Gateways to the Mind

Before there was Bill Nye, there was Dr. Frank Baxter, who educated the masses about science. This, and a handful of others were videos that I watched many times as a kid, and even now as an adult find very informative. Good for anyone going into medical school or one watching just for recreation, this educational film covers the subject of the senses, how they work and what can happen when we get deprived of stimulation which believe you me, is not a pretty experience. The live action sequences are perfectly complimented by the animated sequences (courtesy of Chuck Jones) which add to the fun of learning about it. At times it almost feels like the studio Dr. Baxter strolls through and lectures is like a museum which further adds to the fun. Overall, this one has stood the test of time more than any of the Bell Science series.

Frank Capra, with UPA and Shamus Culhane Productions providing animation, directed the first four Bell Science programs (Our Mr. Sun, Hemo The Magnificent, The Strange Case Of The Cosmic Rays & The Unchained Goddess). These were beautifully produced, but fairly simple affairs. Much of the "action", cartoon and film-clip wise, occurred on the "Imagination Screen". Frank "Mr. Research" Baxter was the always smiling host, educating Eddie Albert, Richard Carlson or Bil Baird's pre-"Sound Of Music" puppets from a comfortable roost and conversing with various toon-critters on the "Screen".

Sometime in 1957, Warner Brothers stepped in to take over the series with Owen Crump as director and its in-house animation staff (Chuck Jones and Maurice Noble getting first dibs). Earlier that year, the studio had stopped producing live-action shorts for theatrical release, including a final crop of CinemaScope "Gems" travelogues co-directed by Crump. Starting with "Gateways To The Mind", the sets that surround Dr. Frank Baxter got bigger and more spectacular... he was now educating us all amidst costumed Greek philosophers, circus clowns, an entire movie crew, giant library books ("The Alphabet Conspiracy" showcased Hans Conried as the Mad Hatter in a Lewis Carroll spoof) and with Planet Q's royal court (About Time). ("Thread Of Life" was a notable throw-back to the Capra era, but with multiple TV screens this time... the effect is a bit too weird, which may explain why it is the least viewed of the bunch.)

"Gateways To The Mind" was first shown on October 23, 1958. It cleverly exploits the Burbank studio in all of its glory as an excuse to compare the film-making process with the human senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, etc. One optical illusion involving windows of different sizes reminds me of a back-story about the making of "Casablanca" with kids/dwarfs being used in the airport scene... all aimed at fooling our eyes. Apart from the ancient Greek recreation and a circus act, there are two great cartoon segments bearing the definitive Jones-Noble "look". In one, a man is operated by a Who-villain (aka Horton Hears Who) and an elf messenger that "wires" the body actions with the brain "head quarters" as the man leaves for work, testing the strawberries along the way. The other is a very trippy (and scary) portrait of an experiment with students devoid of their senses and the walking eyeglasses and imaginary alien forms created in their minds.

I saw a number of the Bell science films during the Sixties, and this one was my favorite. In a mix of live-action and animation, it explains how the senses-- touch, sight, hearing, etc.-- function. Cartoon characters gather information from eyes and ears and report it to the little guy who runs a complicated control room in the brain.

Presiding over all is the calming presence of Dr. Frank Baxter, playing himself, sort of-- he wasn't really a scientist but a professor of English. He personified science well, though, to a generation of audiences in darkened classrooms.

I believe this was an episode of *The Bell Telephone Hour* in 1958. Several other films in the series, such as *Hemo the Magnificent* and *The Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays*, have appeared on DVD, but not this one, as far as I know. It would be nice to see it again.