All language subtitles for Mom.And.Dad.1945.720p.BluRay.x264.AAC

Hi, my name is Eric Schaefer, and I'm
the author of Bold, Daring, Shocking

a history of exploitation films from
1919 to 1959.

And it's my pleasure to be your guide
through Kroger Babb's Mom and Dad, the

blockbuster exploitation hit of the post
-World War II period.

This film made $16 million in rentals.

more than huge hits like The Best
Viewers of Our Lives, and it was only

outperformed by a couple of Walt
Disney's animated features during the

I'll be talking about the film, its
makers, and the unique way in which it

presented to the audience.

Now, the titles for this film make it
look like any B -movie from the period,

and in fact, Mom and Dad was shot on the
lot of Monogram, which was one of the

most prolific B - or Poverty Row studios
during the 1940s.

But Mom and Dad was not a B -movie. It's
an exploitation film.

And during that time, an exploitation
film was usually understood to be a low

-budget, independent film that usually
dealt with some sort of taboo topic,

things that the mainstream Hollywood
industry would not touch due to the

production code or due to state and
local censorship.

They were almost always shown for adults
only.

We'll talk a bit about William Bodine
here in a few minutes, but what we're

seeing here now is known as a square -up
in exploitation films.

These were titles or crawls at the
beginning of the film that explained

movie was going to be exposing some sort
of social problem, drug use, sex

ignorance, prostitution, and so on.

and that it was necessary to do so in
order to educate the public.

Now, this was all sort of an effort to
give these movies some semblance of

respectability and kind of amp up their
educational quality.

Ignorance is sin. Knowledge is power, we
are told here.

And during this segment, the Square Up
is advocating for sex education in the

schools. claiming that kids aren't bad,
but that millions may suffer from VD

without this education.

And the conclusion of the square up
suggests that if we have saved one

from unwed motherhood or venereal
disease, then our mission will have been

fulfilled. And that was a pretty typical
ending for an exploitation movie square

up.

Now, as the film proper opens, we see
this train coming around the bend, and

are introduced to three -quarters of the
Blake family.

We are going to see Mom, Sarah, and Dad,
Dan, and their daughter, Joan.

Now, George Eldridge, who played Dan,
had a long career in Hollywood, but he

mostly confined to supporting and bit
roles that were often uncredited. He

play a reporter here or a cop there or a
guard there.

He often appeared in over a dozen movies
in any given year during the latter

40s. Now, as we...

Look across the aisle of the train here,
we see a guy with a drink in his hand,

and that's Wheeler Oakman. He had been a
prolific actor in the silent era, but

by the 1930s, he was pretty much
confined to B -movies as well and to

exploitation movies, such as Slaves in
Bondage and Escort Girl.

Lois Austin, who plays the mother, Sarah
Blake, had a pretty similar career to

Eldridge. She played bit and background
parts.

She certainly makes a very good prude in
Mom and Dad.

And right off the bat, we learn that
Sarah is filled with all sorts of

about permissiveness, about sex, and
about drinking as well.

And she is shocked, shocked to see this
sort of behavior occurring on a public

conveyance.

Now, our lead in Mom and Dad is June
Carlson. She plays Joan

Blake, the innocent young high school
girl.

She had been a child actor, and it
appeared as the daughter Lucy in 20th

Fox's movie series The Jones Family.

This was certainly her biggest role, and
she left the movie business just a few

years later to start raising a family.

She was about 20 years old at the time
Mom and Dad was filmed and supposed to

playing, say, a 17 -year -old. And you
will certainly notice that a lot of the

so -called teens in the movie look
pretty long of tooth.

Some in the classroom scenes later
appear to be pushing 30.

Now, here we are arriving in
Centerville.

The name of the town is certainly meant
to convey an averageness that most

viewers at least...

middle -class white viewers could relate
to.

As the trio await the arrival of son
Dave, Jones spots her high school

teacher, Mr.

Blackburn, who drives into the parking
lot.

He's the biology teacher at school, and
he's going to prove to be Sarah's foil

and Joan's salvation as this movie plays
out. He falls into a role that I've

referred to as the crusader, and this is
usually a doctor or a teacher who...

bucks the self -styled moralists and
insists that young people have to

education about sex, drugs, or whatever
the topic happens to be.

Now, Blackburn is played by Hardy
Albright, who's probably the most robust

actor in this film, at least in terms of
his career.

But again, he was primarily working in B
movies.

He left the business in the late 1940s
and taught drama at UCLA for quite

some time, but he eventually came back
into acting during the 1960s, doing

spots on TV shows like Perry Mason and
Leave it to Beaver.

As the Blake family arrives home, we
meet the last member of that family.

That's Dave, and he's played by Jimmy
Clark, whose Hollywood career, again,

consisted mainly of small, uncredited
roles.

Now, you'll notice that compared to a
lot of exploitation movies from the

the photography in Mom and Dad is sharp
and focused.

Marcel Le Picard was the
cinematographer. He was a Frenchman who,

had been working in Hollywood for 30
years doing B -Westerns and other low

films. He also shot several other
exploitation movies, such as Child Bride

Race Suicide.

The last member of the household is
Junella, the Blake's maid. She's played

Willa Pearl Curtis, and she was in the
kind of stereotype role that most

-American actors were forced to accept
during the time.

She also appeared in Kroger Bad Prince
of Peace a couple of years later.

Now, as these opening scenes play out,
Let's take a couple of minutes to talk

about the director.

The film was made by, directed by
William Bodine. He was born back in

and he worked as a bit actor in early
one -reel films for D .W. Griffith at

Biograph Company, and then worked as an
assistant director for Max Sennett and

also for Griffith. He eventually
graduated into directing short films in

-teens, and then on to features.

Probably some of his best -known
features were Little Annie Rooney and

both of which starred Mary Pickford in
the mid-'20s, and then later The Old

Fashioned Way with W .C. Fields in 1934.

Around that time, he went over to
England to work for a time, and when he

returned to the United States, he could
never really reestablish himself with

the major studios.

About the best he was able to do was...

doing a couple of movies in the Torchy
Blaine series at Warner Brothers. So he

fell into B and Poverty Row filmmaking.

He did a lot of work for Monogram,
including dozens of East Side Kids and

Boys movies, Charlie Chan flicks, Bela
Lugosi cheapies like The Ape Man and

Voodoo Man, and Bela Lugosi Meets a
Brooklyn Gorilla. And then he did a lot

TV work as well in shows like The Naked
City and The Green Hornet. And he

wrapped up his career making a couple of
classic bad movies, quote -unquote,

Billy the Kid vs.

Dracula.

and Jesse James meets Frankenstein's
daughter.

He has been referred to more recently as
William One -Shot Bodine, although

he never seems to have used that moniker
while he was alive.

But he was undeniably very fast and
extremely prolific. He made hundreds of

movies and...

scores of TV episodes before he died in
1970.

And as we can see, as these scenes play
out in Mom and Dad, his direction may

not have been inspired, but he was
certainly competent. And that's a lot

than you can say for a lot of the
directors who were working in

films during the time.

It does take quite a while for mom and
dad to really get moving as we're

introduced to all these characters and
given a bit of an idea, a little insight

into what makes them tick.

And they're all treated with a pretty
broad brush.

Joan is pure and innocent.

Dave is very earnest.

Sarah is obviously a busybody who's
filled with neuroses.

