"Still" In Business

Duration: 28 min

Genre: Educational

Year Published: 1963

Creator: U.S. Internal Revenue Service, Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division

Format: 16mm

Color: Color

Sound: Sound

Country of Origin: United States

Description: This roughly 27-minute U.S. government information film comes from the IRS's Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division and dates from 1963. It opens as a travelogue of the South, then turns to the remote backwoods, where it reveals a hidden still and warns that moonshine is made in filthy conditions and often carries enough lead from radiator condensers to poison drinkers. The film follows how the division recruits and trains criminal investigators, with Civil Service exams, the Treasury training school, fingerprinting, tire-track casting and radio work. It then shows a staged field operation in which agents stop a car hauling liquor, trace it back to a still and arrest the operators. After stressing the lost tax revenue ($10.50 per proof gallon), it contrasts the moonshiners with a federally supervised, sanitary commercial distillery. The film cites enforcement figures (8,629 arrests, 6,296 stills destroyed) and urges viewers to support tougher sentences. It closes with an overview of the National and Federal Firearms Acts, covering registration of machine guns, silencers and short-barreled weapons, before reminding tourists that federal agents are watching the Southern hills.

Metadata Source:University of Georgia Brown Media Archives