the good old days

One out of three accidents occur at intersections, so watch this 1973 drivers’ ed film to teach you how to deal with it. Or, just watch it to laugh at the weird juxtaposition of the gangsters in 1920’s clothing driving a 1970’s getaway car. There are a few sequences with stop-motion photography, but it’s nowhere near as well-done as in Live and Let Live; overall, very dull. Are we really surprised that it’s hard to make intersection right-of-way rules exciting, though?

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One thing they mention is that you’re supposed to travel in the passing lane(s) on the interstate, and stay out of the entry lane (unless entering or exiting). I’m going to have to watch more drivers safety films, because I always learned to stay as far right as possible unless you’re passing. Or, this might simply be advice more applicable to places like Chicago (where I think this was filmed) where on-ramps are found every half-mile, rather than places where I grew up like Middle O’Nowhere, Ohio, which have ten mile stretches between exits.

Office Courtesy: Meeting the Public (1952) reminded me slightly of why I quit a job years ago — I wasn’t willing to put up with the bullshit Barbara has to, although it’s her job to do so and it wasn’t mine.

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I’m amused by the mild undercurrent of familiar touching between the two roommates. I really doubt it’s the impression Encyclopaedia Britannica Films intended to portray, but hey, it’s 1952, an open-minded time that accepted everyone’s sexuality. But we’re here to learn about secretarial attitude, not lesbians!

It’s mildly fun to see Barbara and Ruth sitting there sniping about Mr. Franklin’s secretary (who, frankly, deserves it). Apparently future secretaries were best educated by showing them snarky bitchery. But it also drives home how annoying it really is to be a secretary. Do everything, be cheerful and friendly to everyone… jeez, you even need to swallow your gum whenever the boss walks in the room.

When I worked at a small company, I was eventually moved to a office by the front door. It’s a 30-person company, so I was asked to “chip in” by answering the door and greeting guests (when I objected, I got a lecture on my lack of team spirit). It was incredibly annoying; I constantly having my work interrupted, and it didn’t make it more “fun” if I had a cheerful, positive attitude towards whatever strange visitor was dropping by. (And I did have a cheerful, positive attitude, at least on the outside.) I’m an engineer, not a secretary, and so it was infuriating to be put in that position; it was one of the reasons I was happy to leave.

Shortly after I did move on, they hired a receptionist (who doubled as an HR something) for that office, but had an impossible time finding another manufacturing engineer to do the many things I had done… teaching another valuable lesson, prioritize your employees’ workload based on what you really need. They lost a lot more man-hours by having an incompetent engineer and a cheerful receptionist.

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Some of the advice is good, like “wash and peel fruits and vegetables that were exposed to fallout.” Some is a bit more questionable, like piling hay around your barn to protect your livestock. All of it is amusing, though.

I’d love to get my hands on a copy of some of those brochures, particularly “Your Livestock Can Survive FALLOUT.” I doubt they’re terribly common, though…

Ike The Bike is your narrator and guide through the 1978 film I Like Bikes. While its pacing and slow narration seem best suited to grade schoolers than 16-year-olds in drivers ed, it’s clearly trying to warn new drivers about the difficulty of noticing bicycles and the importance of keeping an eye out. Full of bike-car safety lessons and 70’s fashion… and a wee bit of drivel.

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The film centers around Lisa, who used to like — nay, love — bikes when she was younger. However, as soon as her license arrives in the mail (yes, kids, the license used to take time to make), she drives over her bike with a car. Yes, she runs it over. No more bikes for her, just that gas-guzzling boat of a Cadillac! But Ike still optimistically insists that she likes bikes, showing many situations in which she has a chance to demonstrate that by watching closely for bicyclists and not running THEM over like she did her own bike.

At about 10 minutes in, Ike goes on a minor tirade about the fragility of bikes. “Little things upset us” can also be read as a caution to the car-driving world — bikes are touchy and swift to anger, do not incur their wrath! That’s the lesson I’d like to leave you with today… some day, bicycles will rise up against their automobile oppressors and retake the roadways of the world. And they’re just the gateway vehicle for the dreaded unicycle riders.

While the title made me think it would be about how to safely make a u-turn, the 1936 Turnabout Man is actually about road rage. I waffled for a while whether to use this for an Etiquette film or a Driver’s Safety film; however, its messages have larger implications for societal etiquette, so you get it on a Tuesday.

The basic plot is simple: a driver magically begins to drive the way he lives his normal life (politely), and conduct himself the way he drives (not politely).

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Reckless, rude driving has an interesting parallel with internet anonymity. In 1930, well before Teh Web, an automobile was the closest you could come to that, since the speed and enclosed vehicle effectively removed you from personal contact with pedestrians and other drivers. When there’s anonymity, it’s easier for the true nature of a person to show itself — through “road rage” or through ignorant, shortsighted, and rude discussions/comments on blogs and forums. I seriously doubt that people were constantly charming to each other before cars and computers (although who knows, I wasn’t alive then), but it must have been riskier to be a total asshole when you had to walk away from whoever you were insulting.

