Review of Boys Beware (1961) by Keenan S — 15 Apr 2013

Some have claimed that this ten minute film is basically the anti-gay propaganda equivalent of Reefer Madness, but Reefer Madness was consistently entertaining in an unintentionally campy way, whereas Boys Beware is bland for the most part.

According to this awful "educational" short film, being gay is the equivalent of being a child molester or being mentally ill, which is insulting and cruel. This idiotic mess of a film makes the exploitation films of the 30's and 40's look sane in comparision, because even they didn't make as outrageous of claims (And at least most of those were entertaining as camp value), nor was even entertaining like the unintentionally funny Christian propaganda film Rock: It's Your Decision.

As a gay person, was I offended by it? Partly, yes. However, I mostly brushed off this nonsensical mess, and had it been a longer film, perhaps I would have been able to salvage it for camp value. But alas, it is far too short and also generally boring.

This is mostly a crappy novelty of paranoia and stupidity of yesteryear that is nowhere near as entertaining as other trashy propaganda films. This should have just tried to be anti-pedophelia, but instead, it decided to lump gay people into the same category, making for a stupid, slightly offensive film.

It might be worth seeing once, but there's not much to it, unfortunately.