Dan, the father, has a very blasé
attitude about everything.

And it's these character dynamics that
are going to really sort of bring out

drama as we move along.

As the kids head off to the dance here,
let's take a little while to talk about

the real mastermind behind Mom and Dad.
It wasn't William Bodine. It was the

film's producer, a guy named Howard W.
Babb.

Babb was known as...

Kroger throughout his life. And he was
born on December 30th in 1906 in Lees

Creek, Ohio.

He was raised and educated in the town
of Wilmington, which wasn't too far

As a kid, he had a paper route, and he
began to clean up at the town's

offices after hours.

And it seemed that promotion was in
Babs' blood from a very, very early age.

He served as a cheerleader at Wilmington
High School and also at Wilmington

College. He became a sports writer and
an ad manager for the town newspaper and

eventually married Toby, who was an
office girl at the newspaper.

And all the while, he was engaged in
various sorts of promotional activities

around town, such as having a guy named
Digger O'Dell buried alive under a

downtown street for six days.

So during the Great Depression, Babb
worked as an advertising manager for the

Chikaris theater chain in Ohio.

He eventually became publicity director
for several other theater circuits, and

he even promoted traveling stage shows,
including one called The French Follies.

And here we're introduced to Jack
Griffin, who is going to prove to be

corrupter.

But getting back to Babb, around 1939,
he entered into a partnership with two

other Howards, Howard Russell Cox and
Howard Underwood, and they were peddling

roadshow attraction called Forbidden.
Now, the core of the program was a

print of Brian Foy's 1934 exploitation
film called High School Girl, and they

slapped a couple of old medical reels
onto it.

and ran all over the Midwest showing
this film, Forbidden.

Babb hooked up with them. He eventually
secured the rights to show the movie,

the high school girl portion of the
movie, in 36 states. And he then bought

newer clinical reels showing childbirth
and the ravages of venereal disease. And

he called this program Dust to Dust,
which featured a live lecture by Cox on

evils of sex intolerance.

He then got Mildred Horn, who was a
newspaper writer from Indianapolis, to

new hygiene books.

Dust to Dust Attractions became based in
Wilmington, and Babb served as the

general manager while this film played
hundreds of dates over about three

But Babb was really itching to make a
modern sex hygiene film.

He was unable to interest Cox and
Underwood in the project, so he

joined with J .F. Josie of Cleveland. He
was a Monogram stockholder, and

together they produced Mom and Dad for
their new firm, Hygienic Productions.

Now, the film was written by Mildred
Horn, who Babs would leave his wife to

with, and they eventually got married
many years later when Toby consented to

giving Kroger a divorce.

The movie was shot on the Monogram lot.

Budget was around $65 ,000 or so, and it
had the production values very

typical of a monogram B -movie
production.

Most exploitation movies from the period
were made for considerably less than

that price, and a lot of them looked
considerably worse.

So for all intents and purposes, Mom and
Dad was really just sort of a remake of

High School Girl.

but just with a fresh gloss for 1944.

Now, as we move through the whole high
school dance sequence, we're going to

several featured performers.

We've got the Jitterbugs here. We're
going to have a soloist. And then this

of crazy family acrobatics act.

And these things, while they may look
like they're supposed to be adding some

sort of production value, were really
just sort of padding in order to be able

to get the film up to a sort of
respectable running time.

And this was a typical exploitation film
technique.

As Jack and Joan look at the moonlight,
Jack begins to make his moves

on Joan, and even though she's rather
smitten with him, we really see that he

somebody who wastes absolutely no time.

Once Mom and Dad was in the can, or
completed, by Babs' own account, he and

Josie were met in Hollywood by
representatives of of the Catholic

Decency. That was the much feared moral
watchdog group that the Catholic Church

had looking over movies in the United
States, looking for issues of

immorality and so on. And these
emissaries of the Legion of Decency

threatened... Babb and Josie that they
were going to give mom and dad a C or

condemned rating unless the pair shelled
out a minimum $50 ,000 contribution.

So after some quick thinking, Josie said
that they would consider making that

payoff if the Legion looked the other
way for a year or so, so that their

investors could make back their money.

These two guys apparently seemed happy
enough with that sort of arrangement.

And actually, mom and dad was not
condemned for two years after its

it took a full two years for them to
issue the condemned rating.

Unfortunately, Babb in his recounting of
the story doesn't indicate whether they

ever made the quote unquote contribution
to the Legion of Decency.

Now, for years, Babb also threatened to
make a film that he titled Father Bingo,

which was supposed to be an expose of
the gambling rackets in the parish

Now, he never really intended to make
that movie, but he certainly did enjoy

toying with the Catholic Church and the
Legion of Decency.

Mom and Dad has to be one of the most
banal titles in the history of

exploitation films.

Most had very lurid titles like Sins of
Love or The Naked Truth and The

Road to Ruin. And I can only surmise
that Babb wanted a title that wouldn't

upset the town fathers when his
production rolled into town and was on

one of their theaters.

But what the film lacked in terms of a
title, Babb made up for with his hard

sell techniques.

One of his mottos was, you got to tell
them to sell them.

And the thing that made Mom and Dad such
a success was Kroger Babb's exhibition

policy, which had to be followed to the
letter by any theater that wanted to

book the movie.

What BAB put together was billed as a
complete program, and that included the

feature Mom and Dad and the live Elliott
Forbes lecture.

The press book mandated that no short
subjects could be shown during Mom and

Dad.

And another aspect of the presentation
policy stipulated that the show times

to be exactly three times a day,
performances for women and high school

girls at 2 p .m. and at 7 p .m., and
then at 9 p .m. a show for men and high

school -age boys.

and one of the reasons they actually
said high school age rather than adults

only was because high school age
differed from place to place, and they

always trying to get as many people in
through the doors as possible.

The contracts that Babb signed with
theaters dictated when tickets would go

sale, when the doors would open, and
also when the exits would occur.

And this was a really sort of brilliant
strategy because when the 7 p .m.

women's show was letting out, you still
had all the men and boys waiting on the

sidewalk out in front of the theater to
get in to the 9 p .m. show.

And this resulted in massive.

crowds in front of these theaters, and
Babb would take pictures of these huge

crowds and use them in his publicity and
as a way to get new bookings for Mom

and Dad.

The admission policy also dictated that
there was a single even money ticket

price that was required of all movies
playing Mom and Dad.

Theaters had to allow the sale of two
booklets.

that Babb had published, The Digest of
Hygiene for Mother and Daughter and The

Digest of Hygiene for Father and Son,
and those were written by Mildred Horn.

During the end part of the Elliot Forbes
lecture, which interrupted the film in

the middle of its running, and you often
have nurses going up and down the

aisles selling these little pitch
booklets for a dollar each.

And all of that money went back to
Hygienic. It was not shared at all with

theater owner.

So as mentioned, and as we'll see in a
little while here, the film would

actually stop, and the eminent hygiene
commentator, Elliot Forbes, would take

the stage and provide a live lecture.

There was no Elliot Forbes.

He was just played by an actor or a
carnival talker. And his sole purpose

help sell those little pitch books.

And at least some of those were printed
by an outfit called Livestock Press in

Omaha, Nebraska, that operated near the
stockyards.

There's something strange about that.

But anyway, Mom and Dad was essentially
a prepackaged sex hygiene roadshow, and

bad step -by -step provisions on how to
sell this spectacle left very, very

little room for error on the part of the
exhibitor. But, of course, there was

really no room for innovation either.

