Act Your Age (Emotional Maturity)
About Act Your Age (Emotional Maturity)
A high-school boy breaks a pencil, gets angry, and carves his name into his desk. He is sent to the principal. Instead of a lecture, the principal walks him through emotional maturity: the class is growing physically faster than its self-control. The film restages his outbursts with a five-year-old in the same situations. The boy makes a chart of how old he is acting and tells the principal he will try to act his age.
Cast & crew
More about Act Your Age (Emotional Maturity)
Ted Peshak directed the Coronet instructional short. A copy timed by archives runs 12 minutes 31 seconds, in black and white with sound. Release listings give 22 December 1949.
Themes
Making
Coronet built the reel as a counseling session: the vandalism is the hook, and the rest is the principal's comparison chart.
Music
A sound film. The principal's talk carries the lesson.
Preservation
Prints survive. A circulating copy runs 12 minutes 31 seconds.
Notes
- The subtitle on the title is Emotional Maturity.
- The desk carving starts after the pencil breaks.
- The lesson pairs each teenage outburst with the same action played by a five-year-old.
- A viewer note of the short has the boy rank himself at ten when he does not get his way.
- Wikidata's archive line reads: Coronet Instructional Films, black and white, sound, 12:31.
Scenes
- The boy snaps a pencil and cuts his name into the desktop.
- The same sulk is played again by a five-year-old.
Also available
- Internet Archive (0193_Act_Your_Age_E00002_12_30_45_12)
- Wikimedia Commons (Act Your Age (1949).webm)
