1961NONE FOR THE ROAD

Year Published: 1961)

Format: 16mm

Description: Charles Cahill and Associates, Inc. present "None for the Road" (1961). This short film depicts the potential dangers of driving under the influence of alcohol. The film opens on a cafeteria tray. A man’s hand pushes powdery eggs around the tray with his fork, lifts up a spoon of watery coffee, and pushes the tray aside. In its place, we see the shadow of prison bars fall across the table. Closeup of a man resting his forehead on his hands against a backdrop of cinderblocks. He slowly looks up, on the verge of tears. He sighs, takes a deep breath, and leans back against the wall. 0:58 Wide shot of a residential neighborhood. The same man ("John Thomas") is seen mowing his lawn as his wife ("Mary") shows him a flower from the garden. Their children approach them. The son rides off on his bike, and the mother hands the daughter the flower. The kids swim in the backyard pool while John watches over them and Mary brings out a tray of beverages. 1:49 Scenes of a suburban backyard party at night. Revelers enjoy themselves. John and Mary serve their guests food and drink. They say goodbye to a guest who is slightly intoxicated. As he gets in his car and pulls away, the couple looks on in shock. 2:49 POV of driver in residential neighborhood. He puts his foot on the brakes, and then back on the gas. Closeup of a glass of alcohol being poured. A man and woman in party attire sip their drinks and laugh. Cut back to the scenes from the party earlier. The drunk party guest touches his finger to his nose, demonstrating to his hosts that he is sober enough to drive. Now viewers see him pull out of the driveway and jerking his car onto the road. John and Mary look concerned as they watch him drive away. 4:46 Cut back to John in jail as he forlornly lays down on his cot. Then back to a different party scene, this one during the day. John and Mary and their friends drink cocktails and mingle. Mary is called aside to a rotary telephone, and she learns her babysitter has fallen ill. The couple leave the party early and drive away. Closeup of a light turning red. John presses on the gas and the film cuts to a girl stepping off the sidewalk. The car screeches to a halt and the girl holds her hands up. She is hit. 5:30 The couple steps out of the vehicle and see the girl lying on the asphalt. Mary checks to see if she is okay while John is in shock. 5:53 A policeman performs a sobriety test, demonstrating touching his finger to his nose. John struggles to keep his balance as he stands on one foot and misses his nose. He is unable to walk in a straight line. The officer pulls him away. 6:28 John is laying in his cot. Cut to Mary talking to an attorney. 7:40 She picks another flower from the bushes. Closeup of a sign that says "Sacrifice" in front of the house. Mary sits in front of a typewriter, working. A man scrapes "John Thomas" off of the door of a sales manager. 8:01 Cut back to the young girl looking into the distance as she crosses the street. Then back to her body on the ground. John is in his prison cells and replays from the incident flash on the screen – the party, the couple driving, a cocktail being poured. 8:34 Various scenes of cars driving in residential neighborhoods. POV of a driver as a car backs into the road ahead of him. Another driver opens his car door onto the road and the car swerves around him. POV of a driver running a red light. 9:28 Closeup of drinks being poured. John looks forlorn in his cell, prison bars in the foreground. He lays back down on his cot. The film ends with an overhead shot of traffic on a highway.

