The woman is wild-eyed, disoriented and yet fully made up, in classic June Cleaver fashion. She is high on heroin. Sid Davis made her that way.

Actually, to be accurate, Sid Davis made her act that way, in his 1951 film "The Terrible Truth." He did it because he wanted to warn teenagers against the dangers of drugs. Long before Nancy Reagan told us to "Just Say No," Sid Davis was making sure that American youth said no, no and no again.

Davis, who died last month at age 90, spent most of the 1950s and 1960s and even some of the 1970s making educational films that warned against the dangers lurking in America's darker corners. They featured intense, if unconvincing, bursts of gang violence, drunk driving, homosexuality, even reckless bike riding.

Today they are kitsch, bypassed by an America long accustomed to dealing with such terrors. But for those years, in American high-school classrooms, the lights darkened, the Bell & Howell projector flickered, and Sid Davis took your parents and grandparents into horrible new worlds — worlds they were supposed to avoid.

Come visit them with us in this asap video.

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Sid Davis' obituary from Wednesday, as reported by the AP:

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Sid Davis, producer of dozens of 1950s films warning students of hazards, dies at 90

LOS ANGELES — Sid Davis, who produced more than 180 educational films warning youngsters of the dangers of drugs, drinking and running with scissors, has died. He was 90.

Davis, who was born in Chicago but moved to Los Angeles as a child, died of lung cancer on Oct. 16 at the Atria Hacienda senior residence in Palm Desert, his daughter Jill said.

From the 1950s into the early 1970s, Davis created cautionary short films that were screened in classrooms. With titles such as "The Bottle and the Throttle" and "Seduction of the Innocent," they warned kids away from underage drinking, drug abuse, vandalism and dropping out of school. One 1972 short tells the tale of two teenagers who break up with their girlfriends, pick up prostitutes and get syphilis.

In 1952's "Skipper Learns a Lesson," a dog learns about tolerance when his white owner moves into a racially mixed neighborhood.

Davis was inspired to produce movies when his 5-year-old daughter failed to understand his lecture on avoiding strangers, she said. His first effort was 1950's "The Dangerous Stranger."

Davis was a movie set stand-in for John Wayne. The actor loaned Davis the money to start a production company, later refusing his $5,000 repayment.

"Wayne tore up the check and said, 'Put it back in the business,'" Jill Davis said.

Many of Davis's movies were made for a paltry $1,000 and the actors were his friends and family, said Ken Smith, author of "Mental Hygiene: Better Living Through Classroom Films 1945-1970."

In "Live and Learn," for example, a young girl is cutting out paper dolls before jumping up, tripping and impaling herself on scissors. Other movies warned children away from underage drinking, drug abuse, vandalism, venereal disease and dropping out of school.

"He grew up as a tough kid," Smith said Tuesday. "He didn't want kids to follow the same path he did or suffer the same harsh lesson. That was his motivation behind most of his films."

Besides his daughter, Davis is survived by a grandson.

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Ray Kugler is asap's senior audiovisual reporter.

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