BFI

This public education film publicises the dangers of leaving venereal disease untreated using the example of a man who contracts a sexually transmitted illness but prevaricates about going to the doctor when symptoms begin to show.

The British Social Hygiene Council was the renamed educational body formerly known as The National Council for Combating Venereal Diseases (NCCVD), which had been set up at the beginning of the Great War. The target audience was young men and the film would have been shown in an educational context, non-theatrically.

Unlike the warning films produced for the military in time of war, the portrayal of the young woman doesn't imply that she is involved with prostitution, but the implication is that she needs no persuasion to have sex with the man. The matter-of-factness with which the scene is presented would seem to indicate that the Council regarded casual sex as a significant problem in the spread of sexually transmitted illnesses.

Bryony Dixon

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