Safe...Not Sorry (DVD)

Though the era of 16mm educational cinema has come to a close, those quirky films unspooled in the mid-century American classroom continue to fascinate viewers today. And no group of titles is more popular than the safety films. Presenting scenarios that couldn’t be depicted in a textbook or described from a lectern, safety films capitalized on the drama and spectacle of death—lurking around every corner, in every pair of scissors, in every overloaded electrical cord, on every park bench where a stranger pets a puppy.

The techniques employed by the fourteen films in this collection include: slapstick comedy (Step Right Up, on ladder safety), docudrama (Our Obligation, a large-scale reenactment of a tragic schoolhouse fire), fantasy (Safety: Harm Hides at Home, which features an accident-fighting Wonder Woman knock-off named Guardiana), and animation (Lucky You, from the legendary Jam Handy studios). And no safety collection would be complete without an homage to the "King of Calamity," Sid Davis (the child-molester film Dangerous Stranger and the unintentionally sadistic Live and Learn).

The films include:

Dangerous Stranger
Sid Davis Prods.
1972 Color 10 Min.
Don’t Touch
Institute of Makers of Explosives
1972 Color 7 Min.

Say No To Strangers!
Irvmar Productions
1963 Color 10 Min.

Ten Long Minutes
National Safety Council/Pilot Prods.
1961  Color 12 Min.

Live and Learn
Sid Davis Prods.
1951 B&W 12 Min.

Ghost Rider
Pennsylvania Dept. of Transportation
1982 Color 15 Min.

Lucky You
Jam Handy
1958 Color 17 Min.

One Got Fat
Interlude Films
1963 Color 15 Min.

Safety With Animals
Grover-Jennings Productions
1961 Color 12 Min.

An Outbreak of Salmonella Infection
U.S. Public Health Service
1954 Color 13 Min.

Safety: Harm Hides at Home
The Film Company
1977 Color 16 Min.

Step Right Up
Film Communicators
1977 Color 18 Min.

Trigger Happy Harry
National Rifle Assoc./Business Films
1946  Color 21 Min.

Our Obligation
Los Angeles Fire Department
1960 Color 24 Min.


Curated by Skip Elsheimer
Produced for video by Bret Wood

This collection was mastered from vintage 16mm prints circulated among schools and rescued, decades later, by collectors. The image and sound quality of these orphan films do not conform to Kino’s usual standard.