Wow, Lenona, thanks for posting this! I was unaware of it! Since it
came out after the book, there was no mention of it in that. Read the
book, saw the flick, even checked out the issue of LIFE magazine from
the library. (This was back when libraries kept paper magazines for
20 or 30 years.) Understand there's a sequel which I have not read,
updating the family some thirty years or so after the original.
The Reverend must have spoken at the church I attend, or someone
associated with it was at a church where he spoke, as the church
library for a long time had a copy of the book he had autographed.
Like the magazine, that has since disappeared. How wonderful for the
children to have this film as a keepsake of their parents, even if
they did seem a bit nervous, they came through fine.
Being no expert, merely an old-timer, seatbelts did not become
standard in cars until the 1960s if not the 1970s. The "Fasten your
seatbelts, we're in for a bumpy ride" is an airplane reference which
would be familiar to those who had flown in planes and not necessarily
associated with cars. The automobile manufacturers were aware of
their existence and uses, just too damn cheap to put them in until
pressured to do so.
My dad lulled us into a false sense of security as kids in his 1959
State Patrol car, of which he was very proud, often giving this big
explanation of how his older-style car was so large and solid it would
not be damaged even in a major crash. What I had to learn in Driver's
Ed was that although the car might not sustain much damage, the
unbelted occupants would be so thrown about even in a minor crash that
they'd be scrambled. The windshield and metal dash (originally
padded, but that was removed) would do them no good. Neither would
the bench-style seats coming up to the upper back with no head
support. Dad called the more modern, less solid cars "tin cans," but
give me a tin can with good strong seatbelts, I say! The parents who
raised our generation were not used to the belts. One mother who
drove us in the mid-1960s would say, "If you don't like the belt, just
fasten it behind you," and we would. I didn't wear one till at least
college or later. Didn't even learn my lesson during one comical
incident in high school. I was sitting in the front seat of a van my
friend was driving, looking at my library books, when my friend
slammed on the brakes at a stoplight. I ended up unhurt, but sitting
on the floor in front of the seat, surrounded by scattered library
books, looking up from under the dash with an expression of "WHY did
you do that?" My sister nearly wet her pants laughing.
What bugs me no end now is, in my favorite TV show, "Emergency!" (now
available to a new generation as it's in process of being released on
DVD) the paramedics NEVER wore seatbelts--I don't believe the squad
even had them. (I think the same can be observed in "Adam-12," though
they may have worn seatbelts a few times.) In fact, Kevin Tighe
sustained quite a gash to his head once when Randy Mantooth was
driving the squad and plowed it into a wall. Imagine paramedics
rushing to the scene of an accident being unable to help because they
were mangled in a crash on the way there! And what a good example
they could have set to millions of kids had they been shown buckling
up every time. At least they wore the dang helmets.
Cori
On Mar 29, 8:54 pm, lenona....RemoveThis@yahoo.com wrote:
> Hint: She and her husband were known for their twelve children.
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W39QHzD67eo
>
> What puzzles me is not so much that in the 1954 car ad, there's no
> sign of seat belts, but rather that in that case, Bette Davis' famous
> line in the 1950 "All About Eve" would seem almost alien, if they were
> so uncommon!
>
> Lenona.
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