1941 B&W Approx 10min
Produced and Photographed by: Chester N. Hess and Guy D. Haselton.
Technical Assistant: Capt. O. J. Emory
More Dangerous Than Dynamite is an odd little film. I came across it while I was browsing the Prelinger Archives at Archive.org. This is by the way, the archive that the boys at MST3K got most, if not all, of their short films that they occasionally riffed on. If you enjoyed those, I highly recommend that you head over there and take a look. Just make sure that you have the next few months free, as this site will suck up your time faster than you can say “Tetris.” It’s like crack for B-movie fanatics. Just beware of the pretentious, overanylisis of these films that many of the “high-minded” regulars of the site like to give. Nothing like the rantings and pompous grandstanding of an elitist blowhard to ruin a good afternoon of movie viewing...
Now, on with my decidedly non-pompous, unpretentious, albeit somewhat longwinded, review.
More Dangerous Than Dynamite is a little safety film about the
dangers of washing your clothes with gasoline…Yeah, who knew? Apparently, this used to be a
problem. The film starts off by giving us a bunch of neat explosions. A couple of mountains, a
bridge, a house, and a guy driving along in his car…I’m serious. He’s driving along and he just
explodes. It’s hilarious. After the explosion reel (which I’m not sure is supposed to be related
to the dangers of gasoline or dynamite or maybe someone just thought that they looked cool and would
scare the bejeepers out of people) we are shown some statistics regarding accidents in the home. We
then segue into a scene of a young mother doing many dangerous things, like ironing, and drying
herself off by the heater. “Jumping out of an airplane is safer” our announcer informs us.
The film continues going over many dangerous things people do in their homes, including putting pennies behind the fuses in their fuse box (I’ve actually seen people do this…Did I mention that I’ve done a lot of fire clean-ups, as well…), hiding frayed cords under the rug (Outta sight, outta mind, right?), smoking in bed (Again, seen it, cleaned up the fire damage…),
and turning on light switches while standing in the bathtub. We get a neat little spark animation
to go along with that last one.
The film finally gets to the main point, the dangers of gasoline as cleaning solvent in the home. This is where it starts to get good. Well, this is where it gets even better. We are told that one gallon of gasoline has the explosive force of 83 pounds of dynamite…I’m not sure I buy that, but whatever. Spinning newspaper headlines illustrate the dangers. I, however, tend to focus on the secondary headlines. They seem much more worrisome than the main headlines. “Hundreds Killed in Chinese Quakes”…“Judge Denies Motion on Narcotic Evidence” (Reefer Madness, anyone?)…“3000 Additional Japanese Troops Arrive in China” (That headline probably became much more
worrisome in a few months…This film was released in early 1941).
I think Martha Stewart has lost a little something since she got out of prison. “Gasoline Surprise”…I just don’t know. We return to our housewife as she is getting ready to clean some clothes. She takes her gallon of gas and pours it into a large bowl and goes to town. Not like our friends at the “Reputable Dry Cleaning Company” (I swear, that is what the plaque says). They have a “No Smoking” sign and everything. The narrator, along with the Fire Marshall, go through each and every one of the safety procedures at the “Reputable Dry Cleaning Company.” As I was watching this, I came to the realization that many of these “safety procedures” would probably get you shut down and put on OSHA’s hit list today. The asbestos blankets “that provide protection for the workers” comes to mind. The doors that automatically shut in case of fire seem like a bad idea too. What do I know?
A Division of the Respectable Company Corporation After they go through all of the safety precautions at the “Reputable Dry Cleaning Company,” we are given a demonstration of these precautions in action. A fire breaks out in the building, and everything snaps into action. All of the doors close automatically, trapping all of the workers inside the fire, I might add. One worker forces the door open and props it with a gasoline can. He makes a run for the asbestos blankets to cover his smoldering coworker (who looks like Ed Wood, and appears to be really, really dead), pulls the steam lever, drags his lifeless coworker to safety, and like a good employee, shuts the door behind him.
Ed Wood?Hmm, that didn’t seem to go so well after all. The building seems to be okay, but I think the guy who looks like Ed Wood is toast. Let’s see how our intrepid, penny-pinching housewife fares…
We rejoin her as she is busy with her cleaning. She has a pot of tea on the stove and the flames from the water heater are right down the hall…Okay, I don’t want to be mean or anything, but I think we have a strong candidate for the Darwin Award of 1941 right here. As you would expect, an explosion occurs. The wife comes running out of the kitchen covered in animated fire. I don’t think that I’ve fully captured the effect in my screenshots. Just go download it and see for yourself. Luckily her husband (Who looks suspiciously like our first victim) was in the
backyard and quickly covers her up and smothers the fire. Hmm, didn’t go so well for her either,
huh?
“Aarrghh!!! Somehow washing my clothes in gasoline while standing near an open flame has gone horribly wrong!!!” At the hospital we see that the woman is now completely covered in bandages and is now horribly disfigured for life. THE END
It’s good to see that after all she’s been through, she can still smile.
Conclusion
Cheery little film, huh? Some people will tell you that this film is just propaganda from dry cleaners to scare you into going to them instead of doing it yourself. Sure, maybe it was sponsored by a dry cleaning company, but from what I can tell it is an attack on the dry cleaning industry in general. Not following me? Well let’s compare the results of explosions. At the “Reputable Dry Cleaning Company” we have 1 dead (Maybe. It isn’t really clear. He wasn’t moving, that’s for sure…) from the explosion, and major fire damage. At the house, we have 1 horribly disfigured, and major fire damage. Seem pretty comparable to me. Maybe the point was that you should take your clothes to the dry cleaners and let them get blown to smithereens. Better them than you, right? But I guess that bring us right back to the whole “dry cleaners propaganda” thing again, doesn’t it?
It is quite an obscure subject to make an educational film on. I have dry cleaned professionally for a while (carpet and upholstery, not clothes), and I admit that even I have never heard of using gasoline as the solvent. We generally use a mixture of odorless mineral spirits (And the term “Odorless” is very misleading, by the way…) and a dry cleaning solvent. It is flammable, and I have heard many stories of accidents happening, but I have never had an incident
myself, nor met anyone else who has had an accident themselves. Just stories. If we are to believe
this film, people were being blown up by the dozens every day. And another thing, for something
with the explosive power of 83 pounds of dynamite, it didn’t do much damage to that house. The
windows were still intact. I’m fairly certain that if I piled up 83 pounds of dynamite in my
kitchen and set it off, the house wouldn’t be standing there anymore and there certainly wouldn’t
be much left of me, either. Oh well. Enough ranting from me, go to archive.org and check it out
for yourself.
Reviewed by Derek Miller
Posted 7/31/05
