Smallpox was shot in Agege in the Yoruba part of Nigeria and has been widely described as the ‘first major production of the Nigerian Film Unit’. The Nigerian unit had taken over production from the Colonial Film Unit in July 1950 and while it still had a dominant British influence, Commonwealth Survey reported that ‘two Nigerians worked on the technical production of this film as assistants to the director and cameraman’ (Commonwealth Survey, July 1951, 28).

The Colonial Office’s Annual Report on Nigeria noted in 1950 that Smallpox‘has achieved a notable success. Critics in London described it as one of the best documentaries of its kind ever to be produced by a Colonial Unit’, adding that the film has ‘stimulated interest in vaccinations’ throughout Nigeria. ‘Public Relations Departments in many other territories have asked for copies of the film’, the report noted, while the Public Relations Department’s mobile cinema vans showed films all over the country to audiences of ‘well over one million’ during 1950 (Annual Report, 1950, 109).

Smallpox also played outside of Nigeria. C.Y. Carstairs, writing in the Journal of African Administration in 1953, claimed that it had been ‘shown all over Africa (as well as winning critical laurels elsewhere)’, while William Sellers, in a discussion at the Royal Society for Arts in 1953, stated that ‘it is rather interesting that a film made in Nigeria on smallpox, which is perhaps one of the best films that have been made by any unit connected with the Colonial Film Unit, has been highly successful in Tanganyika’ (Journal of African Administration, 1953, 4, and Sellers, 1953, 835). Norman Spurr noted the film’s success in Tanganyika, which he measured by the ‘marked increase in voluntary vaccination’. This was achieved ‘despite the differences in locale and custom’ and was used, by both Sellers and Spurr, as a rare example of a film that resonated beyond the local areas represented (Community Development Journal, January 1966, 30). Smallpox also played at the Edinburgh Film Festival in September 1953 as part of a programme on public health films (The Times, 22 August 1953, 9).

In 1950, the Annual Report of the Medical Services registered 19,663 cases of smallpox, and 3,128 deaths, but claimed that with around four million vaccinations carried out in the year, ‘the opposition to vaccination appears to be slowly decreasing’ (Annual Report, 1951, 9). C.Y. Carstairs, in particular, illustrated the manner in which the film was used to support vaccination campaigns. ‘In one place, in Tanganyika’, he explained, ‘a showing of the film brought forward a crowd for vaccination larger than the number of people who according to the census ought to be living there at all’. ‘Against that, I am told’, he added, ‘that it has been shown in Northern Nigeria, without there being a vaccinator handy. The people clamoured for vaccination but were disappointed’. Cairstairs concluded that ‘Here is a moral. Do not show a film – or indeed engage in any other form of persuasion – unless practical action can follow’ (Journal of African Administration, 1953, 4).

The film was also shown extensively throughout Nigeria in 1952 as part of Peter Morton-Williams’ study into audience reactions in rural Nigeria. Morton-Williams provides detailed notes of individual screenings, interviewing audience members, analysing essays written on the film by schoolchildren, and examining the variations in commentary – ‘issued in typescript as a guide to commentators and recorded on the soundtrack’ – when delivered in different languages (Morton-Williams, 1952, 57). Brian Larkin argues that Morton-Williams’ work ‘makes clear the gap between British and Nigerian conceptual universes and potential that the meaning of film could always spin out of control’ (Larkin, 2008, 95). In particular, Morton-Williams indicates that many of the audiences ‘had a belief that there was a spiritual factor in the disease’, which was not addressed within the film, while many communities avoided even discussing smallpox and ‘felt it was dangerous to direct attention to the disease through a film’ (Morton-Williams, 1952, 27-28). ‘Ignoring spiritual causation’, Larkin notes, ‘meant that all the health films were greeted with “great sceptisim”’ (Larkin, 2008, 95). Furthermore, the audience reports indicate a continued fear of hospitals and of vaccination within some communities, which was fuelled by a ‘few instances’ of patients contracting fever and a septic arm from the unprotected wound, which then ‘become notorious over a wide area’ (Morton-Williams, 1952, 57).