Age of Turmoil (1953) User Reviews

Ben Cartwright Fixes Everything

[Calaboss · 6/10 · 5 August 2017]

This was an unusual educational short about adolescence. I don't have a clue who it was shown to. It doesn't seem like the kind of short that was shown before new release movies. And it seemed more aimed at parents than the kids it wants to explain, so I can't imagine it was shown in schools either.

Narrated by Lorne Greene, who would go on to play patriarch Ben Cartwright in Bonanza a few years later, this short seems to be trying to explain why kids in their early teens act as they do. I thought it odd that parents would need this explanation, as I'm pretty sure teens have acted just the same way, adjusted for societal differences, for many thousands of years. Things were the same for me in the 1970's, when I thought my parents were idiots and didn't understand anything. And teens today think the same about their parents.

Young girls talk trash about other girls and their own family members, worry about fashion, and whether boys like them. Young boys fight, and talk about girls, sports and cars. No new ground being broken here that I could see. But it was rather reassuring to hear old Ben's distinct baritone tell us that everything was going to be OK.

This wasn't a bad short. It actually seemed better than many of the era. And nothing said here was particularly untrue, but I don't understand why it was needed, or who it was intended for. Young teens are moody and selfish slobs. Let me write that down for future students of "Well Duh! 101". B&W, under 20 minutes and available on Youtube.

So You Want To Kill Your Teenager

[boblipton · 6/10 · 21 January 2024]

You've spent more than a dozen years with the little dears, and loved them tremendously, but now they're changing. They're surly and annoying and all the other stuff that we never were, nosiree!

Well, according to this McGraw-Hill industrial film, that's perfectly normal, as they enter this new phase of life. They're not just growing taller. They're growing up, and trying to deal with the burgeoning problems of adulthood, especially sex.

Lorne Green narrates this movie. You may know him as the father on reruns of BONANZA, but he had already spent a considerable career in documentary and industrial movies.

One of the reviewers expressed surprise at a book publisher getting into film production. In this period, McGraw-Hill was known for textbooks. Perhaps that's why they made a series of what they called "Text-films."

what and where and who

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 1 November 2023]

This is a production from McGraw-Hill Book Company. The narrator is Lorne Greene. It's a famous familiar voice. I'm not sure why a book company is doing an educational short film. Quite frankly, the thinking process in that is much more fascinating than what is actually in the short itself. I don't know where this was shown and to whom. It's written like a scientist studying primates in the wild. It's very 50's. It's like an owner's manual for the parents. It's an interesting time capsule. If not in actual reality, it is what is popular opinion about the changing dynamics in America at the time.