As the fabulous Lippins do their thing
here, I'll let you know that in the

years of Mom and Dad's release, Hygienic
had a half a dozen bookers.

trying to get the film into Mom and Dad
around the United States, and there were

as many as 26 units traveling the
country, each with its own advanced man

its own Elliot Forbes.

And there was even a unit that played
African -American theaters that had the

Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens
appearing instead of the fake Forbes.

Ah, it's the next morning, and Joan
seems to be...

dreaming blissfully, no doubt, about her
new love, Jack Griffin.

But, of course, as Sarah comes in and
wakes her and she discovers that Joan

a new love interest, things are going to
get very, very difficult.

Now, Mom and Dad became a smash hit, and
it certainly wasn't because of

the... insipid melodrama here, combined
with the insipid music on the

soundtrack. It was largely because of
Babb's ability to sell this

film to theaters.

In 1945, Babb received a letter from a
guy named C .W. Davis.

He was the manager of the Rockingham
Theater in Reidsville, North Carolina.

And Davis wrote, Dear Mr. Babb, I have
been in show business since 1919,

have been local manager in Reesville
since March 1, 1923.

We played quite a number of states'
rights or ballyhoo shows, many with sex

angles, to get them in in nearly all the
cases you hide when the patrons go out.

I must hand it to you. You have an
organization and a production that hits

between the eyes.

It packs them in, and most important of
all, it pleases them with a wallop. And

Bab received dozens upon dozens, if not
hundreds, of letters from exhibitors who

were very pleased with the performance
of Mom and Dad.

It was said to give them a box office
hypo or hypodermic shot in the arm

when, at this time, box office was
beginning to fall off around the

Now, about a year later, after Davis'
letter, Time magazine ran an article

on mom and dad and said that by this
time, by April of 1948,

the film had taken in $8 million from 20
million moviegoers, and that over the

course of the year that it had been in
release at that point, it had been

peddled in 42 states and in Canada.

And the Time magazine article went on to
say, The film is shown only to unmixed

audiences after a town has been
saturated with ballyhoo that leaves no

the livestock unaware of the chance to
learn the facts of life.

And they then went on to mention the
lecture during the intermission or the

midpoint in the film and the sale of the
sex hygiene pamphlets. And they gave

the figure that to date.

The sales at a dollar apiece had reached
$7 million.

So Mom and Dad was a considerable hit,
and it was certainly lining Kroger

Babs' pockets with cash.

Crokerbab had built up a formidable
organization to get his movie out there.

And in 1947, he actually organized a
multi -day convention in Los Angeles

couple hundred people attending business
events, social events, and so on, all

for hygienic productions.

Cash prizes were even given out to
theater owners for outstanding

Now, this little bit of business here
between Sarah and Dan as she's talking

about her women's club might seem kind
of funny today. But in point of fact,

back at that time, women's social clubs
often wielded a good deal of power,

especially in small towns and
particularly regarding issues of

Mom and Dad becomes a tremendous box
office hit.

Even despite its financial success, it
still faced a number of challenges.

And one of those challenges came in the
form of censorship.

The other challenge came in the form of
competition.

Now, with regard to censorship, when Mom
and Dad appeared, the production code,

which governed the content of Hollywood
films, was still in force.

And Mom and Dad never got a seal of
approval from the MPPDA or the

MPAA, as it would soon come to be known.

And at the same time, Several states had
censorship boards, like New York,

Pennsylvania, Kansas, Ohio, and others,
as well as some cities, like Atlanta and

Chicago. And it was essentially kept out
of those places with censorship boards.

The film was also challenged by
municipal authorities in hundreds of

across the nation, and Babb spent what
may well have been hundreds of thousands

of dollars, if not even maybe into the
millions of dollars, defending mom and

dad and fighting for the right to have
it exhibited.

And he won all but a handful of those
cases.

Now, I know that may seem like it makes
him sound like a great defender of the

First Amendment, but...

Babb was first and foremost a canny
businessman, and he knew that spending a

thousand dollars here and a few thousand
dollars there could, in fact, result in

tens of thousands of dollars in the
coffers of hygienic production when he

able to win a case and be able to show
the film in a particular city, a state,

or a small town.

Now, there were also calls for censoring
Mom and Dad from other unofficial

channels as well.

So, for instance, not long after the
film was released in June of 1945, it

played in Joliet, Illinois.

And a doctor, Philip McGinnis, who was a
health officer in Joliet, sort of

inserted himself into the run of Mom and
Dad while it was in town.

He called the movie lewd, obscene, and
immoral.

He said that doctors, not police, were
the best judges of hygienic movies and

went on to say, quote, Today, the
public's emotions running as rampant as

do because of the world conflict to
permit anything that emphasizes

is bad.

That picture is rotten.

Sometimes people wonder why juvenile
delinquency is on the increase.

If they'd used a little common sense,
they could see the forest through the

trees. We must have sensible medical
censorship to overcome evil influences

the minds of our youth, such as this
picture has proven to be.

So mom and dad certainly did make its
share of enemies along the way.

Now, beyond censorship, the other big
challenge that mom and dad faced was

competition.

Now, there certainly would have been
other older sex hygiene films that would

have been circulating on the
exploitation market in 1945, but they

held up.

candle to the brand spanking new mom and
dad.

But certainly producers could not have
helped but notice just how many bookings

this new film was getting and how much
money it was making. So naturally, that

led to a lot of imitation.

And in 1948, there were three new films
that hit the screens that followed the

mom and dad formula very, very closely.

These movies included Street Corner, The
Cause of Eve, and The Story of Bob and

Sally. Street Corner was the one that
paralleled Mom and Dad the most closely.

The only real difference is that the
main character in that film, Lois,

Joan in Mom and Dad, winds up getting a
back alley abortion that almost kills

her. The other films were...

basically variants on the same theme,
although there were some differences.

For instance, Because of Eve featured
photos of models in its hygiene reels

who were fully nude. So you had full
frontal nudity in Because of Eve.

And these films all wound up competing
with each other from 1948 on and

often wound up undercutting each other's
potential profits.

A truce of sorts between these battling
hygiene films was finally achieved in

1950. Babb teamed up with the
distributors of the three other films to

Modern Film Distributors. And Modern,
which was based in Chicago, wound up

controlling all four films, and that
eliminated most of the competition and

fighting for territories and for
profits.

Moving into the 1950s, the movies began
to shift into the drive -in market.

And that became a very popular market
for the sex hygiene films. But Mom and

still had some really big openings in
cities like Chicago, where it eventually

prevailed against censorship and was
able to get bookings. It eventually was

able to get passed by the New York State
Board of Censors in 1956, which was, of

course, a full 10 years after it had
been initially released.

David F. Friedman, who worked with Babb
at Modern, has recounted how he

ended up with Mom and Dad on ten screens
in Chicago around 1958.

And, of course, each one had a lecture
by Elliot Forbes.

But he says nobody ever asked how Elliot
Forbes could be in ten different places

at once.

Now, Friedman, of course, he went on to
be a very important exploitation and

sexploitation producer himself in the
1960s and the 70s. And if you're

interested in Kroger Babb and if you're
interested in reading some really fun

stories, I'd encourage you to track down
a copy of the late Dave Friedman's

memoir, A Youth in Babylon, which is a
great read, and you'll learn a lot more

about Kroger Babb.

