Easy to Get

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DATE: 1947

LENGTH: 21 min

CATEGORY: Educational & Instructional, Sound, Black & White

PRODUCER/PUBLISHER: U.S. Army Pictorial Service, Signal Corps

Summary

This film’s title refers to venereal disease but could refer equally to women, who in a bleak tale of misogyny are invariably represented as sexually promiscuous and solely to blame for passing along the pox. The title is perhaps also self-referential—its message is “easy to get.” Made shortly after the end of World War II, the movie addresses black soldiers, offering a degrading portrait that depicts them as overgrown, impulsive, hypersexualized children unable to contain their primordial desires….Read The Essay

Supplementary Materials

Stills from Easy to Get

A frame from the film reading This film is restricted.

The words 'Venereal Disease' superimposed over a scene of soldiers and women in a night club.

Easy to Get National Library of Medicine #9201441A

a GI talking things over with a 'loose woman' at a bar.

A sailor and a woman jitterbug in a dance hall and bar..

a GI and his girl kissing passionately outdoors on the ground.

A GI says good by to a pretty girl out the window of his train as it pulls away.

The word 'Syphilis' surrounded with colloquial synonyms: 'A case', 'Pox', 'Bad Blood', 'Lues', 'Dogs'.

The word 'Gonorrhea' surrounded with colloquial synonyms: 'Clap', 'A dose', 'Strain', 'Running Range'.

An index finger and thumb hold a condom.

Digitized Films on World War II-era Public Health at the National Library of Medicine

Explore World War II-era Public Health in the NLM Digital Collections

Learn more about NLM holdings of World War II-era Public Health in The Public Health Film Goes To War

Digitized Films on Venereal Disease at the National Library of Medicine

Explore films on venereal disease in the NLM Digital Collections

Venereal Disease on Circulating Now

Medicine, Mortality, Faith and Film — Read *Medicine, Morality, Faith and Film*, a related post on *Circulating Now.*

Read *“Fit to Fight”: Home Front Army Doctors and VD During WWI*, a related post on *Circulating Now.*

Beyond NLM

Medfilm

MedFilm is a European-based collaborative project analyzing medical film.

See the MedFilm record for Easy to Get.

Discover more films from the NLM historical collections featured in MedFilm.

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