International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1934)

CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE DANGER OF VENEREAL DISEASES 791 vided the patient does not neglect his own part of the treatment, but continues it for the necessary time. The film must have human interest and must not contain any scenes that are liable to make a painful impression. The scenes must be of a kind that can be shown to young men and girls, or mothers, and that could not in any case be discouraging to a possible sufferer from the disease who might be among the audience, but should put him on his guard and instruct him. Other conditions may be fulfilled according as the film is a documentary or dramatic picture. The film presented by the Propaganda Commission of the National Office of Social Hygiene, which illustrates a lecture given by Dr. Rabut for the French National League against the danger of venereal diseases, seems to us a typical documentary film. But it is not the documentary film only that must instruct the general public. It is infinitely better, nine times out of ten, to instruct the latter without giving it the impression that it is receiving a lesson, and it is much more effective to have thousands of persons flocking to see a film in the ordinary way and paying for their seats, quite unconscious of the fact that they are looking at an educational film, than it is to get a few hundreds of persons together, with difficulty, to see a film which is admittedly a purely propaganda film. On the other hand, although dramatic films of this kind are not easy to make, they can be made, as experience has shown. From the very beginning, excellent work has been done in France in this field by Dr. Devraigne, head physician of the Lariboisiere Maternity Hospital, the film being prepared for the screen by M. BenoitLevy. All those who have seen the film, and they number some hundreds of thousands, know that it is called « The Three Friends », and everyone is agreed that it has all the qualities required in an educational film. I have already laid stress on the fact that this film illustrates in a surprising way the possibility of making known everything, of saying and indicating everything on the screen while preserving the utmost delicacy in every scene. It deals mainly with hereditary syphilis. The idea which the film endeavours to impress on all, and which, if understood and followed, vould save the lives of thousands of children in France every year, is this: if you are affected with syphilis, even though you had it long ago, if you have not been properly cured, if your parents suffered from it and were not cured completely, you will certainly bring into the world stillborn children, cripples, diseased children, perhaps even monsters. There is one thing only that can prevent this disaster: have yourself examined and if necessary undergo treatment in a hospital or social hygiene dispensary, or even under your own doctor. This should be done when there is the slighest doubt, or better, even though you have no suspicion of there being anything wrong, because one can never be sure of one's ancestry. I do not think it would be possible to carry out cinematographically this hygienic advice, which would save some thousands of youthful lives, in a more feeling, subtle or profitable way than has been done in this film, « The Three Friends ». The consultation at the hospital for the young mothers and their babies is a masterpiece of feeling and truth. Nor must we forget the representation of the nutritive and microbic exchanges between mother and child before birth, which has been given in M. Mourlan's animated cartoons. The music is stopped; in solemn silence the audience follows in outline on the screen the contagion that passes along the veins and arteries to the foetus, when the mother is diseased, by the work of treponemes. It is with a genuine feeling of relief that we see the effects, still sketched in out