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Critically-acclaimed upon its 2003 theatrical release, Hell’s Highway: The True Story of Highway Safety Films is a morbidly curious exploration of the shocking driver education films of yesteryear. Produced between 1959 and 1979 in Mansfield, Ohio, films such as Signal 30 encouraged safety by force-feeding high school kids color footage of careless driving’s dark consequences: blood-stained wreckage, injured bodies, fresh corpses. In the 1970s and ‘80s, these traumatic films disappeared from the American classroom and assumed an almost mythical status. Hell’s Highway unearths these artifacts of grim Americana and interviews the filmmakers responsible for this radical educational movement. This remastered edition includes three complete “blood-on-the-highway” films, newly restored from the original 16mm camera elements preserved in the Richard Prelinger Collection at the Library of Congress.. Audio Commentary by Writer/Director Bret Wood | New Restorations of Three Driver's Ed Films: Mechanized Death, Wheels of Tragedy, and Highways of Agony | The Complete 2003 Pre-Restoration Version | Trailers | Deleted Scenes
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Hell's Highway: The True Story of Highway Safety Films (2003)
91 min
This film covers the early history of post World War II educational films, especially those involving traffic safety by the Highway Safety Foundation under direction of Richard Wayman. In the name of promoting safe driving in teenagers, these films became notorious for their gory depiction of accidents to shock their audiences to make their point. The film also covers the role of safety films of this era, their effect on North American teenage culture, the struggle between idealism and lurid exploitation and how they reflected the larger society concerns of the time that adults projected onto their youth.