A Modern Guide to Health

1 Jan 1946
Sound
9m

Modern advice and old-fashioned values combine in this postwar animated health guide from the makers of Animal Farm

This 'modern' advice may be over 70 years old, but there's a lot of good common sense contained in this postwar health film. Roughly divided into sections on working men, children, young women and finally housewives, it's this segregation that dates the film. The lot of married women is painted as particularly arduous, with the only help offered being a half-hour break before bed.

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From the collection

Halas & Batchelor

Celebrating the vital and varied work of the pioneering British animation studio

Halas & Batchelor Cartoon Films were a defining force in British animation for more than five decades. Founded in 1940 by the Hungarian-born John Halas and Watford-born Joy Batchelor, the company progressed from producing cinema advertisements to creating vital public information films during and after the Second World War, before producing Britain's first animated feature film, Animal Farm, in 1954.

Whether working in advertising, children's television or independent short films, Halas and Batchelor championed animation as both a commercial enterprise and an art form. Though more than the story of John and Joy, their vision, advocacy and innovation helped shape the careers of generations of artists and practitioners, while bringing a broad range animated storytelling to audiences on screens both large and small.