We're now well into a half an hour of
Mom and Dad, and it's at this point that

we finally get to some of the dramatic
moments in the movie.

Jack has been putting the moves on Joan
since he met her at the high school

dance. He's managed to convince her to
sneak out of the house for a date,

essentially turning her into a
delinquent.

And now he's going to really begin to
put the pressure on Joan. He professes

love for her, but she is clearly in a
very vulnerable position.

She's not familiar with what Jack is
doing.

And the pressure just continues.

to build and to build.

Jack sweet talks Joan.

She never actually consents to what is
happening now.

And as we dissolve and see them

Driving down the road, Jack has clearly
gotten what he wants, and Joan is

clearly very upset. And who couldn't
blame her? She's basically

undergone what we would today call a
date rape.

And in some ways still at it, Jack
manages to steal a goodnight kiss.

Lois rather abruptly turns her back on
him and marches into the house.

Now at this time, especially during
World War II, there were growing numbers

men and women who were having premarital
sex.

And that was a fact that would really
sort of explode into the public

in the next few years after the release
of Mom and Dad with the publication of

the Kinsey reports.

But at the same time, the so -called
double standard was still very firmly in

place. And that sort of unspoken double
standard said that it was okay for men

to have premarital sex, but it was not
okay for women to.

And we know as we watch Joan lie in bed
and pace around and so on that it's that

prohibition that is really beginning to
eat at her. She's lost her

valued virginity.

We get over a minute of Joan displaying
her guilt,

her anxiety, and her shame on her face
and with her body language.

As Joan comes in to the breakfast table
the next morning, you can still see her

body language. She's very stiff. She
seems to almost be collapsing in on

as Junella offers her some pancakes.

One of the things to notice about this
particular scene is that it's all done

essentially as a single setup, where we
have the camera placed so it can capture

all three characters talking, Junella
coming in and out of the kitchen door.

So very, very simple.

to set up and to shoot. And any time you
had more than something like this, say

doing shot, reverse shot combinations
and so on, that typically added time

and it added expense to an exploitation
film budget.

And they were operating on very, very
narrow margins.

So the simpler the better when it came
to shooting an exploitation film.

Mom and dad would have had a sufficient
budget to allow for retakes, but a

lot of exploitation movies were shot
with a ratio of maybe two to one at

Mom and dad, you probably had a chance
to shoot a scene maybe three times,

even four times. But typically on most
really low -end exploitation films, if

you got in a second take, you were doing
good.

Now, Joan has arrived here at the high
school. She looks like she's carrying

virtual weight of the world on her
shoulders.

And, of course, the first thing she does
is get a reminder about the previous

night. And then she's going to get
another reminder about the previous

she sits in Mr.

Blackburn's biology class.

Mr. Blackburn begins an impromptu talk
about student romances, and

he talks some about social and moral
hygiene, suggesting that he had wanted

start a class at the high school about
social hygiene, but he had been turned

down by the school board, largely
because of busybodies like Sarah Blake.

But as Blackburn speaks...

we can see that Joan feels like he's
speaking directly to her.

And he talks about girls who have
brought shame to their families, how

had to move out of town, and so on. And
this really cuts deeply with Joan.

Now, sex hygiene exploitation films
always claim to be educational.

That was what helped legitimize them and
helped them get onto American screens.

It's also what often got them into some
hot water with real educators and

medical professionals who thought that
their territory was being usurped.

A lot of times, the info in sex hygiene
films was not terribly accurate or up

-to -date, and sometimes that's what
those professionals complained about.

Mom and Dad, for its time, was pretty
good in terms of its accuracy.

Now, the education in sex hygiene films
basically falls into two main

categories, moral and clinical.

And moral education came out of the
dominant Judeo -Christian attitudes

sex, especially keeping it within the
bonds of marriage.

And we see that Jones' shame and guilt
are really turning her into a basket

case.

education in sex hygiene films was the
clinical education, and we'll be getting

to that later on in Mom and Dad. And
that included information about

reproduction, about childbirth and
venereal diseases.

But it also sort of worked in concert
with the moral educational aspects as we

see these images of childbirth and
cesarean operations and diseased sex

and so on. And they operated essentially
to frighten people into not having sex

outside of marriage.

We see the physical toll that those
moral infractions cause.

seem somewhat progressive today in the
fact that they were actually talking

about sex education.

They were really doing it in the service
of a very conservative worldview.

Any other questions?

Mr. Blackburn, when you're out with your
girl and it's a chilly night and you're

riding around and perspiration comes on
your forehead, is that love?

Well, Alan, I'm afraid that's just a
sign of spring fever.

Well, for tomorrow's assignment, we'll
take the chapter in your textbook on the

elementary track.

Class dismissed.

We cut from the classroom to the women's
club and

Joan's mother sitting squarely in the
middle. So basically cutting from these

kids. to the women who have largely
stood in the way of them getting

information about social and moral
hygiene.

And we certainly here kind of get the
connection between Joan's predicament

and her mother's attitudes.

Joan continues to try to rebuff

Mary Lou.

And the women continue to meet, and they
all offer a nice little round of

applause to Sarah.

So the girls wind up in the nook for a
soda, and who should Joan see across the

room but Jack, and she immediately turns
tail and runs out of the snack bar.

Jack gets a little taste of Mary Lou's
bath.

And now as Jack catches up to Joan, he
seems to be taking a little bit more

of a sensitive attitude.

I know what's on your mind, and I'd like
to talk to you about it.

He says it was all his fault.

She admits that it was all her fault,
too.

She gets into the car with him, and yet
again, off to a secluded spot, although

the action here is somewhat different
than it was the previous night.

I know, dear, and I'm terribly sorry,
too.

It was all my fault.

No, it was just as much mine, but...

I just wish it had never happened.

So do I, but, well, it was just one of
those things. Joan admits here that she

feels like a leper, that she feels
unclean in some way, and it seems as

though she's worried that she's almost
contagious and that her shame is going

rub off on her friends and on her
family.

In this scene, we really kind of get the
one -two punch between sappy dialogue

and sappy music.

And, of course, this film was written by
Mildred Horn, who was Babs Paramore

at the time. No doubt he probably threw
in an assist, but you can tell that this

was the work of a first -time
screenwriter, somebody who probably...

That threw a certain number of Hollywood
B -films at the time.

When I come back, I'm going to... When
you come back?

Yeah.

Gee, I haven't even had a chance to tell
you. Here, Jack drops the bombshell

that he's going to be leaving for the
coast and essentially leaving Joan alone

with her own feelings.

And that may be what she's most
concerned about.

And then I'm flying out to the coast.

So we fade in

on the Blake family dinner table.

And here we do get things being broken
up a little bit more with

different shots of the different
characters.

This is the moment where Dave now spills
the beans that Mr. Blackburn talked

some about social hygiene in their
biology class that day.

This shocks Sarah and is going to send
her spinning into action,

and she now has a new nemesis, a new foe
in the face of Carl

Blackburn.

and Sarah proceeds to destroy Carl
Blackburn's career.

Why don't we get back to Kroger Babb for
a few minutes.

Mom and Dad was certainly a singular
production and release, but Babb did go

to produce several other movies himself.

One came just a year or two after Mom
and Dad. It was called Prince of Peace.

This was a religious film revolving
around an annual passion play that took

place in Lawton, Oklahoma.

