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Los Angeles Fire DepartmentOur Obligation (1960)

Amazing work of melodrama for PTAs and school boards, this film tells the story of a school fire, the panic that developed and the loss of life that occurred. Discusses the obligation of teachers, school administrators and parents to provide fireproof buildings and all other safety devices necessary to prevent fires.


This movie is part of the collection: A/V Geeks

Producer: Los Angeles Fire Department
Audio/Visual: sound, color

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: wileK209 - - June 16, 2009
Subject: Really moving
This video hurts to watch at times. Even though it's all a dramatization of a fictional school fire, it's very gut-wrenching and sad at times (especially when you find out what happened to Jerry and Mrs. Simmons.)

This film is even more serious and scarier than the civil defense "Duck and Cover" films being made during that time! Even though the threat of a nuclear war was very real during the early 1960s, the probability of an elementary school burning down was much greater than an atomic bomb being dropped on the city.

And it's ironic in a sad way how Jeremy likes bells, yet there's plenty of bells ringing during the fire; the fire alarm bells!

Reviewer: babysprite - - March 23, 2009
Subject: A parent's worst nightmare.
This was disturbing for me to watch in 2009. This must have been horrifying when viewed by parents of school-age children in the nineteen-sixties. There is no greater nightmare for a parent than to have bury their own children.

Reviewer: darkzero63 - - December 15, 2007
Subject: Such Cheery Music
They must have been real sadists back in the 60's.

Reviewer: surlychick - - December 2, 2007
Subject: ?
The secretary has to be TOLD to call the fire department?!?

Nice shot of the fire truck rolling down the palm tree-lined street; very Beverly Hillbillies.

The cranky old lady who didn't like sirens probably died in a fire.

Reviewer: LadyBard1964 - - April 5, 2007
Subject: Our Obligation
This movie scared the bejaysus out of me when I was in grade school. I remember the firefighters carrying the bodies of the kid and the teacher out of the burning school! Very scary.