Crisis in Morality

This movie was produced by the Bible Institute of Los Angeles in 1962. Its premise is that moral decay is destroying the fabric of American society, and the answer is a return to Christ.

The movie starts with a quote from Abraham Lincoln that may have been motivating to the theater audiences of 1962. However, a quick 21st century internet review (on my iPhone while watching this film on TCM) revealed that Lincoln never actually said those particular words.

Then the film talks about the lessons that emerged from Edward Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Well, apparently the filmmakers didn't read the whole book, because one of the reasons Gibbon gave for the decline of Rome was...the onset of Christianity! Gibbon argued that Christianity created a belief that a better life existed after death, which fostered an indifference to the present among Roman citizens, thus sapping their desire to sacrifice for the Empire. Must have missed that one, eh, Bible Institute of Los Angeles?

The film is pretty vague about what specific evils are taking over our country, but the filmmakers assure us that those evils are so horrifying that the they can't bring themselves to even describe them, let along show them to us! As near as I can tell from the visuals in the film, most of the evil in the United States is generated from the neon lights in Times Square and Las Vegas, and from young actors who clumsily pretend to fight in the street in front of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles's cameras.

This film isn't as much fun as classics such as "Reefer Madness" or "Perversion for Profit," which at least give us some idea of what it is they're railing against. Even the truly religious would have to agree, I think, that this is a pretty boring 30 minutes, and that there are better religious documentaries out there.

I gave this film 2 stars just because it's always interesting to me to see real-life footage from the past, as well as to hear the various crime statistics of the age, in this case, 1962.

The film starts out by explaining how modern society (1962) has a lot in common with Ancient Rome and its eventual decay and downfall. We have readily-available divorce; "out-of-wedlock" births by young teenagers; gang violence; drug abuse; Americans cheating on tax returns; etc., all of which the film calls "sins of the heart."

The remedy? The ONLY remedy for society's problems, according to this film, is to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. That will cure everything. They want Jesus in everyday life, including in our schools.

I wonder what the film's producers would have said could they have looked into the future and seen the huge ramping-up nowadays of all the sins highlighted in the film! Also, what would they have said had they known about the widespread betrayal of trust and innocence by priests and other male role models that we are now so aware of!

All in all, the film is an interesting religious propaganda oddity and nothing more.

Crisis in Morality (1962)

** (out of 4)

The Bible Insitute of Los Angeles were deeply concerned with the various sins that they saw people doing that they decided to produce this twenty-five minute short that has Al Sanders (Vice President of said place) talking about the various forms of sin. There's talk about stuff dealing with divorce as well as those awful sex movies that are trying to ruin the minds of those who watch them. This short doesn't stop here because we also deal with those evil people who steal office supplies like paper clips from their jobs. CRISIS IN MORALITY isn't anything special but if you're in the mood for some camp then there's enough entertainment here to make it worth viewing at least once. The overall serious tone of the picture is certainly something laughable but you can tell that the producers had their hearts in the right place. Can you imagine what they'd think about the world of today?