A Date with Your Family (1950)

Educational short showing how you should never show any emotions at the dinner table.

Director:

Edward G. Simmel

Writer:

Arthur V. Jones

Stars:

Hugh Beaumont, Ralph Hodges

Cast

Uncredited cast:
Hugh Beaumont	...	Narrator (uncredited)
Ralph Hodges	...	Brother (uncredited)

Storyline

Two teenage kids come home from school and look forward to dinner with the family - it's a date. Mom and sister do the cooking, set the table, and arrange a bouquet. Brother does homework then helps junior, the youngest, clean up. Dad gets home from work, joins the boys for pleasant conversation, then it's time to eat. The narrator emphasizes the importance of being relaxed and pleasant. The family illustrates a few dinner table "don't"s, then good manners and good sense reassert themselves. Table manners, pleasant and unemotional conversation (good for the digestion), graciousness, and ceremony mark the event. All families, no matter how poor or busy, should have these dinner dates.

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Plot Keywords:

etiquette | argument | social guidance | ephemeral film | voice over narration | 

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Genres:

Short | Drama

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Simmel-Meservey

Technical Specs

Runtime:

10 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Did You Know?

Trivia

Seven minutes' worth of color, silent outtakes exist for this short, which offers an interesting insight into how the short was made. (see video clips)

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Quotes

Narrator: Pleasant, unemotional conversation helps the digestion.

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Connections

Referenced in Mystery Science Theater 3000: Bloodlust! (1994)

User Reviews

Pleasantville

This is the classic example of behavioral control as effected through the medium of instructional film. It's hilarious and scary. My 10 rating isn't based on its achieving what it set out to do but on its sociocultural value now. The members of the family on the "date," allegorically named "Brother," "Sister," "Mother," and "Father," play out their parts in a dinner ritual that resembles a holodeck re-creation based on an extraterrestrial race's guesswork about human customs derived from etiquette books discovered among the ruins of Earth. Mother and Sister wear their best frocks to table to please the men; table talk is always to remain pleasant and inoffensive; the children are to behave "as though" they are pleased to see Father. The god-voice that imparts all this wisdom is of an authoritarian jollity that sums up the weird mixture of good will and ill nature that informs the whole piece. Anyone born after this film was made should see it (it's available online for free) and feel really really lucky.