Transcription

[Music] this morning for breakfast i was given powdered eggs with plain bread and the coffee was miserable but the food wasn't the only thing that spoiled my appetite you see i'm in jail it's only been a few weeks but already it seems like a long time since i lived in another world the everyday world that i took so much for granted [Music] i was what you would call an ordinary upstanding citizen with an ordinary mortgaged house in the suburbs but if everything else was ordinary about me i had an extraordinary wife and children i never knew how extraordinary until all of this happened i was sales manager of a small manufacturing concern and although we didn't consciously try to keep up with the joneses we lived very well had more than the usual debts and not much in savings i had a good insurance program to help look after the family we were covered for fire theft illness death i thought i was covered for anything that could happen i never thought about the possibility of being removed from the scene by the law [Music] like the rest of our close friends we entertained on a relatively modest scale [Music] and like our friends we tried to serve good food [Music] and good drinks [Music] i don't think there were more than one or two of us who weren't fairly casual about lectures [Music] although sometimes we reach the point of no pain we were seldom too much affected to drive or so we thought i know i was always concerned about driving while under the influence i was never a very serious drinker i used to quit long before it was time to go home so when i got behind the wheel i would be more or less sober i suppose like the average person i couldn't see much difference in my coordination or my reaction time even after a few drinks i always felt i had the situation under control since i was convicted and sentenced i've learned more about the subject it's a perfectly simple process alcohol passes from your stomach into your bloodstream where it goes on to your brain and your central nervous system your weight how recently you've eaten and other things affect the rate of absorption but while some experienced drinkers have learned to control their actions and may not appear really intoxicated the speed with which alcohol begins to have its effect on the brain and nerve centers varies only slightly from one person to another in spite of appearances as i found out from my own case the last functions to be developed in us as human beings judgment conscience and moral values are the first to be effective when this happens inhibitions are released while muscular reaction has been slowed we tend to feel equal to any situation it's during this period of no restraint and unwarranted confidence coupled with dull perception and impaired physical ability that any drinking driver attains his peak of hazard and is ready to become a traffic statistic that's what happened to me a friend of ours was celebrating a big promotion we were still on cocktails and hadn't eaten yet i didn't expect to leave the party until late and i wasn't the least concerned about the problem of driving mary telephone then we got a call from the babysitter she had taken sick and we had to rush home we hated to leave but the idea of driving didn't bother me at that point i felt i was the best driver in the world everything went smoothly as it had many times before and then just a few blocks from home a light went against me when i was almost into the intersection i tried to make it anyway [Music] i always thought a bad shock would completely sober a drinker it doesn't i was under the influence [Music] it was a nightmare [Music] i didn't feel intoxicated but i was booked as a felony drunk driver my first night was spent in the drunk tank at the main jail if i had preserved anything of human dignity to this point it deserted me now i don't remember the next sequence of events too clearly but i remember my wife she had her own nightmare to live through and i know it was worse than mine somehow she made me realize we would live through all this back to real life again and my attorney who had the problem of repairing my defense gave me to understand that i was fortunate for even though the girl i had struck would be hospitalized for months i received what he considered a moderate penalty but i wonder if i'll ever forget the judge's vote has taken this into consideration and therefore i sentence you to a term of one year in the state penitentiary the court further recommends that due to the use only a year i was lucky and yet is it a year we will ever recover from with our other debts we won't be able to keep the house my wife has had to go back to work what about my own job well i'll have to look for a new one will i have to start at the bottom again what about the young girl i struck will she be permanently crippled they don't know yet i'm grateful to my insurance man and the liability coverage that we're hopeful will take care of everything but what is my responsibility to or beyond that i haven't been able to think anything out my mind keeps going back to that afternoon it's futile to wish i hadn't tried to drive or that i hadn't taken the last couple of cocktails but i know that if i ever get behind the wheel of a car again i will remember something i had lost sight of driving a car has become so effortless that you have the feeling of complete control man and machine are one you forget you have no control over the other drivers or the pedestrians even when i was cold sober i was taking too much for granted i'm taking it for granted that the car signaling for a left turn will not move until i'm through the intersection the car backing into the street will wait until i'm safely passed the driver at the curb will not pull away or open his door and step out while i'm approaching every day i was practicing bad driving habits every day i was taking chances the last time i drove the worst chances i took were served in cocktail glasses my life the lives of my wife and children had to be set back for years to prove to me that these like any risks when it comes to driving our chances not worth taking but in our language if chance means risk it also means opportunity and every driver who still has not taken one chance too many still has an opportunity to begin practicing good driving habits to lessen his chances of ever running into trouble with his automobile [Music] you

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