Learning with the Lights Off: Educational Film in the United States ed. by Devin Orgeron, Marsha Orgeron, Dan Streible (review)

Devin Orgeron, Marsha Orgeron, and Dan Streible begin their historical overview in the first chapter of Learning with the Lights Off with a quote from Frank S. Nugent describing educational film as an “unhappy category” (15). Indeed, often regarded as boring and unsophisticated by critics and audiences, educational film has long been relegated to the margins of both the commercial movie industry and film studies. Happily, for film studies at least, this excellent collection helps rescue these films and their study from the margins of the discipline. This book is part of a new wave of scholarship dedicated to examining what are variously described as nontheatrical, ephemeral, or orphan films, including the establishment of the Scholarly Interest Group in Nontheatrical Film and Media at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, special issues of both Film History and the Journal of Popular Film and Television, and several recent edited collections and monographs dedicated to these subjects.¹ Learning with the Lights Off stands out among this new work, helping to both broaden the field and also deepen our understanding of key debates in the history of film culture in the United States.

The editors make a compelling case for educational film as a useful, if unhappy, category. As a term used very early in the history of motion pictures, and quickly taken up by the industry, focusing on educational film allows Learning with the Lights Off to take up historical debates over the role and power of film to impart knowledge and modify behavior. But though the editors’ use of the term is informed by the history of the educational film business, the collection does not restrict itself narrowly to the classroom. Instead, the collection uses educational as an “umbrella under which to collect scholarship on films that were used to teach, inform, instruct, or persuade viewers in a variety of ways and contexts” (9). This approach highlights the diversity of institutions that produced motion pictures as well as the places in which they were shown and seen. The collection moves beyond well-known educational film producers like Eastman Teaching Films, Electrical Research Products Inc., and Encyclopaedia Britannica Films to consider the roles of philanthropic foundations, universities, and even commercial producers in the production and distribution of educational films. Likewise, the collection broadens the history of film exhibition to include museums, art galleries, community centers, and factories as well as schools and colleges.

The collection also expands definitions of the filmmaker. Rick Prelinger’s essay, “Smoothing the Contours of Didacticism: Jam Handy and His Organization,” makes a strong case for Handy’s individual vision and innovations in educational film. Devin Orgeron’s “Spreading the Word: Race, Religion, and the Rhetoric of Contagion in Edgar G. Ulmer’s TB Films” goes even further. Arguing for a refreshingly expansive view of the auteur, Orgeron demonstrates that the nontheatrical films of renowned Poverty Row filmmaker Edgar G. Ulmer ought to be considered as a “central part of the director’s career” (299). These chapters and others force the reader to question her assumptions about educational film and rethink stereotypes of the genre as wooden, formulaic, and artless.

The collection does more than broaden the scope of film studies, however. It also serves to challenge accepted narratives in film history and further our understanding of debates over film culture. Oliver Gaycken’s essay, “The Cinema of the Future: Visions of the Medium as Modern Educator, 1895–1910,” reminds us that moving pictures were born in the Progressive Era—when optimism about the power of science and technology to improve human welfare was high. Most histories of early moviegoing have focused on the push from middle-class social reformers to censor and restrict access to the movies, framing educational screenings as little more than fig leaves used by exhibitors and producers to mollify their critics. Gaycken complicates this view, pointing out that, from the...