And it featured a young girl from
Atlanta named Ginger Prince, who Babb

tried to promote as a new child star,
sort of in the mold of Shirley Temple,

several years running.

The film apparently did reasonably well,
primarily with small town audiences.

The next Babb production was one called
One Too Many.

That was made in 1950, and this was...

a film about a woman who was plagued
with alcoholism. It starred Ruth

who was, of course, in Citizen Kane.

But by 1950, Billy Wilder's Lost Weekend
from 1945 had already won a

Best Picture Oscar.

So the notion of being groundbreaking
had already been stolen by the time

Babs' movie came out. He then came along
with a movie called...

Why Men Leave Home, which was also known
as The Secrets of Beauty, and a lot of

Babs films had multiple titles.

This one came along in 1951, and it was
a melodrama that dealt with the need for

women to remain beautiful in order to
retain their husbands.

Now, both One Too Many and Why Men Leave
Home were pretty much duds.

And that left Babb picking up other
movies for his company.

Eventually, it came to be known as
Hallmark Productions.

And he would take these pickups and try
to give them that special magic touch

of America's fearless young showman, as
he was sometimes known.

Some of these pickups included She
Should Have Said No, which was

released as Wild Weed. That was an anti
-marijuana film.

And it starred Lila Leeds, who had been
arrested on a dope charge with Robert

Mitchum. Mitchum went on to even greater
fame and bigger roles.

Lila Leeds wound up in things like She
Should Have Said No.

Another one of Babb's pickups was
Monica, Story of a Bad Girl.

This was a sort of tarted -up version of
Ingmar Bergman's film Summer with

Monica. Babb trimmed the film down.

He cut out the sort of boring, realistic
part, and he emphasized Harriet

Anderson's brief nude scene, added a new
jazzy score, and Monica, Story of a

Bad Girl did reasonably well.

There was then Karamoja, which was a
documentary about a region in Africa. It

was made up of 16 -millimeter footage
that Babb had bought from a Seattle

dentist and which featured a good deal
of native nudity.

It's sometimes described as an early
Mondo film.

And those were films that combined real
footage with fake footage into kind of

shockumentaries.

The last film he personally made was a
movie called Walk the Walk from 1970,

that was another anti -dope film.

But, of course, the counterculture was
in full flower by then, and so Walk the

Walk tanked, disappeared very, very
quickly.

So Babs never really had another film
that was as successful as Mom and

Dad.

Uh -oh. At this point, Joan is coming to
a realization.

She goes in and talks to her mother.

who, being helpful as always, says that
she is too busy for her daughter and is,

of course, shocked that Joan would want
any kind of information about

reproduction or hygiene or anything like
that, basically telling her that that

is something that can wait until she's
married.

Now, as Joan's predicament continues to
escalate here, I'll mention that...

Mom and Dad was actually submitted to
the Code and Ratings Administration in

1969, got an R rating, and it still
managed to get some play dates,

in drive -ins into the 1970s.

Now, Bab died in 1980. He suffered from
a number of...

health setbacks. He'd had a stroke. He'd
always been overweight.

He had diabetes.

So he passed away in 1980 in Palm
Springs.

And by that time, mom and dad was
largely forgotten.

But it was added to the National Film
Registry in 2005 as a socially

significant film.

Now, it seems like a lot of hucksters,
Kroger Babs seemed to have started to

believe that he could sell anything to
anyone at any time.

He was so confident in the power of
showmanship and in his sales abilities

he was largely blinded to the changes in
the film industry, competition from

television, social changes, and so on.
And even though he tried to apply his

showmanship techniques to other schemes
in the 60s and the 1970s, nothing was

ever as successful as Mom and Dad.

So Joan has already suffered from one
shock, and that is realizing that she is

now pregnant.

And here she suffers a second shock as
she learns that Jack has died in a plane

crash. So this closes off any
possibility for her of a quick marriage,

opportunity perhaps for her and her
family to avoid disgrace.

certainly a turning point in the movie.

Now, a lot of exploitation movies were
very, very disjointed, very choppy. They

didn't have to follow Hollywood
conventions in large measure because

contained this racy or lurid material
that you would never see in a movie from

the major studios or even a B -studio
like Monogram or Republic.

And it was that material that helped to
pull in the audience and also made the

audience pretty forgiving of
exploitation movies, at least as long as

delivered the goods.

But Mom and Dad does follow a pretty
standard and a fairly smooth narrative

line throughout.

Oh, poor Joan doesn't know where to
turn.

Now, this scene in Blackburn's office as
the kids are helping him set up his

insurance practice is once again largely
padding.

There's really nothing much going on in
this scene unless it's simply to sort of

indicate that these high school kids
have a certain rapport with Blackburn.

narratively, there's really nothing here
to move the plot along.

We're now really getting into the sort
of dramatic heart of mom and dad as the

walls are slowly closing in on Joan.

particular moment as she wanders out of
the bathroom and talks with her mother,

we realize that she's been suffering
from morning sickness.

It's in some ways really not too
surprising that this was one of June

Carlson's last film roles.

She

is, in fact, not terribly good.

She's able to smile, she can knit her
brow, and she can grimace. And that's

about the extent of her dramatic range.

And we get into this little montage
sequence as the calendar pages flip

by.

Joan's situation is getting increasingly
worse as the months pass.

She frets.

And as we get into September, in what I
think is my favorite moment in the

movie, she realizes that her skirt will
no longer fit. She's about three months

pregnant at this particular point, and
she does not know where to turn. She's

being eaten alive inside by guilt and by
shame.

So eventually she turns to the only
person she feels she can turn to, and

is her friend Mary Lou. And she does
confide in Mary Lou that she

is in trouble.

She expresses the fact that she is
essentially afraid of her mother, that

can't talk to her mother.

So, you know, where do we go from here?

I can't eat. I can't sleep.

I can't stand it much longer.

Sometimes I think I'm going to lose my
mind.

Was it Jack?

Yes.

What'll I do? Mary Lou comes up with the
practical suggestion that maybe Joan

should go see a doctor. In some ways, it
seems like Mary Lou's the only person

in the film who has their head screwed
on straight.

Joan finally agrees that she'll seek out
some medical advice, and we see

the girls hunting for a doctor in the
medical building.

Let's try Dr. Howard.

All right.

Anyone you say.

But suddenly here, Joan begins to hear
Mr. Blackburn's voice

all over again, talking about disgrace.

So for all his talk about the need for
sex knowledge, it seems that Mr.

Blackburn's little impromptu discussion
about hygiene and class is really

driving Joan to the very brink.

As

we

watch Joan become increasingly
distraught, increasingly desperate, I

mention that the experience of watching
an exploitation film like Mom and Dad

today is very different than what it
would have been like when these movies

initially released.

Now, you're probably sitting in front of
your screen, either alone or maybe with

a few other people. But back then, you
would have been in a theater with

probably hundreds of other people.

And you would have already been exposed
to a hard sell, seeing posters and

window cards around in your town or your
neighborhood.

You might have been passed a handbill on
the sidewalk advertising the film you

were watching.

And you would have come into the
theater, which would have been festooned

posters and stills and lobby carts and
so on. And you also knew that you were

seeing a movie that was for adults only
or high school age and up, as

was the case with Mom and Dad. So you
were expecting to see something that was

different than your typical movie -going
experience.

