Out Of Control American Teens & The Government Tried To Stop It

Keep watching this as it has many story elements you would not expect. I have hundreds of World War II era (1940s, and 1950s) government sponsored so-called "educational films" in my collection and I recently came upon this one. Alloy have made many documentaries on American teenagers during different periods in the 20th century, I didn't know anything about what teenagers were doing during the years of World War II. I was born in 1941 and was a baby/ toddler during that time.

With so many men in the service and overseas involved in the effort to win the war, women/housewives went to work in the factories. Apparently teenagers, left to their own devices, went as the government saw it "out of control" behaving in ways that were against the "common decency" accepted at that time. the film points out that this was partially caused by what we knew as "latchkey" kids who came home from school with no parent present in the home and nothing much else to do but "get into trouble."

This is a March Of Time film which ran largely in movie theaters (there was no television at that time). It was produced by Time Magazine and paid for by the government. The incredible voice is Westbrook Van Voorhis and it is still recognizably unique after all these years.

Some of the scenes show teenagers doing things that surprised me as I thought that it was the baby boomers in the 1950s and 60s who did what is shown here. Sexual escapades with soldiers because "it was patriotic.” Marijuana (which I thought in the middle-class white families shown in this film did not become a problem until the 1950s). in fact some of the rebellions this film claims need to be stopped by parents, by school officials, church leaders and others, looked just like what is claimed to be the troubles that began in the late 1950s and exploded in the 1960s.

Time Magazine and many reviewers called these March Of Time films documentaries but it would be hard to call them documentaries as they presented very strong political and moral views. The producers claimed that some of the people performing in this and other similar films were real people not actors. This was released in 1943 during the middle of the war and was titled “Youth In Crisis." It was nominated for an Academy Award.

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