TO YOUR HEALTH

This 1956 British Technicolor animated film directed by Philip Stapp and produced by Halas & Batchelor for the World Health Organization uses cartoons rendered in a mid century modern style to address the issue of alcoholism through metaphor, caricature, and abstraction (TRT: 10:17). Distributor title card: "This film has been provided as an educational service by the Michigan State Board of Alcoholism" Opening titles. "The World Health Organization Presents, To Your Health, Color by Technicolor, a film by Philip Stapp." Credits continue: "Supervised by Professor E.M. Jellinek, Music by Matyas Seiber, Animation by Brian Borthwick and John Smith, a Halas and Batchelor Cartoon" (0:09). Animation begins: A starscape traces an outline of an international everyman, toasting a drink. A constellation of bottled drinks follows. "John" becomes tipsy and clumsy at a part, then floats out the door, soaring into a pink sky (0:48). John falls back down to earth, hungover. A stereotypical lady prohibitionist speaks out, followed by an advertising pitch man, a snooty academic, and a bespectacled intellectual. John wishes he could have unbiased facts. A doctor approaches him (1:45). A trio of doctors in a laboratory examine beakers of colored liquid with microscopes. Illustrations of grain, grapes, resulting beverages with ratios of ethyl alcohol indicated in yellow (2:24). Yellow lines trail into an illustration of a stomach, spreading out across a cutaway drawing of a man’s body. Cells are enveloped in alcohol. The liver transforms the substance through oxidation (2:58). Drunkenness is explained via an animated illustration of the brain, represented with humanoid figures in a "control center." Reasoning, inhibition, memory, vision, hearing, and coordination are represented. An "early man" working a bellows succumbs, representing heart stoppage (3:42). John, drunk, gets behind the wheel of a car and puts a key in the ignition. Brakes squeal offscreen. John in a jail cell (5:06). Cartoons of social drinkers. A man in glasses faces tensions: A wife, a boss, a busy urban crosswalk, newsboys with newspapers foretelling "doom" (5:27). A shadow passes over a man’s face. Tensions are represented. A series of occasions for drinking escalate to drinking alone in an alley (5:53). Drinks pour before unblinking eyes. A domestic dispute. The man hangs his head and carries suitcases to a new, squalid environment (6:55). A haggard face. Abstract shapes form above it (7:40). The man awakens in a hospital bed, holding an outline of a bottle. Doctors and nurses appear. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is invoked in narration (8:01). Cavemen transform into ancients, conquistadors, colonists, a modern wedding (8:43). Superstitions and prejudices against non-drinkers are represented. Previous scenes in review (9:13). John takes a drink, then finds himself trapped in a large glass. He shatters it with a smile (9:42). Halas and Batchelor was a British animation company founded in 1940 by husband and wife John Halas and Joy Batchelor which initially created wartime information and propaganda films. Their London and Cainscross studios produced dozens of educational shorts, as well as the 1954 feature adaptation of George Orwell’s "Animal Farm," the 1964 Oscar-nominated satire "Automania 2000," and the 1979 promotional film for the band Kraftwerk’s "Autobahn." This artful P.S.A., notable for John Halas and Brian Bortwick’s succinct, colorful, "cartoon modern" treatment of alcoholism, remained in circulation for decades after it was produced. According to the CDC, excessive alcohol use is responsible for more than 95,000 deaths in the United States each year. Alcoholism is a leading cause of preventable death in the United States.

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Transcription

[Music] [Applause] oh [Music] here is any man john johan juan [Music] your health [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] alcohol what is alcohol anyway alcohol is the root of all evil down with king alcohol have you tasted the delicious flavor of bacchus sparkling nectar it's drinking causes most of the world's misery it's the miserable state of the world that causes so much drinking why can't i get some unprejudiced opinions some facts facts for years alcohol students have experimented analyzed and weighed the evidence [Music] so far this is what we know alcoholic beverages can be made from almost any fruit or grain [Applause] each containing different amounts of ethyl alcohol alcohol of course enters the stomach and intestines and from there it's rapidly absorbed unchanged into the bloodstream in this stream it circulated again and again through all the organs through each and every cell of the body as it passes through the liver alcohol is gradually changed into acetaldehyde and then into acetic acid which in its turn is changed into water and carbon dioxide by other body tissues in this way most of the alcohol is gradually oxidized but for a small part which is eliminated through the breath and the kidneys but drunkenness how is that cause well you see alcohol is an anesthetic which is brought to the brain in the bloodstream imagine the brain as a complex control center which determines our actions and behavior [Music] when alcohol enters the brain it interferes with these functions first to be affected is reasoning power then inhibition and memory gradually alcohol affects vision speech and hearing eventually muscular coordination is affected if all these faculties are put to sleep your consciousness goes [Music] leaving only the automatic processes such as the control of breathing this is overcome the heart stops alcohol must be very dangerous very few people die from taking too much alcohol at one time but there are other dangers [Music] see what i mean why why do people drink most people drink because it's the accepted customer some drink to escape the tensions of everyday life but for a few people alcohol becomes an obsession such a man begins with some deep conflict in his personality [Applause] his friends drink for relaxation but when he drinks it's to escape his conflicts so he begins to look for drinking occasions as often as [Music] when he possible find any other excuse he sneaks a drink alone eventually there comes a time when he pulls a blank forgetting everything he's said or done later when sober he can remember only fragments now after a few drinks he can't stop for him alcohol is no longer a beverage it's become a drug then follows reproof resentment [Music] aggression remorse he loses his job tries to start again in another town it doesn't work you can't begin the day without a drink [Applause] and after one drink he must have more and more and more more until he lands in prison or the hospital depending on whether his community understands that he's not a criminal but a sick man whom the only price of freedom is to break away completely this isn't easy he needs help there are doctors social workers and nurses who understand the alcoholic and can help him and there are those who once were alcoholics themselves whose understanding comes from experience alcoholics anonymous but why do people continue to drink in spite of these dangers alcohol has been used since the beginning of time when it was believed to be the stream of life a brotherhood of blood later became a brotherhood in wine the contract signed and sealed in alcohol would not be broken birth betrothal marriage all celebrated in the cup the roots of superstition are deep listen i'm afraid we can't trust bob he won't drink with us look how well bill holds his liquor he's a real man but doctor if i stop drinking people will think i'm peculiar you see alcohol means many things to many people to some it means release and to some torture the problem stands will alcohol control us [Music] [Applause] [Music] or can we control alcohol

Sources

16mm Filmography (legacy record) — title, year, format, description, catalog record, video

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