish youd show as much consideration for the members of your own family as you do for your outside friends! Maybe I would, he replies, if my familyd show me as much consideration as my friends do! Unfortunately, Barrys friends dont come through. Barry is left alone and desolate at home, haunted by the voice of his conscience in his head, and the double-exposure images of his family as they go about their normal activities. The importance of family to postwar American society is brightly illuminated in this wonderful vintage film.
The Fun Of Making Friends
The Fun Of Making Friends
Produced: 1950
Length: 9 Minutes
The Fun of Making Friends is a elegantly simple video made for children to watch if theyre having trouble meeting new people to play with. At first, Joey plays alone in his home, watching all the while at kids outside having a good time with each other. He asks his mother for help and, through four orderly steps, she tells him how easy it is to gain all the friends a youngster like Joey could ever want! After trying the rules out and succeeding, he finds it is fun to have companions to spend time with. An all-too rigid cultural dynamic of the 1950s is obvious through this vintage film, and it remains extremely interesting to see just how formal the social structures were then.
Shy Guy
Shy Guy
Produced: 1947
Length: 12 Minutes
Dick York, who later played Darrin on televisions Bewitched, stars in Shy Guy, a classic Coronet instructional film about how to fit in with the in-crowd. Phil and his father have just moved to a new town and Phil is finding it difficult to make friends and instead sits in his basement fiddling with electronics. Dad notices something is wrong and comes down into the basement for a little heart to heart with his son. Phil is shy, and finds that the kids here talk, act, and even dress differently than they did in his hometown. Dads advice is to observe the popular kids to see what makes them tick, and then to emulate them in order to become popular. Phil starts stalking and eavesdropping on the popular kids, and finds out that the secret to their success is that they act interested in others, offer to help others, and tell others about their own experiences. Phil tries this out, offering his state-of-the-art radio system for the school dance, and he is soon a member of the in-crowd. Its hard to find a better example of the forced conformity expected in postwar America.
