Split into 7 (!) parts due to the university network not allowing uploads over 10mb.
I find this public information film from the late 1950's to be quite perplexing. For some reason, it solely warns against the dangers of gossip of all things. That's right, gossip. Not the dangers of carrying offensive weapons, the dangers posed by muggers or the dangers of crossing the road, but the dangers of gossip. Now maybe it was a more innocent time, or maybe I'm missing the point, but I don't really understand why effort was put into creating a film about gossip.
Surely it only makes people paranoid and untrustful of others to say that gossip could be so destructive? I mean, the girl was going to have to leave school just because someone started a rumour that she might have fooled about with some random jock.. my, how times must have changed.
Or maybe the film was produced with the point in mind of scaring people into being more careful around others. Scare the viewer into not trusting others with idle gossip about themselves, and maybe the viewer won't trust people with bigger information. I know I go back to this repeatedly, and maybe I'm wrong, but I think that most of these films are masked propaganda, this one being a prime example. Why else would one make a film like this?
This particular film is a great example of the very traditional public information film... the kind of public information film that is frequently parodied. Note the very austere narration, supplied to us by the amazing headteacher that manages to save the day, and save a pupil from expulsion (because she *may* be a slag, you see), and the rampant sexism on display from the beginning until the end.
Times may have been different then, but it goes to show just how much women were treated as second class just fifty years ago. But bless them, they try their hardest not to be sexist. The myth that it's only women that gossip is sensationally broken.
The very end of the film says it all really. 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.' From that alone I sense that this film isn't as innocent as it makes out to be.