Dave, desperate to find his sister,
busts into the bathroom

and finds Joan evidently having tried to
take her

own life. Pretty traumatic here.

But as we were talking about going to an
exploitation movie back in the day,

depending on the type of exploitation
film it was, whether it was a sex

film, a drug movie, a vice movie, maybe
a nudist film or some sort of an exotic

film, you were sitting in that audience
and you were waiting to see some sort of

what I've generally referred to as
forbidden spectacle.

That would be seeing the birth of a
baby, the details of drug use, some

in one form or another.

So there would have been a real palpable
sense of anticipation in that theater.

Now, sometimes that spectacle was spread
throughout the film. Other times it was

more contained in a few sort of discrete
moments or scenes.

There were some times when it might not.

arrive at all and audiences were really
peeved in those instances.

In the case of Mom and Dad, it does
eventually pay off here, but one has to

through a good deal of rather turgid
melodrama before we actually get

there.

And so Joan tells her understanding
brother that she is in

and that the late Jack Griffith was the
father.

What are we going to do?

I don't know, Butch.

I've never been able to figure out why
Dave calls his sister Butch. I guess

maybe he wanted a brother instead.

Certainly wouldn't find a brother in the
position that Joan is in.

He kindly reminds her, no more of that
crazy suicide stuff, sis.

Dave turns to the only person who may be
able to understand and provide some

help, and that is our friendly purveyor
of fire and auto insurance, Carl

Blackburn.

Dave cuts right to the chase here.

I need your help.

I mean, we need your help.

We?

Yes.

Joan and I.

What's wrong?

Well, Joan's in trouble.

You'll notice that none of the
characters ever utters the word pregnant

the film, even though we're going to see
the results of pregnancy very, very

graphically in just a few minutes.

I think the pipe means that Carl
Blackburn is thinking.

What can we do, Mr. Blackburn?

Let me think about it for a while, Dave.

You run along.

Take care of your sister.

Thank you, Mr. Blackburn.

Gosh.

You're a swell guy.

Yes, Mr. Blackburn is a swell guy.

But we know he's been put in a really
tough situation because he has to take

his glasses and go stare out the window.

As Carl strides up to the Blake home, we
know that we're finally arriving

at the confrontation that mom and dad
has really been spoiling for for over an

hour. And that is where the forces of
enlightenment in the form of Carl

Blackburn are going to confront Sarah,
who represents ignorance and prudery.

Blackburn gets a less than warm welcome
from the snitty Sarah.

I think you'd call this important.

But he has something in store for her.

It has nothing to do with insurance.

Then what did you want to see him about
that's so important? As he tells her

that Joan is pregnant.

Kyle Blackburn, how dare you say such a
thing? Because it's the truth.

So you better call Mr. Blake and let him
know about it right now. Or Sarah is

dumbstruck. Good to see you again.

What are you doing?

Beating the lioness in her den?

Not exactly.

Dan, I've just had the shock of my life.

Joan is in trouble.

Trouble?

What sort of trouble?

Sexual trouble.

All of the discussion here is in rather
hushed tones.

Dave came into my office yesterday.

I suppose that's supposed to give an
idea that this is a very, very grave...

Carl begins a process of shaming Sarah.

And as she tries to find someone to
blame for Joan's situation,

Blackburn turns the tables and tells
Sarah, that she is actually

the one to blame.

I wouldn't blame her any more than I
would the boy.

Well, then who would you blame?

I blame you, Mrs. Blake.

You and every parent who neglects the
sacred duty of telling their children

real truth.

Why were your children afraid to come to
you in their trouble?

Blackburn continues to dress down Sarah.

for not providing Joan with the
education that she needed to avoid the

that she finds herself in right now.

But, of course, for Sarah, all she's
worried about is her own reputation and

will she ever be able to face her club
members again.

Blackburn offers one more little zinger,
and the scene ends.

At this point, the projectors would have
stopped, and the person playing Elliot

Forbes would have stepped onto the stage
or in front of the screen and given a

10 - to 15 -minute lecture.

But just to stress again, that lecture
was really nothing more than a pitch to

sell the little sex hygiene booklets at
a buck a pop.

Now, Dave Friedman has said that they
always expected the Elliott Forbes' to

skim off $20 or $30 a week in book
sales, and Babb himself wound up in

with the IRS and claimed that it was the
accounting for the book sales that were

at the root of his tax problems.

And now our story continues.

We learn here that Sarah and Joan are
headed out east to Boston.

Presumably that's so the prying eyes of
Centerville will not be on Joan as she

grows great with child and then has her
baby.

Now Dan comes to visit Carl Blackburn.
He is very grateful for his help.

And Dan seems to have learned a lesson
about just sort of stepping back and

being an observer.

So he tells Blackburn that he is going
to right the wrong that his wife

perpetuated and get Blackburn's job back
at the high school so he can begin

to teach social and moral hygiene to the
students. The boys and girls of this

town are a lot more good by going back.
They need that class in social hygiene.

Yes, they need it all right.

Well, Carl, I'm going to see to it that
the school board reinstate you at their

meeting next month. And you can write an
insurance policy on that.

We have the headline announcing
Blackburn's return to Centerville High.

And interestingly enough, the
superintendent seems to have changed his

about Carl's radical ideas and now seems
to be very gung -ho.

about the idea of having this sex
hygiene class.

The question of textbooks, they gloss
over pretty quickly here as the

turns to the more modern method of
education, and that is motion pictures.

But best of all, she says he's due here
for arrest in October.

Do you suppose we could get him to talk
to a small group like ours?

Well, I'll ask her to write to him about
it. You never know until you try.

I wish you all the luck in the world,
Carl.

Thank you, John. Thank you.

We dissolve in on the classroom, and
once again Carl Blackburn is at its

but this time he's in front of a movie
screen.

Now, having films within films in sex
hygiene movies had occurred before, but

with Mom and Dad, the technique really
becomes a staple.

Now, Mom and Dad's audiences were
segregated by sex, and you'll note here

the classrooms are segregated by sex as
well. The girls will be watching the

film on reproduction and childbirth, and
later on, the boys will watch the film

on venereal diseases.

Now, using movies as an educational tool
had received a huge boost during World

War II as the government produced
hundreds of films for training purposes.

And it was around this time that
classroom films on sex education were

beginning to be made. The actor Eddie
Albert, who is probably best known for

TV show Green Acres, produced a movie
called Human Growth in 1948 for his

educational film company.

And I've always thought it was quite
likely that he was inspired by Mom and

or by some of its imitators.

And indeed...

Those classroom films will eventually
supplant theatrical sex hygiene movies

we move into the 1950s.

Now, we're the audience for mom and dad,
but we're also being put into the place

of the kids in the classroom. We lack
information, and we are put in the

position of learners or pupils.

We now get to what most of the mom -and
-dad ticket buyers had really paid to

see, and that was the clinical reels.

Now, as I've already indicated, the
promotion of mom -and -dad was a key to

success, but Kroger Babb also benefited
from some very, very lucky timing.

Mom -and -dad appeared as World War II
was ending and just as the baby boom was

beginning.

And it would really be an understatement
to say that Americans, and most

especially women, were hungry for
information about the mechanics of

and childbirth and so on.

I don't know if it was ever the case
with mom and dad, but in the 1930s,

were stories in trade papers of women in
theaters rioting when a sex hygiene

film was supposed to be shown, but it
was shut down by the local authorities.

