You and Your Family

About

Social guidance film depicting family conflict situations with actors staging a range of alternative approaches to conflict resolution. Film includes prompts for spectator discussion. From the "Art of Living" series.

When Mary's family refuses to let her go out on a date, what should she do? What happens when family members shirk their chores? How can Bill and his father agree on what time Bill should get home at night? These scenes are shown dramatically, then summarized, and each spectator is invited to join in the discussion.

Great footage of typical late-1940s family in various typical family situations acting out three to four different possible outcomes to those situations. Girl is asked out on date but parents say she can’t go. Mother asks for help with dishes at dinner table and family makes excuses. Teenage son comes home late and wakes up father knocking over table with phone, and Father says he can’t go out for a week.

Synopsis: CU old-fashioned telephone with rotary dial; phone rings, camera pans out and 1940s teenage girl answers phone. VS teenage girl on phone “Yes this is Mary. Oh hello Frank! What? You do! Well just a minute, I better ask”; girl asks parents if she can go to dance out on lake with boy. Mother denies girl and Father confirms. Narrator asks “What should she do next?” Mary tells boy on phone she can’t go and sulks. Scene is repeated where girls asks parents if she can go but this time seeks a compromise to have him over after parents have said no; parents accept offer. Scene is reenacted again with girl asking parents this time she overreacts “I just knew it, no one in this family wants me to have any fun at all. I wish I were dead!” Fourth reenactment girl is denied permission; however, she goes and whispers into phone that she will sneak out.

VS family around dinner table. Mother asks for help with dishes. Daughter excuses herself by saying she has too much homework. Father says he has to read the paper. Oldest son says friends are waiting on him. Youngest son decides to help.

CU pan up wood pendulum driven grandfather clock which reads 12:45.

VS teenage boy comes home late at night and trips over stool with phone on it and falls onto the staircase. Father wakes up and asks boy why he is home so late “What kept you, son?” Four takes show boy give four different reactions by boy to father’s question. First, boy makes an excuse about friend getting hurt and Father says “Are you sure you’re telling the truth, Bill?Bill answers “Of course I am telling the truth. The trouble with this family is nobody ever believes me!” Second take Bill answers father’s question “Where were you Bill” “It’s none of your business, I’m not a kid anymore. I’m old enough to take care of myself. And beginning now that is just what I am going to do. And I’d like to see you or anyone else try and stop me”. In the third take, teenage boy apologizes and accepts punishment.

Archive

Internet Archive, in Prelinger Archives

Licence or status

The Internet Archive states none for this item.

Rights statement

"Copyright MCMXLVI Cowles Magazines, Inc." Copyright not renewed.

Credit

Association Films, B.K. Blake, Inc, George Blake

Language

English

Subtitles

English (automatic)

Who can watch

The archive gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Kids profiles and older, judged from its collection and subjects. How films are placed