Public safety/information films

[Inspector Abberline]

Look At Life.
Volume 7 Business & Industry
Special features division of the Rank Organisation made over 500 of these short films,its a crazy mixture of Public Information Film and travelogue with the added twist that you will probably learn something as you watch,maybe you have always wanted to buy an old coin down the market or perhaps you have always wanted to be catapulted out of test car to see if those new fangled seat belts work.Or perhaps your daughter puts her make up on like a slut and needs some advice from cosmetic industry,or perhaps you want your daughter to look like a trollop instead of a lady.Yes you guessed it most of these films are from the 1960' and early 1970s,when women were treated like ****ing morons and men with walrus moustaches and tweed suits ran the country.A bygone era that reeks of colonialism of the British Empire,when we had an industry to flog to johnny foreigner,I mean we don't make these films any more because what have we to sell as a nation ,call centres and internet trolls,not exactly the steel industry is it.Saying that we do get an insight into the stock exchange and banking ,back when banking meant looking after money and not pissing it out on hedge funds. Id be here al night if I was to review every film on here,over three disc are 60 short films ranging from gun tooting house wife's to making rope,personally this is a brilliant series of dvds if a tad expensive,but if you want to see prize winning bullocks where else you gonna go? and as for the price of Potatoes don't get me started.

[Susan Foreman]

I'm sure that some (if not all) of these have already been mentioned in this thread

The 10 Scariest Public Information Films Of All-Time | Twohundredpercent

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Inspector Abberline

but if you want to see prize winning bullocks where else you gonna go?

Code Red's Facebook page?

[Inspector Abberline]

Hell's Highway - The True Story of Highway Safety Films

When we look back at the public information films of the 1970 and early 80's they do seem somewhat harsh,but then again that's the point,no good if it doesn't drive home the danger of what ever it is there warning you about,if all you gonna do is go MEH and still stick your fingers in the electric socket or dive head first into the nearest canal while hiding in an abandoned fridge.And as the list posted previously showed they were and are effective,so why aren't they still being shown?and more to the point,in this day and age we could be even more graphic in our depiction of our kids frying themselves on the nearest power lines.In fact if you want to get more in your face with PIF then you need to go back in time to the 1950's,when the driver educational films were being made. These volunteer film-makers from Ohio didn't piddle about by hiring actors to look all sad because they drove into the car in front,no these guys would chase ambulance's and arrive at the scene of a crash,sometimes even beating the emergency services to the scene,by listening in to the police radios.
With such titles as Highways of Agony (1969) and Wheels of Tragedy(1963) they were deliberately titled to grab the attention of any restless pupils who were to watch these driver education films in the classroom,and if the title weren't enough then the on screen carnage of twisted metal and limp bodies being dragged from the vehicles should of kept them at least glued to there seats.Even by today's standards with its You Tube happy slapping and such like you will not have scene anything like this outside of Mondo movie,especially considering its audience were teenage kids on the verge of getting there first car.These films make the top ten list of scariest public information films look decidedly very weak indeed. The dvd set has an in depth documentary on the history of the film-makers,with tons of clips throughout and three short films include as well.

[Susan Foreman]

[Inspector Abberline]

Signal 30 (1959)

“Now comes the nauseating task of removing the shattered hulk of a life that had been lived so little.”
starts with a policeman giving out instructions to a patrol man to attend a crash, signal 30 is code for fatality at a crash. The first crash is a car with 7 people in who fail to stop at a junction and is flattened by a truck carrying cows. We also get an insight into what a state patrol man does on a day to day business. Next up two trucks who hit head on, we get the rather nasty scene of a charred and dead driver being removed from his cab. And on and on it goes, relentlessly the bombardment of either charred cadavers being taken out of cars or rather flattened motorist whose cars have spat them out for them to only land on top of them. If the image of people wrapped around tree posts or trapped by there own steering column wasn't enough how about a lorry driver who is crushed by his own load. Its a pretty grim and relentless barrage of images that does not relent for it 27 mins running time. While Richard Wayman's Signal 30 is undoubtedly gruesome oddity, other rival film makers would up the gore in future driver education films.

[Inspector Abberline]

Red Asphalt (1964)


This time another 1960's capsule from the driving education school of scaring the hell out of youth of the day.This time produced by the California Highway Patrol again we are introduced to a patrol man and a rookie camera man out on his first assignment to film the the latest human road kill.Film making wise this is not Spielberg,actually it resembles an HG Lewis movie more than anything,at least in this there is a sound reason why the acting is pretty terrible.Also thematically there is no difference to this film and any other road safety movies,the only thing that really changes throughout the years is the fact they get more gruesome.The first RED Asphalt film is fairly tame compared to most,allot of the injuries on display are minor head wounds caused by hitting the wind-shield,but as the film progresses through its carnival of wrecked,burnt ,bent and trashed vehicles the blood does decidedly get more fluid,In particularly two airline pilots who didn't bother wearing belts in there car and suffer some terrible head damage with the blood saturating the pairs heads.After a while I thought I would get use to seeing these sort of things,but just maybe its having the apposite effect on me,Im finding it more difficult to sit through these films.And as the film finishes,Im thinking wow I made it through another one they left the worst crash to last,as a car is literally torn in two and the driver is dragged out of his car with his jaw hanging of.

[Susan Foreman]

Sorry for the short notice, but this may be interesting

Tonight (Friday, 15th July) - Freesat channel 156 - PBS America [No idea on the channel number for Sky and FreeView)

10.15pm - 11.55pm - 'Sex(ed) the Movie': The awkward and often hilarious ways Americans have learned about sex, from the early 1900s to the present.

Sex(Ed) The Movie - Home

[Inspector Abberline]

Been re-watching the BFI's COI Collection,just a wonderful compilation of Public information films and short documentaries..This may be the rantings of a man getting older but the known the wiser,But I think a lot of life's problems would be solved if you plonked some these ne'er-do-well in front of PIF. Of course you would have to modernise it for today's youth,and have one about walking into the road while staring zombie like into your phone ( if they have made one I still don't care.let the twats learn the hard way)..

[Inspector Abberline]

"Apaches" UK Public Information Film (1977)

Apaches is the Bay of Blood of public information films, It tells the innocent story of a group of young children playing cowboys and Indians on an old farm.But like any good slasher movie, the body count is extremely high..The first poor sod to die, just as he manages to hijack a tractor and trailer for the Indian nation, unfortunately he does not get very far and falls under the wheels of the trailer, leaving only a blood smear stain and a broken rifle on the floor.The second poor lad to die comes to a rather sticky end as he manages to fall straight into what looks like a manure pit, slowly sinking down into the goo, it looks fairly comical until it dawns on you exactly what he is sinking into.As the kids explore the old farm, seemingly unaware that their numbers are slowly dwindling, they discover some jars of innocuous liquid, and yes you guess it the girl drinks some (showing off to the boys no doubt).Her screams in the night fill the night sky as another bites the dust.Still unperturbed by the fact that this group of friends seems to have a bigger death wish than your average Bronson movie, the smaller group are back again playing cops and robbers, and at least one robber goes behind bars as a giant wrought iron gate falls on him and crushes the poor mite. Now down to just two boys, one wonders what terrors are left to inflict on these young uns.How about driving a tractor down the embankment. And just to drive home the point the whole thing is narrated by one of the boys, right up until his own funeral, where we see his poor family grieving and having what he calls an adult party, but what turns out to be his wake,crikey ...and I thought Swap Shop on a Saturday morning was grim.