https://peertube.dngr.us/videos/watch/a4575a53-217e-477c-8c9d-510e63ec3b60 Love our channel? Help us save and post more orphaned films! Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/PeriscopeFilm Even a really tiny contribution can make a difference. This black & white U.S. Navy film, which was likely shown to sailors as part of basic training, is about the dangers of VD (venereal disease). The title "Taking Chances" has an extended metaphor throughout the film, which compares the odds of winning carnival games with catching a social disease. Copyright 1952. Produced by Herbert Kerkow Productions. Opening: U.S. Navy Training Film - "Taking Chances V.D." (:06-:28). A roulette wheel spins. Navy men at a carnival. A sailor named Drake smokes and throws basketballs in a game of chance. Mercer and Swanson throw basketballs as well. Adams and Kennedy stand around. All of the men partake in carnival games. A Navy officer, their commander, smokes a pipe and narrates the scene -- indicating that every leave produces casualties of one sort or another, including injuries from fights and illness from venereal disease (:29-2:21). Drake, talks to his chief and then another man, a doctor, about STDs. Drake has caught an STD. Animation shows gonorrhea entering Drake's penis. Urine washed out some of the germs but not all of the gonorrhea. Gonorrhea continues to fester (2:22-4:37). A drip inside the penis. The doctor puts on a rubber glove. A roulette wheel spins at the carnival. Mercer has an STD, he talks with a doctor. The two men discuss. Animation explains how syphilis works and what it can do, how dangerous it can be (4:38-7:43). Mercer is worried. The doctor talks with him. A roulette wheel spins. Guys clown around at the carnival. The guys try and figure out their next move. One of them plays a shooting gallery game. According to the narrator, a lot of prostitutes are exposed to STDs during their working career, making the odds good that a client might be exposed to one. The Navy men play a shooting game as the narrator says the fateful line, "Heads you win. Tails you lose." Exterior of a bar. The roulette wheel of fate spins (7:44-10:28). End credits (10:29-10:37). Motion picture films don't last forever; many have already been lost or destroyed. We collect, scan and preserve 35mm, 16mm and 8mm movies -- including home movies, industrial films, and other non-fiction. If you have films you'd like to have scanned or donate to Periscope Film, we'd love to hear from you. Contact us via the link below. This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsN-bV_HVA8 Mirrored from Periscope Film (https://www.youtube.com/@PeriscopeFilm) Thu, 11 Jun 2026 06:28:11 GMT https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html PeerTube - https://peertube.dngr.us https://peertube.dngr.us/lazy-static/avatars/41a6fee9-7f57-42d0-a5fc-5db4f1af2e31.png https://peertube.dngr.us/videos/watch/a4575a53-217e-477c-8c9d-510e63ec3b60 All rights reserved, unless otherwise specified in the terms specified at https://peertube.dngr.us/about and potential licenses granted by each content's rightholder.