Confidential File: Medical Quacks (Part I) (1950)

★★★★ · It Looks Like Chocolate Syrup, But It Isn't! · Christine Hennig · 2003-12-22

This 50s tv program starring Paul Coates attempts to blow the lid off of medical quackery. First it tells the story of a little old lady with a lump in her throat, whose friend takes her to see a doctor in a hotel room, who treats her with a machine made of an old phonograph with lots of knobs attached. Then Coates interviews a California food and drug inspector, who, speaking very stiltedly, tells us that quacks who are caught are generally slapped on the wrist by the courts. He is very boring and hard to listen to, but it gets more interesting when he starts showing us various fake bizarre…

★★★★ · Beware The Magic Spike! · Spuzz · 2003-07-26

Confidential File was a TV series that ran from 1953 - 1958 starring Paul Coates, in it he would, very 60 minutesey, present his own opinions and grill some poor souls related to the subject in hand. The issue presented in this episode is 'Medical Quacks'. We first view a nice little dramatization of a woman who has a lump in her neck who decides to visit a travelling doctor who hooks her up to a machine and then gives her some pills. After that scenario, Mr Coates lays into his first guest, a government officla who investigates such claims. He admits that these people get away with it most…