1950's mental hospital propaganda, admit your relatives! FREE!
Fred Clanton is committed to the Oklahoma State mental hospital because he thinks his wife Betty and friend George are conspiring against him. What if he's right? The film is honest about how the hospital is not only for mental patients. Pesky relatives can be put away there involuntarily all it takes is an incurious judge at a rudimentary hearing to commit them. Its also place where adult children dump their unwanted, elderly parents when they're too old to work anymore. And it's a work farm staffed with unpaid patient labor.
kind of like todays prison system, find a problem, then solve it through forced labor
kind of like todays college system, put the person into debt, then let them roam the free world doing what they wish but they will pay you interest on the knowledge they have gained throughout their life, maybe, just maybe they will be able to buy their freedom
The patients are treated by insulin therapy, shock therapy and hydrotherapy; all these techniques seem brutal and medieval. Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, Fred is issued a pair of denim overalls (the women wear calico housedresses) and is treated with insulin therapy (whatever that is). Finally, he's considered cured and happily leaves the hospital in the company of the same Betty and George who got him locked up in the first place. And how sane are they? Betty looks tense and withdrawn. George seems manic. No wonder they put Fred on edge. Now that he knows the ropes, maybe Fred can turn the tables on them. George especially, looks like a good candidate for some of the hospital's treatments.
A University of Oklahoma Production. Produced for the Oklahoma State Department of Health in cooperation with the State of Oklahoma Department of Mental Health. Distributed by International Film Bureau.
Director: Layton Mabrey.
Scriptwriter: Dwight V. Swain.
Coordinator: Jim Bragg.
Photographer: Wayne Rock.
G.F. Mathews, M.D., Commissioner, State Department of Health.
Charles F. Obermann, M.D., Director, Department of
Mental Health.
Psychiatric Consultants: Charles A. Smith, M.D., A.A.
Hellams, M.D.
"Recognizable personages appearing in this film are not
patients in a mental institution." (According to Dwight Swain, patients were played by producers, crew and friends, since actual patients weren't legally competent to sign talent releases.) Filmed in and around Central State Hospital, Norman, Oklahoma. Jack Stevenson's article on Swain and Hockman appears in Brutarian (Vol. 1, No. 1).
Documents the case of a mental patient who is treated for schizophrenia (paranoid type) at the Oklahoma State Hospital. Summarizes the treatment of a patient from admission to the hospital to the time of discharge. Explains
the methods used in the treatment of mental diseases and stresses the value of occupational therapy in rehabilitating patients and the need for an atmosphere of calm and security.
TITLE CARD: Recognizable personages appearing in this film are not patients in a mental institution.
PARANOIA / DEPRESSION / INSTITUTIONALIZATION: Man's voice over as he is driven down a gray, snowy road. HE IS VERY PARANOID. He leans his head against the rear window. There's a close up of his eyes, then hands, then mouth. Men in dark, tweed jackets lead him into the hospital.
MEDICAL ABUSE: Nurses examine Joe. He has blood taken from his arms, a chest x-ray, and a spinal tap.
PARANOIA: Joe talks to an Oklahoman psychiatrist (with a southern accent).
He says, "They're turning my wife, you know, Peg, against me. They're taking up all of her time." Joe rings his hands. The psychiatrist replies, "Why do you think they're doing you this way?" Joe answers, "Well, I've been working on this for years. They don't know it but I'm on to them."
PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING: The narrator describes various treatments for psychological disorders, and we view these methods in action (which look somewhat barbarous to today's viewers). First there's insulin shot therapy in which a patient receives a shot (camera pans down to twitching feet), then electric shock, hydrotherapy, and cold pack therapy.
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