Wonderful character development!

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Kurt Vonnegut is supposed to have suggested to the Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys that even people who work hard to make a bad movie deserve some respect. As much as I love MST3k, I'm inclined to agree...except in the case of the industrial/educational shorts from the 40's and 50's. Centron, Jam Handy and Union Pacific can bust a gut putting out the best product they're capable of, but when their aim is to educate rather than entertain, they risk veering into the insultingly pedantic. This where you feel someone really needed to push back, and MST3k is up for the job.Hygiene films are the worst. Most of the other shorts MST3k has skewered deal with topics that, for all their ridiculous presentation, give a fairly benign and inoffensive take on an issue: "Cheating" (it's bad), "Last Clear Chance" and "Days of Our Years" (don't muck about with safety or you'll get killed), "Mr. B Natural" (playing a musical instrument is enriching), "Chicken of Tomorrow" (eat 'em), and so on. However, shorts like "Body Care and Grooming" (and its kiddie version, "Keeping Neat and Clean") make the very plain statement that your personal and social worth are inextricably tied to the degree to which you keep to a certain ideal.In this short, we're taught the importance of showering, washing hands, keeping our clothing nice, and many other things that really don't need to be explained in a developed society. What they're really saying is that not doing these things will prevent you from being happy, productive, and acceptable. I suspect it was exactly this point of view that led to the development of scruffy, unwashed counterculture types a generation later. The filmmakers must have anticipated just such a movement and, in their efforts to stave it off, ended up fulfilling their own prophecy.

Maybe being born in the 1960's has something to do with it, but this movie's ideas about what's attractive vs. unattractive as well as other movies like it always give me reasons to scoff. Regardless of this, some ephemeral films of this period are just too easy to make fun of. While the cast of MST3K easily ripped this movie to pieces, we can just as soon do this ourselves.According to an uncensored version of what the narrator is trying to tell us, Spring is a time when young college men start thinking of boning beautiful women. But suddenly behind three typical 1940's college girls is something that isn't supposed to exist; A girl with medium-length straight hair, apparently no make-up, a supposedly frumpy skirt, and one sagging sock. Oh, no! We can't have that in 1947! Well, maybe THEY can't, but if she walked up to me, I'd have to struggle not to take her up to my dorm room. Yes, she could use a mini-skirt, but those won't exist for another 16-20 years.Now we see her as a typical 40's girl with her hair pushed back with a barrette, some make-up, more than likely typical colors of the period, and apparently another outfit.The rest of the movie is a lame lecture on basic grooming that kids should've known way back in elementary school. Yawn! I'm sure kids of that period trashed this movie even way back then. Honestly, what was supposedly so wrong with those shoes that one girl was wearing? Other than that, I really don't know what else I can say about this that hasn't been said before.

Body Care and Grooming (1946) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Another educational short, this one dealing with college kids and how they should keep their bodies clean. There are a few funny moments and this here comes off interesting whereas the others have been pretty boring. Did you know in 1946 it was thought that you should only wash your hair once every two weeks? Yeah.Getting Along with Parents (1953) * 1/2 (out of 4) Extremely lazy educational short explains why some parents won't let their teens do anything they want when it comes to spending money. Horrible acting, silly stories and just an all around bad film.

This short film, like many of its time, is quite dated and pretty boring. It shows one how to properly groom oneself every day. The thing that shoots it down is some pretty bad acting from all involved, and a narrator who is both annoying, boring, and obscenely cheerful at the same time.Avoid unless you're watching MST3K.Lookie ma! Another #1!