cut to ECU of Dr Joyce Brothers

September 22, 2009 1:14 PM

Name this 1960s NFB sex ed documentary!

A while back (5-8 years ago?) I caught an old documentary on TV.
- It was definitely in black-and-white
- The subject was basically sex ed, but it wasn't the typical health class film strip; it seemed to be aimed more at parents.
- I'm reasonably certain it was a production of the National Film Board of Canada, but searches of the NFB site have turned up nothing.
- Early 1960s?
- It was part cinéma verité (very Maysles-esque) and part talking heads.
- The verité parts involved high school students and/or their parents talking to a guidance counselor.
- The talking heads were unusually close-up (forehead to chin?), and I'm pretty sure one of them was Dr. Joyce Brothers or Dear Abby or someone like that.

I seem to recall that it aired as part of one of those retro-doc series the CBC sometimes does, which I thought was hosted by Kenny Robinson, but imdb's got nothing.

This is driving me bonkers. Help!

posted by Sys Rq to media & arts (4 comments total)

I hope I'm not stating the obvious when I suggest looking through archives.org educational film section. They have a lot of sex ed (sexual hygiene) films from that era. A few people have posted a lot of them on youtube, too. I am sure you will find it if you give those two sources a good look.
posted by vincele at 1:34 PM on September 22

Nope.

To be clear, this was a surprisingly progressive and cheese-free documentary.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:12 PM on September 22

Have you tried NFB in a worldwide search engine like WorldCat? Chances are a university or public library has a copy of it and it'll show up in a massive catalog like WorldCat.

If you don't have access to WorldCat or other university-strength search engines, memail me and I'll do a search to see what NFB has produced. I love these kind of films, although what you're describing sounds more serious than what I usually love.

Also, look on imdb under Joyce Brothers, Dear Abby and so forth. If one of them were in it, she should have gotten a credit.
posted by vincele at 10:01 PM on September 22

Found it! The Merry-Go-Round. (It was Ann Landers!)

Boy, that NFB site sure is one crazy, unnavigable labyrinth. *sigh*
posted by Sys Rq at 10:53 AM on September 23