"Coughs and Sneezes"1945; quite interesting info [m];

[count tiszula]

Watching a programme about Pathe wartime and thereafter newsreels and public information films today, I learnt some quite interesting things about the classic short film "Coughs and Sneezes"[1945] which I expect we have all seen and anyway, is on YouTube several times.

It was apparently made by and starred one Dr Richard Massingham [1898-1953]. You know, that elderly chap who plays those huge desperate buildups so well. He came from a distinguished literary family [his father being a notable left wing journalist and editor] and worked as a physician before the call of the silver screen overcame him. Wartime and subsequent fashion for public info films made his career.

He was apparently a chronic hypochondriac, so little surprise that he actually made four colds and sneezing films, directing and starring. I haven't checked but I bet they're all on YT. Even so, a bit of a strange idee fixe, no?

I have to admit that middle aged men fake sneezing is not my first choice of porn, but there is something about his truly brilliant desperate buildups that is just a masterpiece of historical fetish material....

[atchoum]

That's a very interesting snippet of information. It does make you wonder whether the good doctor was not one of us. But if there is no word to designate it, then it doesn't really exist, does it, so he probably didn't even realise he had it.

And bravo to the British for saving the Pathé archives (the British Pathé archives are incredibly rich). Here in France there is virtually nothing from the 30s and 40s, and most of what there is is inaccessible.

[FreeFluShots]

But if there is no word to designate it,

Actually there is a word for it - it's called 'Sternutophilia'!

[atchoum]

But if there is no word to designate it,

Actually there is a word for it - it's called 'Sternutophilia'!

What I mean was that back in the 1940s no one had ever heard of a sneeze fetish... or probably sternutophilia... so there was nothing to pin their feelings on.

[count tiszula]

Or, as we naughty people who prefer not to have hybrid words and are therefore mercilessly mocked, like S Fry,say, "ptaerophilia". Seems better than ptarmophilia, and I doubt if Gryffin will give his opinion .

Merci plusieurs fois, Atchoum. J'ai l'impression que, chez les francais, le romantisme qu'eprouvent les anglais au sujet de la guerre, quasi obsedes avec ces emissions monochromes au sujet de Dunkerque ou de l'esprit du "blitz", ne se trouve pas reduplique. Jusqu'a la Liberation evidemment. Sauf chez Malle peut-etre....

[allergyboy2001]

I thought I only knew of 2 sneezing films with Richard Massingham. Do we know the titles of all 4 of them, just for future reference?