User Reviews

In this entry John Nesbitt talks about English woman Catherine Starr who argues with her fiancé before he leaves for the Boer War in 1901. When he dies, she feels guilty for his death, although she had nothing to do with him leaving or dying. She develops a fear of people as a result of the shock of his death and does not leave her house again until 1941 when Germany's air raids force her out of her house and - to her horror - into a bomb shelter full of people - human contact being something that she fears more than Hitler's bombs. She gradually overcomes her fear while trapped in the bomb shelter and comes to be a helpful figure, tending to injured children that are in the shelter with her.

This is a WWII wartime message short - basically saying that everyone can be useful in the war effort regardless of what has gone before - but many aspects of the story have me wondering about its veracity and its reception. For one, if Catherine would not talk to anyone or leave her home how did she get money to pay for the food that showed up without fail at her front door on a regular basis? She couldn't have had all of that money in the house. How did her house, depicted as a cottage with a thatched roof, not fall down around her ears in forty years with no maintenance? In forty years did she never need a doctor? If this story was not absolutely true, I wonder how the British, who were at the time this short was made our allies, felt about having one of their citizens called out by name and basically called a coward, although a redeemed one by the short's end?

Pretty interesting stuff, it's a social worker's dream; a woman has a traumatic experience, and can't snap out of it until she has ANOTHER traumatic experience. She's forced to take shelter with others in an underground shelter during WW II, and look after some little munchkins who have no adults around to help them. All pretty plausible, as that was probably quite common during wartime. This is one of the John Nesbitt wartime series. Only 11 minutes long, but they cover a lot of ground. and pretty good psychology for 1942. It's not bad. Shows on Turner Classics. Directed by Sammy Lee, who was nominated TWICE for dance numbas, in 1936, and 1938. Nesbitt was king of the shorts; died quite young at 49.

. . . is the final word from THE WOMAN IN THE HOUSE. It seems some old bag has a lover's spat with an unlucky Joe, who immediately perishes overseas in the Boar War. Chagrined that her beau was done in hunting wild pigs, this spinster pouts in her increasingly dilapidated cottage for 50 or 90 years, pouting like a three-year-old throwing a temper tantrum. Then two men in a truck carry this malingering miscreant out to a meat wagon, and then down into a dingy cellar. "Am I dead yet?!" screams the moper. "Not yet, but you will be soon, if you don't eat something!" snaps a volunteer nurse. This rouses the free-loader out of her funk, allowing her to enjoy her few remaining minutes.

John Nesbitt's Passing Parade Shorts were seen in theaters from the late 1930's through the late 1940's. Many of them were interesting and often times topical. This particular short deals with a school teacher who becomes a shut-in after declining to marry a soldier over a silly argument. The decades go by until, lo and behold, her teaching instincts identify the needs of children coinciding with the outbreak of World War II. While the mental health aspect of the short is appealing , especially for the time period, it still comes off as a bit of propaganda at the end with the typical call to individual action.