During the late 1930s and into the '40s, this film was constantly revived on the roadshow circuit with a spicy ad campaign and a new title: "Forbidden Desires". Surviving publicity material shows plenty of lascivious appeal but mentions nothing about the film being about venereal disease.
The release of this film in 1937 coincided with a Broadway revival of the original 1913 play. Produced by Richard Highley and staged by Henry Herbert, this production ran for 8 performances in mid-May, 1937, at the 48th Street Theatre. The cast included Marie Curtis, Staats Cotsworth, Stapleton Kent and Thomas F. Tracey.
The first Broadway performance of Damaged Goods (adapted from the French "Les Avaries") was in 1913. The production at the Fulton Theatre was directed by Guy F. Bragdon and starred Richard Bennett, Adrienne Morrison, Grace Elliston, Clarence Handyside, Wilton Lackaye Jr., Amelia Gardner, Margaret Wycherly and Laura Burt. Bennett and Morrison reprised their roles in an earlier screen adaptation, Damaged Goods (1914).
This is one of several films that can be traced back to Eugene Brieux's play Les Avariés (translation: "The Damaged") and Upton Sinclair's novelization of that play entitled "Damaged Goods." Some of the common plot elements among these films are a protagonist who is engaged to be married and who contracts a venereal disease from a prostitute shortly before his wedding (often during a night of debauchery urged on by his work colleagues or his closest friends), the protagonist confiding in his best friend about the disease and then discussing it with a physician, attempts to medically treat the disease, a sexual affair between the protagonist and his best friend's wife or girlfriend, and the impacts of all of this on the protagonist's engagement and marriage.
Final film of Arletta Duncan .