THREE CADETS

Description: An official War Department training film produced by the First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air Forces in 1943, “Three Cadets” stars Craig Stevens (later of “Peter Gunn” fame), Kent Smith, Ralph Byrd, and William T. Orr. The premise was simple: to inform young recruits of the inherent dangers associated with their inevitable promiscuity. The training film presents three cadets who go into the Air Cadet Training Center together. Following one of the men’s “liaison” with a local girl, the narrator reminds the viewer that venereal disease (VD) costs the Army Air Corps 40,000 man days a month, as the film shows various posters reminding men that “No’s the best tactic … the next, prophylactic,” “Prophylaxis prevents V.D.,” and “Syphilis Strikes Without Warning.” One careless pilot fails to use his “prophylactic kit” before he engages in a sexual liaison with “a nice girl whom he met at a soda fountain” at a bus station. A few days later he had an “itching, burning sensation” when he used the latrine. “And he had a discharge.” He realizes he has contracted syphilis and when symptoms set in, he visits a medical officer, who explains how to use a chemical prophylaxis to prevent VD (as the film quickly cuts to a person thoroughly washing his penis, injecting a silver solution into his urinary canal, and massaging a mercury ointment to his penis and testicles). Another pilot was not as wise. Although he suspected he had syphilis, he treats himself with a quack cure, reports for flight duty, and crashes his plane when he becomes dizzy while flying. Only one of the cadets we meet in the film was ready for duty. “Which one do you want to be?” asks the narrator in the film’s closing moments.