Be Excellent To Each Other

Mythical old public information film where a traditional British schools sports day is set on a railway to highlight the dangers of playing near railways has surfaced on youtube.

Possibly more shocking today then when I originally saw it - who in the world devised for it to be presented the way it was?

Technically safe for work, though you'd maybe be better avoiding for now.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=88wFQuv9g_Y
http://youtube.com/watch?v=p-HoG5BTdoA&feature=related

Cor yeah, we had a whole discussion on these a year or two back. Someone has a rather unhealthy obsession with them - is it you, Chinny?

My "favourite" one was on the farm with the kids playing Cowboys and Indians.

Mere seconds in, I can't help but feel that anything involving the death of this idiot child could be safely considered a happy ending.

SPLINK!

Apaches... brr, that one's terrifying! I always remember the 'man-trap' one and the one where the kid tries to grab the frisbee he's accidentally chucked in an electricity substation scaring me silly when I was a kid. My actual 'fave' Public Information Films have got to be the whole 'Protect And Survive' ones, about what to do should the UK get nuked into oblivion. Great tea-time entertainment there!

There was one about 15 years ago that used to terrify me - I think it was a carbon monoxide one. It went something like "You can't see it, smell it or taste it. But it will kill you in your bed, at random. Sleep well!"

Thanks for that Zen, i'd only seen the short version of this one.

I'm fairly interested in them, I can't remember who was majorly so. The Protect & Survive type ones are my fave too. Had to switch off that QED documentary about a 1 megaton bomb airburst over St Paul's about half an hour in, though. It was a bit too much. Ludovic Kennedy's sinisterly dispassionate voice over didn't help either.

Obligatory Threads ref here.

Brrr.
Say no more.

Ha, this is quite good actually, after the stupid child start. It's so much less patronising than the shit we get today - when the kid's hurt, it's just a slow, quiet pan over their faces. The cheerful fun of it is neatly juxtaposed, too.

All star cast. I think Kevin Flood played shitty 80's robot man chameleon in Doctor Who. Don Henderson also slumming it somewhere in there. Think he might possibly be the train driver.

Peter Hill who played Arthur Brownlow in Crossroads can also be seen as the announcer in white.

I find it unsatisfying that limbs aren't flying everywhere frankly.

The apache one (which I've just watched again) is really quite well acted.

That one (the finishing Line) was really creepy. Reminded me of clockwork orange in style and tone. In fact the last sequence in all was quite Kubrick

Indeed. I find I bizarrely get a little choked up by that, particularly (if I remember right) after the girl drinks the poisonous liquid and it cuts to an outside image of her house with the sound of her crying out over it. Brrr!

I think it was Dr. A that was really into the public information films.

The bit that really got me about apaches (if I'm remembering it rightly) was how nonchalant the school teacher was when peeling the name stickers off the coat-hooks and emptying the desks as the children carked it one by one