By the Sea, by the Sea, Guarded by a Beautiful She

On New York's Manhattan Beach, which oddly enough is in Brooklyn, may be found many outdoor activities in summer besides bathing. But its most interesting experiment to date, and one it may proudly boast about, is an auxiliary lifesaving corps made up entirely of young women.

So begins the eye-opening, circa 1940 short film “Lady Life Guards” surfaced on Friday morning by the blog Sheepshead Bites, a gently leering 10-minute tour de force of visual double-entendre and soul-stirring call-of-duty gee-whiz.

Candidates for the job, after a “cheerful check as to general health and athletic ability,” are brought before the “beach doctor,” according to the narrator, and sub jected to a “thorough examination” that apparently requires him to tap on their chests repeatedly. Those who passed were “lined up on the beach and inspected soldier-like” by the chief lifeguard.

The trainees are instructed by their muscular male counterparts on the “proper method of breaking various holds - like, for example, the front strangle - because “a drowning person will grab anywhere and hold on for dear life.” Further, the narrator adds, “Two people locked in each other's arms also present a serious problem unless efficiently handled.”

The film, made by Central Films, is in the Library of Congress's Prelinger Archive, according to the YouTube user, webdev17, who posted it a few weeks ago.

As part of her lifesaving training, one candidate serves as a demonstration mode l as a succession of male lifeguards perform an artificial respiration technique on her known as the “prone pressure method” that may be unfamiliar to modern eyes.

“Resuscitation by relay is necessary,” the narrator notes, “for it sometimes takes many hours without pause to start the victim breathing again.”

Eventually, the female lifeguards are put to work - because a boy is floundering off shore!

“Toward the panic-stricken child there glides through the water a white figure,” the narrator says. “Swift in action, calm in mind, a godsend to a tired little body.”

After the white-swimsuited savior lays the boy on the sand … “serenely she returns to the stand, ready for any duty Father Neptune may call upon his daughters to perform.”

Manhattan Beach has since discontinued its female lifeguard program. Brooklyn's borough historian, Ron Schweiger, did not immediately know when or why. We are researching the question further .