Now, I'm sure a lot of women and men
were hoping to get information about

contraception as well. It had only been
since 1937 that the American Medical

Association had accepted a resolution
that recognized that contraception was

important bit of knowledge for patients
to have, and they also acknowledged that

the subject should be taught in medical
schools.

As Mom and Dad alluded to, sex ed was
not something taught in public schools

the time, certainly.

The thought was that sex education was
something that belonged in the home.

of course, we now know what can happen
if it is left in the home and to people

like Sarah Blake.

Now, people came to Mom and Dad hoping
to get information about contraception.

They found that conspicuously absent.

Family planning was really not part of
mom and dad's game.

We get a lot of information about

the female reproductive anatomy in this
film, but none about the male anatomy at

all. I guess that's in keeping with the
sex segregation that was practiced by

mom and dad.

The animation in these movies is
actually pretty well done, and it's

lot better than many of the earlier sex
hygiene exploitation films.

People would have come out of Mom and
Dad with at least a rudimentary

understanding of conception and fetal
development.

Stage by stage, as you see illustrated.

I hope all of you appreciate the great
importance of proper prenatal care by a

good physician.

Now, as you watch these remarkable
pictures showing the development of the

within the mother's womb, you must
realize that proper diet, exercise,

medical care are very essential during
this vital period.

After growing within the mother's womb
for approximately nine months and being

nourished by her bloodstream, The child
becomes fully developed and is ready to

be born.

We now get to our first real instance of
spectacle in Mom and Dad.

You know, in this day and age, audiences
have become pretty jaded. They're

accustomed to seeing all manner of sex
and violence and gore on screen.

But when I've shown Mom and Dad or other
films like it in classes or similar

situations in the past, it's the scenes
of childbirth that really still have the

power to freak people out.

So the idea of having uniformed nurses
in attendance at Mom and Dad, whether

they were, in fact, real nurses or not,
was a pretty clever move on Babs' part.

At least it would have kind of served as
a warning to the audience that what

they were going to see was not for the
faint of heart. And, indeed, there were

reports of people passing out or getting
ill during the clinical reels of Mom

and Dad and other similar movies.

Every newborn child must be given an
immediate application of silver nitrate

the eyes to prevent possible blindness.

After complete precaution is taken to
establish identification, the baby is

placed in the nursery.

This was a time when the whole birth
process was really becoming very

medicalized. And so we kind of go
through and see some of these instances

how the process was in some ways
institutionalized and medicalized.

Still a lot of people, even back when
mom and dad came out, who were having

their children at home.

Now we get to the cesarean operation,
and it's this

section that really has the ability to
make many people in

an audience very, very queasy.

You'll note that on some of these titles
in the clinical reels, there is a

copyright notice for hygienic
production.

And I think that's because in the past a
lot of the clinical reels could be

duped and pirated and so on, and Babb
wanted to ensure that that didn't happen

with his clinical reels.

Now as we begin to...

get to the operation.

There's sort of a sense of suspense
building.

And

we

finally cut to the chase, so to speak.

You can imagine that for a lot of young
women seeing mom and dad and watching

these images, that they would have
served as a real disincentive on having

premarital sex, or it certainly would
have pushed them to get information on

birth control, the information that they
weren't actually getting in mom and

dad.

As the sex hygiene exploitation films
moved into the 1950s, there was...

sort of an arms race in terms of birth
reels.

Initially with Mom and Dad and other
films, you start out with a regular

and then a cesarean operation.

But by the 50s, those were no longer
good enough. So some movies featured the

birth of twins. And then you had some
that featured the birth of triplets.

And black and white footage was
eventually replaced with color footage

on. And, of course, seeing a cesarean
operation in color would have made it

the more graphic in its depiction of the
process.

The quantity of water varies in
different births. Some of you may wonder

keeps the baby from drowning.

You see, it doesn't start breathing
until after the delivery.

The surgeon determines the position of
the head.

And if it does not rotate forward
properly, then forceps are applied with

care not to bruise the infant.

Only gentle, slow, upward pressure is
used to aid the baby to turn within the

uterus. As you view these pictures, all
of you certainly can realize the

importance of a modern and fully
equipped hospital in every community.

It is too bad that your mothers during
their youth didn't have an opportunity

see pictures like this and learn these
important facts.

Injections are given for the purpose of
relaxing the mother and enabling her to

rest easier. Of course, she remains
under complete anesthetic throughout the

operation. After the baby is born, then
starts the final repair.

The uterine peritoneum is closed with
continuous chromic catgum, replacing the

bladder over the uterine incision.

The abdominal incision is then closed
layer by layer as it was opened. The

retention sutures are used to prevent
reopening of the wound by any abnormal

stress. You will note how this relieves
any tension on the incision.

The skillful surgeon whom we are
watching perform this operation was the

originator of the technique in which
buttons are used.

When we consider the long and costly
years of training a young man must go

through to become a physician and the
additional study required to be a

successful surgeon.

Pictures like these which enable the
public to witness their great skill make

fully appreciate our nation's great
medical fraternity. As the repair of the

incision is completed, note that the
patient has two neat rows of buttons.

Always remember the great importance of
proper prenatal care by your physician

all through the months of pregnancy.

You have just witnessed one of the
miracles of modern surgery, and this

mother are just as strong and healthy
today as if her child had been born,

So you and the girls in Mr.

Blackburn's class have survived the
birth reels. You are to be

This title card coming up harks back
really to the silent

era, and you would think this bit of
information about time passing could

been woven into the dialogue, but...

Mildred Horn and Kroger Babb were by no
means seasoned screenwriters.

And as the scene plays out, though, we
do get another hit for the importance

of educational films, particularly sex
hygiene films used in a classroom

setting. Well, we had a letter from
Sarah yesterday. I guess everything's

as well as can be expected.

You know, Mr. Blackburn, I sure wish you
taught our class in radio mechanics.

That Mr. Pearson's a nice guy, all
right, but...

Hello. Hello.

flip and we're back into Mr.

Blackburn's classroom.

This time it's the boys who have
assembled and they're about to watch the

dreaded venereal disease films.

Now as

Blackburn introduces Dr.

Burrell. You may recognize him if you're
familiar with the old Superman TV show

from the 1950s with George Reeves. This
is John Hamilton, and he played Perry

White on that TV show.

As Dr. Burrell talks here, I'll just
mention that Babb's battles in the

over mom and dad, which almost always
involved the spectacle of these clinical

reels, really contributed to the
chipping away of film censorship in the

States, so much so that it had
disappeared to the degree that Babb

present an early nudie cutie in 1961
called Kipling's Women.

But by the late 60s, he was sounding a
lot like that Dr. Philip McGinnis of

Joliet, who I mentioned earlier, as he
complained about lousy, filthy pictures.

But Babb never gave up on his belief in
the power of showmanship.

In the early 1970s, as he was preparing
to launch a scheme that he called the

Idea Factory, Babb wrote, Showmanship is
an indefinable force.

You or someone gives birth to an idea.

You analyze it. You decide it might
prove good. You give it a whirl. If it

clicks, you puff out your chest and call
yourself a showman. If it flops, you

start looking for someone else to blame.

That's show business.

Here you see the picture of one of our
country's many public health officials.

They are trying to awaken everyone to
the seriousness of venereal disease.

Today there are millions whose bodies
have been wrecked by these two diseases.

