The COI Collection Volume Six: Worth the Risk?

Complimenting the safety messages in COI Volume 4: Stop! Look! Listen!, this volume of COI films examines the issue of ‘risk’ in our everyday lives. Here, we get advice on crossing the road, the Welfare State, the dangers of drinking and of playing with matches, the complexities of decimalisation, surviving nuclear attack and much, much more, all peppered with the COI’s characteristic mix of horror, humour and gentle persuasion.

Highlights include: Skateboard Safety (1978), play safe, ‘you mad skateboard dogs’; Charley’s March of Time (1948), a pioneering animation that explains the workings of the new Welfare State; Green Cross Code (1973), in which David Prowse is on hand to admonish and advise; Hole in the Ground (1962), an unnerving civil defence film from the Cold War era; Say no to Strangers (1981), a creepy and uncompromising film starring Bernard Hill, Brenda Blethyn and Timothy Spall; Laughing Matter (late 1970s), in which Robbie Coltrane’s stand-up routine isn’t funny; and Passing Places (1973), featuring a bluegrass-style road safety song from a young Bill Paterson.