Because we are now fairly remote from the issues, it is easy to get the wrong end of the bottle when approaching films made at this time. This film is not advocating prohibition (it hardly needed advocating in 1925 because it was a fact)and the events it shows are quite clearly within the context of prohibition (the bottle changes hands covertly and we see it being topped up and refilled). It is actually designed to create awareness of a a very real danger that was not cured but largely created by prohibition - of the circulation of adulterated alcohol (the problem is frequently alluded to in the films of the time although usually as a source of comedy). The film would make no sense at all as a mere attack on alcohol (why does the bottle keep refilling itself and why are its effects so different as the story goes on?) but as a warning to avoid adulterated alcohol it makes very good sense indeed. Imagine it was about heroine and showed a syringe being passed from place to place and from hand to hand and it is easier to appreciate the purpose of the film.
2 Reviews
Ho-hum propaganda piece
lor_20 April 2011
Prohibition seems like a dumb experiment in American history, but this dull advocacy film shows the sentiment that brought it into law.
A trivia item in IMDb claims this to be the first film to use double-exposure technique, in this case to bring Rex Lease (who receives star billing for largely just standing there) full-size into a bottle, a crude effect, as the "spirit" of the gin bottle. I'm sure Melies and others pioneered the gimmick in their trick films a couple of decades earlier.
Repetitious and overdone, film shows over & over how people's lives are ruined by imbibing. It's a forerunner of the beloved exploitation "scare films" (REEFER MADNESS, etc.), but is laughably biased and obvious. Not to belittle the harmful effects of alcoholism, this short adds little or nothing to the discussion.
A trivia item in IMDb claims this to be the first film to use double-exposure technique, in this case to bring Rex Lease (who receives star billing for largely just standing there) full-size into a bottle, a crude effect, as the "spirit" of the gin bottle. I'm sure Melies and others pioneered the gimmick in their trick films a couple of decades earlier.
Repetitious and overdone, film shows over & over how people's lives are ruined by imbibing. It's a forerunner of the beloved exploitation "scare films" (REEFER MADNESS, etc.), but is laughably biased and obvious. Not to belittle the harmful effects of alcoholism, this short adds little or nothing to the discussion.
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