Too much of everything

People are voting emotionally.

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

"Hemo the Magnificent" is a wonderful educational film by Frank Capra and underwritten by the Bell corporation. Though it debuted on TV in March, 1957, my elementary school used it throughout the 1970s. Hemo combined animation with live action to tell the amazing story of the Heart and Blood Circulation in a delightfully entertaining way. The information and look of the film is dated, but it is still informative. The film stars Dr. Frank Baxter, Ph.D., and Richard Carlson. It also includes an appearance by Sterling Holloway best known as the voice of Winnie the Pooh. Hemo is also an interesting avenue of Frank Capra's body of work. Best known for "It's a Wonderful Life", Capra also did documentaries during the World War II era--i.e. "Why We Fight" series. Although Capra had done documentaries before, this is a departure from his past work in that this was about science, made for TV and targeted for children. When I completed my Ph.D. my brother sent me a copy on DVD. Now my children watch and enjoy it much the way I did 35+ years ago.

So many educational films are nothing more than mind-numbing drudgery, saved only by the fact that "MST3K" mocks them ("Why Study Industrial Arts?" comes to mind). "Hemo the Magnificent" is actually quite well done. It's all about blood, the heart, and the circulatory system. I admit that I don't remember everything from it, but it does a good job explaining everything, keeping it serious but entertaining. I guess that you can always count on June Foray (most famously the voice of Rocky the Squirrel, she plays a deer here).Since "Hemo the Magnificent" itself may be hard to find, probably the best place to see it is in "Gremlins": a class is watching it while a gremlin is forming.

I recall seeing this in the late '50's and to this day, I am still in possession of the knowledge that it gave me. I was probably in the 5th or 6th grade and learned a great deal from this series of films. The amount of information was very great but it was presented so "gently" that nearly anyone could remember it. It was in color, too, which still wasn't all that prevalent in films then. Big budget films were in color, but many were still filmed in black and white, so it was impressive in and of itself that it was in color. Frank Capra, probably the greatest director ever, did a splendid job and it educated millions of school children. Great job!

I remember seeing this every year in elementary school. It was a two-reel film, and I still remember that when Dr. Research says "sea water," that was the end of the first reel and we didn't get to see the rest until the next day. (Now I have it on video, and although it's kind of dated - there are some religious overtones about "right and wrong" and the TV writer/co-star smokes cigarettes throughout the film - it still holds my attention AND that of my ten-year-old son!)But HERE'S a bit of trivia: He's not credited, but Sterling Holloway has a bit part at the beginning of the film. (He is best known for voicing Winnie the Pooh in the Disney films.)