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MovieMail's Review
Alex Davidson enjoys delving through this wonderful new archive from the BFI.
This marvellous box set, using rare materials from the National Film and Television Archive, collects a number of sex education films from 1917 to 1973 and can be enjoyed on many levels. As a historical record of Britain’s attitudes towards sex, it is invaluable. Up until the liberated 1960s, sex is often only indirectly referenced; mother and father do their best to explain intercourse with the aid of some pussy willow in How to Tell (1935), but virgins in the audience must have been baffled, whilst Mary Field’s The Mystery of the Marriage (1932) tries valiantly to equate human sexuality with that of snails, sticklebacks and mould!
Inevitably the early films depict premarital sex as a fast route to disease, with the effects of syphilis and gonorrhoea described in slavering detail. Premarital sex is still disapproved of as recently as 1973, as the hapless heroine of Don’t Be Like Brenda! discovers to her peril. Misogyny prevails throughout the films; otherwise decent soldiers on leave find themselves seduced and infected by wanton floozies, whilst it’s invariably the woman rather than the man who brings STDs into the family home, as in The People at No. 19 (1949), a surprisingly well-acted melodrama short concerning syphilis.
On another level, the unintentional humour prevalent in almost every film reaches sometimes hysterical proportions. Campy lines pepper the dialogue (a personal favourite: “Curse You Dad, I was dirty born, and you are the reason why!” from the fabulously titled Whatsoever a Man Soweth (1917)) whilst the recurring motif of sex as a terrible sin is laughably dated.
The most famous – and controversial – inclusion is Dr. Martin Cole’s Growing Up (A New Approach to Sex Education) (1971), an educational film that includes erections, male and female masturbation and an unsimulated sex scene. The predictably outraged tabloids had a field day, whilst the woman featured in the film was fired from her job. Although its frankness still shocks (and a scene that would never be filmed today involving naked children shows how attitudes have again shifted), it now seems incredibly ahead of its time, especially when compared to the other films in the collection.
(The Joy of Sex Education started life as a programme in the BFI Mediatheque, and its success lead to the making of this box set.)
New music scores for two films from Dave Formula of the British Post-punk band Magazine
Fully Illustrated 40 page booklet.
Film Description
From the impenetrably euphemistic to the breathtakingly explicit, this intriguing anthology takes us through 60 years of sex education in Britain from the 1910s to the 1970s. All ‘unmentionable matters’ pertaining to sex are dealt with in these 16 films, from the WWI warning to soldiers about the dangers of cavorting with loose women in London’s West End (Whatsoever a Man Soweth, 1917), to puberty pep-talks for girls on how to avoid pregnancy in Don’t Be Like Brenda (1973).
Features: Whatsoever a Man Soweth (1917, 38 mins), Any Evening After Work (1930, 27 mins), How To Tell (1931, 21 mins), The Mystery of Marriage (1932, 32 mins), Trial for Marriage (1936, 28 mins), A Test for Love (1937, 28 mins)
The Road of Health (1938, 11 mins), Love on Leave (1940, 33 mins), Six Little Jungle Boys (1945, 9 mins), The People at No. 19 (1949, 17 mins), Growing Girls (1949, 12 mins), Learning to Live (1964, 19 mins), Her Name Was Ellie, His Name Was Lyle (1967, 28 mins), Growing Up (1971, 23 mins), Don't Be Like Brenda (1973, 8 mins), 'Ave You Got A Male Assistant Please Miss? (1973, 4 mins).
