Its incredible but this $67,000 film made between $40-100 million at the box office! Thats Star Wars money in the 40's. In fact, it was difficult not to know about it back then. Its an old school exploitation film of the, believe it or not, 'sex hygiene' sub-genre. It faced many legal challenges and was even condemned by the National Legion of Decency. It used the tried and tested method of circumventing censorship laws by positioning itself as an educational film. It was never allowed to play in the big cinemas, it instead played mainly as a travelling show at various towns, with separate screenings for women and men.
Its storyline is melodramatic nonsense about a girl who falls pregnant to an older boy. She can't tell her mother, as mum's morals are stuck so firmly in the Victorian era that she gathers a posse and gets a teacher at the school fired for teaching sex education! Needless to say, things get worse before they get better.
But so what you might think? Where's the money shot in all this carry on? Well, towards the end an obstetrician is wheeled out and he shows some films to a class of teenage girls and this is where things get psychotronic. There is graphic footage of live births - one natural and one Caesarian. The latter is endurance testing stuff I can tell you....ugh! Then there are various images of body parts mutilated with syphilis and venereal disease! Horrible scars, rotting teeth, infected genitals and oozing open sores are the order or the day! There is no build up or warning for any of this stuff! Its all there to educate of course.
A proper curiosity piece this one. Well worth watching if you are at all interested in the stranger corners of the cinematic world.