This is one of those film titles that would go really well with dramatic music after it… The Last Date [DUM DUM DUM!]

Dick York was only 21 when this was made in 1949, so it’s not unreasonable to see him trying to play a high school jock. It is funny, though. It’s also worth watching to see where the well-known phrase “teenicide” originated. What’s that — you’ve never heard of teenicide? I guess that’s because you’ve never seen this film!

Please enjoy the plentiful innuendo sprinkled throughout…

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One of the funniest lines: “Tea doesn’t come from China, silly! It comes from Ceylon… or somewhere…” which goes to show that despite the permanent disfigurement resulting from the accident, Jeanne will still have a fulfilling life since she’s so smart. (Ha! Just kidding! She’s ugly now and the 1950’s will not accept that; she’s destined for a life of being pointed at and ridiculed, perhaps a long-term career as a circus freak.)

What’s the Big Hurry?
(IMDB claims it was made in 1970, but there’s no copyright date in the Prelinger version)

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Surprisingly gore-free for a Sid Davis film, there’s still plenty of carnage if you count wrecked cars. This was filmed almost exclusively in a junkyard, with smashed and damaged auto bodies scattered about. (Apparently this makes for great fun if you’re a car aficionado and enjoy identifying cars, even when they’re mangled.)

Live and Let Live, produced in 1947 by Ætna Insurance, is one of the few Driver’s Safety films that I’ve watched and thought, This would actually be great for drivers to see. It covers the basics quickly, so you’re not bored to death by each point. At times it gets a bit preachy (what driver’s safety film doesn’t?), but it doesn’t feel heavy-handed like some do. I really like the stop-motion animation; the models are well done, as are the background scenery and roads. (Model train enthusiasts will be excited to know there are plenty of locomotives included, although the only purpose of their existence is to crash into careless motorists.)

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One intriguing note: Around 6 minutes in, look carefully — you’ll see a blinking green light at that intersection. Not many of those left anymore!

In British Columbia and a few U.S. state, a flashing green signal is used at a pedestrian crossing, at which pedestrians have the ability to stop traffic to allow a safe crossing….

In several European countries, a flashing green light is used in crosswalks to indicate that signal is going to change from green to red soon. Therefore, flashing green has roughly the same meaning to pedestrians as ordinary yellow signal has for motorists.

Wikipedia claims that a flashing green can be found in Cambridge and Somerville, but in my seven years living there, the only one I ever saw was at an intersection in Middle Of Nowhere, Massachusetts.

My mother always chided us to practice our manners, even at home, because “Some day you might be invited to the White House, and you wouldn’t want to have bad table manners there!” While this may depend somewhat on whether you’re a particular fan of the President who invites you, it’s a valid enough point — we practice good table manners so we don’t look like uncivilized, disgusting pigs when we’re dining with other people. So far, the most I have been able to apply this to is business dinners, as it is a bad career move to eat like a slob (especially if you’re a working woman, your manners must be impeccable). I expect that the White House is rather far off in the future.

For today’s Etiquette Instruction, we return to the classroom film format which I love so well. Emily Post herself narrated this 1947 mental hygiene film called Table Manners.

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Manners for the most formal dinner party are exactly the same as they are at home!

Translation: Emily Post is very formal at home.

This is a surprisingly high-level discussion of table manners, showing adults instead of children as its subject. I suspect the target audience was not in a classroom, even a high school one, but rather the film was made for showing at the Emily Post Institute itself. (Maybe they had etiquette classes or something. I can’t find much information on its history, and their website publishes various points of etiquette rather than a history of the Institute and its mission.)

But back to the film! I found it hilarious that there is advice on how to eat spaghetti. That’s probably the one meal that I would never imagine being served at a dinner party — maybe it was considered fancy in the 40’s! Finally, I learned that I don’t eat soup correctly (I tip the spoon towards me, not away) and have never done quite the right thing with soup spoons. Damn, ma, why didn’t you teach me that — now I’ll be the laughing stock of that White House dinner!

Tired of all those 30’s Chevy ads masquerading as safety films? Me too! So today’s offering, made in 1957, is None For the Road: Teen-Age Drinking and Driving. I expected it to be a bit more “mental hygiene” than “driver’s safety”, a teenagers are out of control and drinking OMG WTF film — but the main characters are teenagers only because its intended audience is new drivers. The message applies to drivers of any age, and it’s surprisingly balanced.

A professor of physiology opens the film by explaining it revolves around two seemingly unrelated items: a good-luck charm and an ordinary hypodermic syringe. You may be beginning to see that the professor of physiology is not the best character in this film.

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So, through the magic of science, we learn that alcohol blunts your reflexes and makes driving dangerous. This is a subject that required serious scientific study? I knew a lot of people in college who wished their research was “devoted to alcohol and its effect on the human body.” You’d think thousands of years of humans getting drunk and losing their coordination would be pretty compelling, but nooo, this guy has to get rats drunk and see how well they can hold onto thin metal bars. Hey, whatever it takes to get your NSF grant renewed, right?

Humor aside: please don’t drink and drive, ever — for your own safety and everybody else’s.