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THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Dirty Commie Bastard!
14:30 Sat 11 Jan 2020
The term ‘ephemeral film’ was first coined by film archivist Rick Prelinger to categorise films including social guidance films, police training videos, and PSA’s, specifically made for non-artistic purposes. Veering from insidious propaganda to the hilariously misguided, this strand offers a portal into the prejudices, fears and desires of a not-so-distant past.
After the Second World War, the USA was gripped by the ‘Red Scare,’ a national paranoia that the country was being infiltrated by communist spies.
This hysteria found its natural home in the burgeoning educational film industry, through the technology of the day and by using schools and workplaces as screening venues, corporations were able to disseminate anti-communist material at an alarming speed.
Collectively, these films display the absurd rhetoric used to warn citizens of insidious communist tactics and the concomitant, lingering threat of nuclear annihilation. Programmed by Tom Grimshaw. 87’
This retrospective is kindly supported by The Prelinger Archive and AV Geeks.
Regent Street Cinema
W1B 2UW
Access
Please find all access information here, or drop a line to Helen MacKenzie at access@shortfilms.org.uk for more information or special requests.
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WHAT IS COMMUNISM?
14 mins (US, 1963)
Hosted by Herbert A Philbrick, celebrated double-agent for the FBI, this film is an excellent record of one of Philbrick’s lectures about the evils of Communism he would give across the country. -
DUCK AND COVER
Anthony Rizzo 10 mins (US, 1951)
This film, a combination of animated cartoon and live action, shows young children what to do in case of an atomic attack. -
OUR CITIES MUST FIGHT
Anthony Rizzo 9 mins (US, 1951)
Civil defense film admonishing U.S. city dwellers to stay and fight in case of enemy invasion, rather than evacuate. -
THE HOUSE IN THE MIDDLE
Federal Civil Defense Authority 12 mins (US, 1954)
Atomic tests at the Nevada Proving Grounds show effects on well-kept homes, homes filled with trash and combustibles, and homes painted with reflective white paint. Asserts that cleanliness is an essential part of civil defense preparedness and that it increased survivability -
PERVERSION FOR PROFIT (PART 1)
Charles Keating 14 mins (US, 1964)
A vehement diatribe against pornography, the film attempts to link explicit portrayals of human sexuality to the subversion of American civilization, and briefly draws a parallel between pornography and the Communist conspiracy. -
RED NIGHTMARE
George Waggner 28 mins (US, 1962)
An adaption of the film, Freedom and You, this deals with the nightmare situation of an American citizen who finds himself in a Communist village and is rudely awakened to his civic responsibilities."