Know for Sure (1941) User Reviews

Well worth seeing just for the cast...

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 8 May 2010]

If you are a fan of classic Hollywood films, then you might get a lot out of seeing this film--about, of all things, sexually transmitted diseases. Why? Because seeing J. Carroll Naish, Ward Bond and Tim Holt all playing guys with VD is such a shocker--after all, these guys and many other famous character actors appear in this seldom-seen film.

As far as the actual quality of the film goes, it is of dubious quality. While some of the information is quite correct, the preachy style probably resulted in many laughing off the important information in this short film. In addition, Naish should have been ashamed of himself for playing such an incredibly stereotypical Italian-American. It was almost as bad as having Chico Marx playing the part.

Well worth seeing for fans of the strange and obscure.

LOL Ward Bond was 38...!

[ss47912120 · 5/10 · 23 June 2022]

Then-38-year-old Ward Bond sitting there fretting about syphillis, what he worried wasn't a plain ol' cold sore, after picking up a girl in a "dance hall" (was this 1941 or 1891?)as well as asking the doc if drawing blood is "going to hurt much" is good for a laugh. The doc even refers to him "as "kid" and "young man". You'd think Ward knew about prophylactics by then. Plus there's J. Carrol Naish, as always cast in an ethnicity he wasn't, as an over-the-top Italian stereotype.

Screamingly funny

[cinnatusc · 8 July 2004]

Yes, the director of the amazing "All Quiet on the Western Front" made an educational film about syphilis. Don't expect art, this thing is pretty atrocious, but hilarious, especially the flagrant Italian stereotype in the opening. "It was just a little sore!" If you're wondering how Lewis Milestone wound up "reduced" to this, it's actually his contribution to the war effort in the '40s, later re-edited into an educational film for America's Youth. The original is, to my knowledge, currently unavailable and probably lost. Not that we miss it, but it's sort of too bad. This can be found, in its "safe-for-schoolkids" form, on the "Educational Film Archives: Sex and Drugs" DVD from Fantoma.

Social history

[djpass-1 · 6/10 · 16 September 2007]

This film is not in the league with "Sex Madness" and other exploitation films. Instead of trying to scare people away from a problem, it explained how to avoid or treat it. It is melodramatic, but well acted with good production. Tim Holt, Ward Bond and J. Carroll Naish appear as victims, and Lewis Milestone directed.(I image there were a lot of outtakes, though, when the actors couldn't help laughing when they had to say things like "I noticed a sore...down there.") I'm not old enough to remember syphilis--or patent medicine "doctors"--being a big problem, but I appreciate this film as a slice of the social history of our past.

Syphillis

[boblipton · 6/10 · 22 September 2023]

Grocer J. Carroll Naish is happily awaiting the birth of his son. When the doctor comes in, he tells him the boy was born dead, and he thinks it's from syphillis.

Here's a short subject from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences that didn't play at the kiddie matinee. It speaks fairly frankly about venereal disease in the days when there wasn't any easy cure, before its spread could be controlled by antibiotics... but never eliminated.

It uses some words that were taboo under the production code: syphillis, of course, but also prostitute, a trade that was so taboo that it couldn't be shown . Directed without credit by Lewis Milestone, it's an interesting movie for an audience that might be going to war very soon; although there's no release date, the draft had already begun.