Have I mentioned that I love movies? Boy, I sure do! It was about this time about five years ago when I happened across a very cool website—the Prelinger Archive. I know that many of my friends have heard me mention the site before, but I also know that many of my friends aren’t reading this blog anyway so I’ve fodder for another writing topic. The Prelinger Archive is located in
A couple of weeks ago Rick Prelinger, who created the archive, came to the university where I work to speak mostly on issues of access to public domain material. As he was recapping a brief history of the online version of the archive, he mentioned that the response to the site was much greater than they anticipated and the tremendous number of users caused the site to crash. During a break in his talk, I went up to introduce myself and to apologize for being one of the guilty parties that caused the crash.
Of all the movies available for downloading, by far I’m a big fan of the social guidance films. These cheesy “how-to” films geared towards kids and teenagers are very dated in terms of their presentation, but their core message, for the most part, remains intact. I’ve literally a ton of these movies downloaded onto CD-Rs, so much so that I’m not even sure anymore exactly what’s in my collection. But there are a few standouts that I can recommend.
Dating Dos and Donts /What to Do on a Date
Where were these films when I was 25? Gosh, I sure could have used the swell advice these films dole out. Maybe my dating career wouldn’t have been so disastrous had I known about taking a girl to a weenie-roast or to a carnival, where she could perform erotic mouth and tongue gestures on a huge pile of cotton candy.
A story of a boy who doesn’t take care of his toys, or anything else for that matter. For some reason I think the kid looks a little like a young Michael Stipe. I showed this one to my daughter who understood the basic premise: clean up after yourself, take care of your toys. Now, whenever she sees roadkill either in or next to the street, she imitates the best line in this movie: “Aw, they’re dead!”
Let’s Be Good Citizens at School
This one’s a freakish little film where it’s reinforced that being obedient in school results in being a better member of a democratic society. Includes a nice profile of Harvey, the gayest, um, I mean, the happiest kid in school, as he marches past his adoring fans, waving like Il Duce to the admiring throngs. Did they have Ritalin in 1953?
Three kids pretend they enjoy family dinners and their parents while they secretly scheme to kill them for the insurance money. A recommended movie, but creeeeeepy.
Dinner Party
A girl tries to throw a birthday dinner party for a friend and everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. The patronizing narrator is a very nice touch; he makes the Catholic Church pale in comparison in terms of guilt factor.
Dining Together
Two lobotomized children in tacky sweaters celebrate a fairly sterile Thanksgiving. Pure science fiction; we all know that 99.9% of all males over the age of seven are glued to the television on Thanksgiving, either watching football or the cool toy commercials during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. This film will make you happy, and it’s good to be happy.
A film so unspeakably bad that Ben Affleck could conceivably star in a re-make. Two children, the generic Dick and Ann, travel by “magic helicopter” to see Santa before his trip around the world. As luck would have it, the North Pole looks A LOT like the typical 1950s ranch-style house. It has the look of a Christmas party gone wrong, with the spiked eggnog-laden parents waking the kids at 2 in the morning because they have a great idea for the Super 8 camera.
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