The Key (1957)

Director	Nat Campus, Don Haldane
Producer	Harry Milt, National Association for Mental Health (US)
Contributors
Length	29 Minutes
B&W/Color	B&W
UO Library Catalog description:
Call #	FILM Mc57
Genre	Instructional
Rare	Yes
Online	No
Copyright status	Public Domain
Physical condition	Good (slight warp, emulsion faded)
Oregon-related	No

Notes:

Cinematic opening, dramatic score. Voice-over narration uses dramatic and personal language to confront public attitudes on mental illness and ‘modern’ psychiatric wards. Use of characters and constant reminder of “people”; our patient “Moira,” “my ward,” and the “three-quarter million . . . crowding our hopsitals” – more patients than other illnesses combined. This film would have served to assuage concerns surrounding psychiatry, the increasingly popular visual format and cinematic tailoring an opportunity to convincingly show rather than tell, of the modern practices of an oft-maligned field and the familiarity and humanity of the modern patient.