Brink of Disaster

Film opens with montage of scenes of student protest. Credits occur over this sequence. Loosely structured as a narrative in which John Smith (a college student) is visited by his great great great (etc.) grandfather John Smith (from 1776), this film works to educate a young audience on the "breakdown of moral, religious, and ethical principles" in the US. With the help of a history professor, John Smith (1776) explains how he gave his life to build the USA and nowadays a "bunch of young hooligans" are working to destroy it. Though fairly banal visually (the whole film is set in a library which the "weirdos" have threatened to torch) there are tons of amazing sound bytes regarding student movements (SDS as "students for a dirtier society"), religion, marijuana, sexuality, freedom of speech ("freedom of speech has become freedom of filth"), pornography ("filthy books that no decent people would read"). There is discussion of H. "Rap" Brown (accompanied by archival footage) calling upon student bodies to carry guns. There is also footage and discussion of the riots, burning, and looting done by student activists. The film ends as the student radicals break their way into the library-