Funded by The National Tuberculosis Association, Goodbye, Mr. Germ (1940) is an educational short subject that was shown in elementary and high school classrooms in the forties. What makes the film unique is its approach to a serious subject, one that presents medical information with a touch of whimsy. Instead of relying on technical jargon and stock footage, this short utilizes a storytelling technique that combines dramatizations with animation. It's also worth noting that the director is none other than Edgar G. Ulmer, who made some of the most idiosyncratic and inventive B-movies in the American cinema (The Black Cat [1934], Detour [1945], Strange Illusion [1945]).

First, we're introduced to an ordinary American family at home - Mom, Dad, their two children and...their talking parrot. The two children, obviously bored, interrupt their father who is reading a book on bacteria. Did we say just a normal American family? The children's curiosity about the illustrations in the book leads Dad to ponder, "...suppose I could invent in my laboratory a special radio that could hear what he [the germ] might have to say...yes, that's an idea alright!" From there, the film segues into pure fantasy as the father engages a tuberculosis germ under his microscope in a dialogue. "Hello, TB! Tell us about yourself." Mr. TB not only gives us his life story - "When I was a youngster I lived in the lung of a nice lady, Aunt Matilda" - but also his mission as a germ.

How the disease is transmitted and how doctors attempt to contain it are all covered in a breezy and entertaining manner before the short returns to its framing device of Dad telling a bedtime story and the children's enthusiastic response, "Oh, Mother, Daddy was just telling us another of his wonderful stories." Wonderful? Maybe not, but definitely instructive and completely atypical of most educational film shorts. Goodbye, Mr. Germ remains an interesting curiosity in Ulmer's career and marks the only time he ever directed animation sequences in a movie.

Director: Edgar G. Ulmer
Animation: H.L. Roberts, Jr.
Cinematography: Joseph Noble
Film Editing: Hans Mandl
Production Design: Stanley Levick
Cast: James Kirkwood
BW-15m.

by Jeff Stafford