Field Guide to Sponsored Films - National Film Preservation ...

Fears of Children
135. FEARS OF CHILDREN (1951, sound, 27 min, b&w, 35mm)
SPONSORS: Oklahoma State Dept. of Public Health; National Association for Mental Health; Mental Health
Film Board. PRODUCTION CO.: International Film Foundation. DIRECTOR/WRITER: Francis Thompson. PRODUCER:
Julien Bryan. CAMERA: Peter Glushanok. EDITOR: Joseph E. Dushock. CAST: Rex Thompson, Anna Minot Franz,
Peter Hobbs, Sarah Cunningham. RESOURCES: Copyright not registered; Lucy Freeman, “Film Unit Set Up for
Mental Ills,” NYT, Oct. 14, 1949, 29; Dorothy Barclay, “Parent Education in Films Stressed,” NYT, Dec. 12,
1951, 62; Dorothy Barclay, “Banishing Fear,” NYT, Dec. 16, 1951, 196; “Evaluation of New Films,” Ed Scrn 31
(Apr. 1952): 156–57; “Fears of Children Film Discussion Guide,” The Coordinator 4 (Sept. 1955): 25–26.
HOLDINGS: AAFF, LC/Prelinger, MacDonald, UGA.
Subtle case study produced for parents, teachers, and mental health professionals on the importance
of constructive parenting in overcoming childhood fears. The parents of a healthy
five-year-old do not grasp why their child fears entering a cave. The mother tries to be sympathetic,
but the father shows impatience. Feeling anger at his father, the child drowns his
stuffed bear. After the parents take time to think about their son’s behavior, they resolve to
show greater understanding, and father and son reconcile. “Psychiatrists alone cannot solve
the mental health problems of our nation,” said a Mental Health Film Board spokesperson
commenting on the film. “More and more it will be the responsibility of parents, teachers,
nurses, doctors, and ministers” (NYT, Dec. 12, 1951). NOTE: A companion pamphlet was
issued under the same title. Third in the Mental Health Film Board’s Emotions of Everyday
Living series. Primarily distributed in 16mm. The Mental Health Film Board, founded in 1949
by psychiatrists and filmmakers, sponsored psychiatric films for professionals and the general
public. Rex Thompson, the son, played Louis Leonowens in the movie The King and I.
136. FEELING ALL RIGHT (1948, sound, 32 min, b&w, 16mm)
SPONSORS: Mississippi State Board of Health; United States Public Health Service. PRODUCTION CO.: Southern
Educational Film Production Service. DIRECTOR: Fred Lasse. PRODUCER: William T. Clifford. WRITERS: George
Stoney, Nicholas C. Read, W.A. Mason. CAMERA: Gordon Weisenborn. CAST: Eldred Marshall Jr., Blanche
“Blandy” Parks, Florida Marshall, George Mix. RESOURCES: Copyright 1Feb49 MP4607; Hodding Carter,
“‘Double Feature’ Fights Syphilis,” Wash Post, Mar. 27, 1949, B5; “NAACP Protests Film Showing,” NYT,
Aug. 20, 1949, 7; Cecile Starr, “Films with a Purpose,” in Ideas, 53–55; Hodding Carter, “Mississippi Movie,”
in Ideas, 56–58; Raymond Spottiswoode, “Feeling All Right,” in Ideas, 183; 1954 Catalog, 6; Sex Ed, 158–61.
HOLDINGS: LC, MacDonald, MoMA.
Public health film informing African Americans about syphilis and its prevention. Feeling All
Right contextualizes the problem by focusing on a community affected by the disease and the
local organizations that are leading the fight against it. The film ends as it begins, with images
of home, family, and neighbors. “Its frank and simple appeal is a welcome relief from the
histrionics with which producers usually overburden the subject of syphilis,” wrote Raymond
Spottiswoode. NOTE: The film was part of a government multimedia campaign to combat a
disease then infecting an estimated 20 percent of Mississippi’s African American population.
The production was filmed on a $30,000 budget with a cast of nonprofessional actors. In its
first year of release, Feeling All Right was seen by an estimated 1 million viewers. Notable was
its use in 60 Mississippi Delta towns in conjunction with a mobile syphilis-testing unit. Public
health officials reported testing 15,000 people and treating 1,765 cases. The NAACP opposed
distribution of Feeling All Right. Roy Wilkins, the group’s acting secretary, was quoted in the
New York Times as saying that it would “bolster that school of thought that would relegate
Negro Americans to exclusion, separatism, and inequality in places of public accommodation.”
Dr. W.A. Mason, credited with collaborating on the script, was a Georgia public health official.
For more about the production company, see John N. Popham, “The South Sees Itself
via Its Own Educational Films,” NYT, Jan. 22, 1950, 85.
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