What is it with content-light documentaries? Are we experiencing the fallout of the MTV (and post-MTV) generations with their minuscule attention spans? While it's by no means as bad as some would-be "documentaries" that I've had the misfortune to review, A Paralyzing Fear: The Story of Polio in America is puzzlingly short on content. I settled down to watch this program because I was interested in the topic, and I wanted to learn more about it... but I came away from it knowing scarcely more than when I began.

From the start, A Paralyzing Fear suffers from a kind of identity crisis. Is it about the disease of polio itself, the way that people reacted to the polio epidemics, the personal experience of having polio, or the medical and social elements of the immunization campaigns? Certainly a well-done documentary could cover all these topics, and more, but A Paralyzing Fear isn't that documentary: instead, it simply seems to wander from one area to the next, never quite focusing on any one topic.

There's also the problem that A Paralyzing Fear is a 45-minute documentary trying to fill the shoes of a 90-minute program. Setting the tone, unfortunately, is Olympia Dukakis' excruciatingly slow, drawn-out narrative voiceover, which gives the impression that the filmmakers were desperately trying to stretch out their existing material rather than write any new content.

Then there are the interviews with modern-day polio survivors, sandwiched in at various points over the course of the documentary. There's nothing wrong with this kind of interview, when it's handled well, but there seems to have been little sense of pacing or an eye toward content in the inclusion of these clips. It's really just not that compelling to have the film start out with one talking head after another recounting miscellaneous recollections of their childhood experiences with polio, when we have no idea who these people are and no sense of the context for their stories. The later interview segments don't fare much better; we may have a bit more context, but somehow the stories never seem to go anywhere or provide any additional insight into the topic. Perhaps these interviews were intended to provide a "human angle" to the information presented in the documentary, but in any case, they feel tacked-on, as if spliced in to beef up the running time.

A Paralyzing Fear has one outstanding point that gives the film at least a moderate amount of merit to those interested in history: apart from the present-day interviews, the documentary is made up entirely of archival footage ranging from pre-1916 to the 1950s and 1960s. There's a visceral shock to seeing the "Infantile Paralysis" quarantine notices nailed up on buildings, the crowds of people trying to flee New York in the midst of the epidemic, the sheer numbers of children in braces and wheelchairs. The film also includes what I suspect is quite rare footage of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, for instance at his "warm water cure" spa. For a viewer who just wants to be informed (hopefully in an interesting manner) about the subject, this material may not be enough to justify watching the film, but history enthusiasts may find it worth the price of admission.

The DVD

Video

A Paralyzing Fear is one of those hard-to-rate DVDs in terms of video quality, since most of the footage is older material. I'd say, though, that taking into consideration the age of the archival material, the film looks quite decent. Even the oldest footage is quite watchable. The modern-day material, which is filmed in color, is satisfactory, although colors look a little "off." The film appears in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio.

Audio

Olympia Dukakis' voiceover narration is terrible in terms of style and delivery, but I can't fault the audio track: it presents the narration and all the interviews, as well as the sound for the archival footage, in a clear and understandable manner.

Extras

The bonus material here adds some merit to the overall DVD package, but not as much as it could have. The three "epidemic disease mini-docs" turn out to be "mini" indeed, as each is only about a minute long. Even so, these short clips on "Post-Polio Syndrome," "International Eradication of Polio," and "Issues in Childhood Immunization" are presented in an interesting, informative manner that makes me wish the main feature had been done by the same people who did these.

The "Archival Photo Gallery" is a lot more interesting than the typical photo gallery, as each photograph is accompanied by an informative caption. A text timeline of the history of polio is also included, along with an extended trailer for the film, text biographies of the filmmakers and the Documentary Center at George Washington University, and a gallery of trailers for other First Run Features films.

Final thoughts

A Paralyzing Fear: The Story of Polio in America offers an ample amount of fascinating archival footage, but the documentary content that accompanies the raw historical material is sorely lacking. The documentary has a few interesting moments, but it's badly paced, poorly narrated, and very light on the actual informational content. I'll suggest it as a rental if you're really interested in the subject material, simply on account of the interest value of the older film footage, but for most viewers it's not worth it. Rent it.