The rates of syphilis and gonorrhea had
really spiked during the Second World

War, and perhaps you've seen some of
those posters that were issued during

war with texts like, you can't beat the
axis if you've got VD, or

there's no medicine for regret.

And my particular favorite that asked,
loaded, don't take chances with pickups.

Loose women may also be loaded with
disease.

So there was a real concern with keeping
America's fighting forces on their

toes, healthy, and ready to win the
Second World War.

But then those VD rates go down pretty
sharply with the mass production of

penicillin in 1944 and then other
antibiotics.

However,

there was still concern about the spread
of VD in the peacetime United States.

Now, throughout this section, we get
quite a few statistics thrown at us.

These diseases are so widespread today,
the figures are absolutely amazing.

Unless the public is willing to face the
facts... Most hygiene rules were

cobbled together.

from existing footage, whether that was
basic stock footage or footage from

medical schools or other health
organizations.

And this particular reel, Babb
incorporates some shots from No For

That's a 1941 anti -VD film that was
made by the Research Council of the

of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for
the U .S. Public Health Service.

That movie actually featured a number of
Hollywood stars, including Ward Bond,

and you'll catch a glimpse or two of Tim
Holt here.

Given that this film was kind of a past
job, it was put together in a pretty

competent fashion.

Millions make the sad mistake.

Here we have a warning about avoiding
quack doctors and ineffective patent

medicines, and the message is to only
deal with competent physicians.

And permit the disease to eat its way
into their bodies.

If you contract either disease, seek
treatment immediately.

If you cannot afford treatment by a
private physician...

Go to the venereal disease clinic of a
nearby health department.

Gonorrhea is an easy disease to
diagnose.

Here we get some information on how the
diseases are detected.

There are probably some people in the
audience who

would have been made just as ill by
seeing that needle.

go into the arm as they would have by
any of this other footage.

The

price

of ignorance.

Now, images of the ravages of diseases
were meant to act as warnings,

but they also reinforce religious and
moral teachings that sex outside of the

bonds of marriage was sinful.

We've already seen the psychological
trauma that Joan goes through after

premarital sex, and these images
illustrate the potential physical

I think it's safe to assume that the
audiences would have become very, very

quiet when this footage began to
unspool.

Now

I

want you to see for yourselves just what
can happen.

if you are silly enough to joke and make
light of these diseases.

These pictures certainly speak the
truth.

But many boys and girls today are being
misled by their youthful companions into

thinking these diseases are no worse
than a bad cold.

After you have looked at these pictures,
I know you will realize the great

benefits that can come to all who lead a
clean, moral life.

Likewise, you should realize that your
health officials are not trying to work

hardship on anyone.

nor are they meddlesome or cranky
individuals when they insist that

standards of cleanliness and sanitation
be maintained by the public, business,

and industry alike.

When you stop to think that there are
millions of cases of these diseases in

nation today, I am sure you will agree
even higher standards must be achieved.

There is a kind of hectoring, badgering
quality to intertitles like this one.

And that, in some measure, seemed to
come from Babb's personality.

He would often refer to people who
didn't follow his proven sales

stupid jerks in ads and print material.

So it sounds like he could be charming,
but also very abrasive.

Now, he did also issue a version of Mom
and Dad without the hygiene footage, and

that was called Side Road, and it was
made to be made more acceptable to

that had censorship or perhaps areas
that had tougher municipal authority.

But, of course, some of the reason
people were coming to see Mom and Dad

because of the spectacle and the shock
of that clinical footage.

So when that was removed, it just became
a rather limp melodrama about a girl in

trouble. although even that would have
been forbidden by the production code.

Now, the VD reel presents a steady
escalation in the graphicness and the

nauseating quality of the visuals.

And that's because at their heart, most
exploitation movies were warnings about

the pursuit of pleasure for pleasure's
sake, whether it was in terms of drugs

sex.

they were designed to keep people on a
straight and narrow path of

And these images suggested the results
if you strayed from that path.

It's a good thing those nurses were in
the audience because they probably had

pull out the smelling salts for more
than a few people during this section.

The picture is worth a thousand words,
as they say, so I will just shut up for

while. These would never occur if those
who contract the diseases would take

treatment immediately.

Modern physicians using the newest drugs
can treat and cure gonorrhea in a few

days at very nominal cost if it is
caught in its earliest stages.

Syphilis is much harder to cure.

In the early stage, it can be cured in a
reasonable length of time through

regular treatments.

However, if the person neglects to go to
a physician and permits syphilis to

reach the second stage, it is much
harder to cure and requires a long

treatments.

Unfortunately, many permit it to reach
the third stage before going to a

Then, in most cases, it cannot be cured.

Frequently, it results in a softening of
the brain tissues.

causing syphilitic insanity.

After viewing the horrible condition of
these organs and realizing the agony and

pain suffered by these men and boys, I'm
sure all of you have had your eyes

opened. Our health departments are
making available to every citizen, club,

school, business, and industry much
helpful literature describing how to

proper precautions.

The government spends many a dollar each
year.

to provide new and attractive signs and
placards to further this educational

program. We must bring to all the
people... And so are VD Real.

concludes with a bunch of other stock
footage, and this all seems to be

introduced to reinforce the notion of
maintaining clean minds and healthy

bodies, and implicitly saying that
that's what makes for a strong United

of America, as evidenced by the flags on
parade.

I don't think anybody has fainted in Mr.
Blackburn's classroom.

Thank heavens.

So now we're told that Christmas is over
and we find the high school

gang once again gathering at the Nook.

And this material in the nook is
basically largely filler.

There's really not much point to it.

This business with the coach is just
kind of creepy. But the only really

information we see is when Mary Lou
comes to the defense of

Joan in her conversation with the
waitress.

And we also get Dave's revelation that
he and his father are heading out to the

east for the birth of Joan's baby.

Well,

yes,

but I'm surprised your mother let you
keep it. Listen, you, Joan's the best

girlfriend I ever had.

I don't care what you say, I'm sticking
by her. That's the spirit, kid.

Well, I'm sorry, Mary Louise.

Say, how's about getting your old man's
car and driving some of us guys up to

Union City next Friday night?

Oh, I'm sorry, Al, but Dad and I are
leaving for the East Thursday.

Oh, I see.

So here we have a pretty typical tense
waiting room scene.

But instead of the usual expectant
father who's pacing the floor, we get

parents and her brother Dave.

The doctor finally emerges with news.

Now, narratively or medically, it's not
really clear why Joan has been at

death's door, as the doctor says.

But in terms of the film's general
sentiments, it would appear that this is

price that Joan has paid for having had
premarital sex and for getting pregnant.

The Blakes quietly slip into Joan's
room, and the family

is reunited again, presumably.

They have all learned a hard lesson.

Joan slowly rouses, and she greets her
parents and

her brother, and presumably she is going
to pull through this

ordeal.

Now, this last comment that Dave makes
is rather cryptic. It's not clear to me

if in Little Butch he's referring to his
sister or perhaps to the baby, which

may have died.

Essentially, we're left to wonder.

Now, Babs' final flourish of showmanship
is having Hardy Albright ask the

audience to show their appreciation to
the theater management with a round of

applause.

And I hope you've enjoyed listening to
this commentary on Mom and Dad,

the most successful sex hygiene feature
of all time. If you have enjoyed it,

please give your DVD player a round of
applause.

Thanks.