Social guidance films constitute a genre of films attempting to guide children and adults to behave in certain ways. Typically shown in school classrooms in the USA from the 1950s through the 1970s, the films covered topics including courtesy, responsibility, sexuality, drug use, and driver safety ; the genre also includes films for adults, covering topics such as marriage and how to balance budgets.

Social guidance films were generally produced by corporations such as Coronet, Centron , and even Encyclopædia Britannica, but the films were also produced by maverick independent filmmakers such as Sid Davis, dubbed by author Ken Smith as the "King of Calamity" for his often calamitous narratives.

Notorious social guidance films include Duck and Cover (instructing children to duck under their desks in case of nuclear war, and including the famous cartoon with the turtle and the stick of dynamite to illustrate the point), Reefer Madness (which shows highly exaggerated effects of cannabis consumption) and Boys Beware, including the line "What Jimmy didn't know was that Ralph was sick--a sickness that was not visible like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious--a sickness of the mind. You see, Ralph was a homosexual, a person who demands an intimate relationship with members of their own sex."

Additional resources

• Mental Hygiene: Classroom Films 1945 - 1970, Ken Smith, (c) 1999, published by Blast Books, ISBN 0922233217
• Our Secret Century , a collection of 12 CD-ROMs compiled by film archivist Rick Prelinger

External link

• Duck and Cover