Sid Davis, an educational filmmaker in the 1950s and ’60s who specialized in dark, cautionary tales crafted to frighten captive classroom audiences away from even thinking about misbehaving, has died. He was 90.
The article makes no mention of Davis’ most ugly, hateful and homophobic film, Boys Beware in which homosexuals are portrayed as mentally ill predators, pedophiles and criminals. NPR’s coverage was unafraid to acknowledge Davis’ most infamous film.
Wow, we just discussed this guy a few months ago; a truly creepy person.
I liked the touch in the NPR piece about how he was the Roger Corman of his day, but I’d have to put him even below Corman. I was shocked to learn that Encyclopedia Britannica was responsible for distributing his junk to impressionable school kids. God…I sat through so many of his films in grade school. His name never did stick in my mind, but I figured those awful films probably all came from the same place.
We sat through Boys Beware one day during my 8th or 9th grade sex ed class. That was 1968 or 69. Afterward, our gym teachers (right…the sex ed class was taught by our gym teachers…), told us that homosexuals usually kill the people they have sex with…and that most unsolved murders were committed by homosexuals. I was only 14 at the time, and it didn’t occur to me to ask how they knew the killers had been homosexuals, if they were unsolved crimes.
Men in dark suits wearing little clip-on bow ties gave me the creeps for years after I watched that film.
If you watch some of his other films, especially Live & Learn (basically a 15 minute montage of children injuring themselves), you’ll get a nice view into his twisted and warped psyche. He also made a companion film called Girls Beware, though it was about straight male pedophiles. Another factoid, his funding came directly from John Wayne (for whom he used to be a stand-in). He’s a classic dangerous nutcase, and I get the feeling he wasn’t hugged enough as a child. It’s amazing who was allowed to influence children in years past.
Oops! Forgot my number. Appologies to Bruce.
Wow. That video helps me understand how I grew up with so much self-loathing. It’s exactly what my parents had been taught, what I was taught, and what the parents of my friends, and my schools, taught.
It prompted a blog post of my own, which I’d trackback if EGW was accepting trackbak pings: https://ericedberg.blogspot.com/2006/11/dealing-with-baggage.html
which I’d trackback if EGW was accepting trackbak pings…
We accept trackbacks, though we do have spam filtering in place. If you are having trouble, email editor@exgaywatch.com and I’ll check into it rather than filling the comments section with technical troubleshooting. Thanks.