Mom and Dad

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Mom and Dad
Mom and Dad film poster, circa 1947.
Directed by	William Beaudine
Produced by	Kroger Babb J.S. Jossey[1]
Written by	Kroger Babb (story) Mildred Horn (story & screenplay)
Starring	Hardie Albright Lois Austin George Eldridge June Carlson Jimmy Clark Bob Lowell[2]
Music by	Edward J. Kay[2]
Cinematography	Marcel LePicard
Editing by	Dick Currier
Distributed by	Hygienic Productions Modern Film Distributors
Release date(s)	1945
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$63000
IMDb profile

Mom and Dad, known as The Family Story in the United Kingdom,^[3] is a feature-length 1945 American film, directed by William Beaudine and produced by exploitation filmmaker and presenter Kroger Babb. Mom and Dad eventually became the third highest grossing film of the 1940s, while facing numerous legal challenges and condemnation by the National Legion of Decency.^[4]

Starring Hardie Albright, the film is known as an exploitation film: a repackaged film with controversial content, often including medical footage to circumvent censorship. Babb's marketing of the film, using old-style medicine show techniques and unique promotions to build audiences, became a template for his later works as well as those of other filmmakers of the time. The film was added to the United States National Film Registry in 2005 in recognition of its achievements.

Contents 1 Production 2 Plot 3 Marketing and presentation 4 Reception 5 Cast 6 References 7 External link

[edit] Production

Following Kroger Babb's successful presentation of his first film, Dust to Dust (a reworked version of the 1935 film Child Bride), Cox and Underwood disbanded and Babb formed his own company, Hygienic Productions.^[5] Babb came up with a story to film and present, and had his future wife, Mildred, write a screenplay based on the story. This screenplay became Mom and Dad. Twenty investors were secured, and Babb hired William "One Shot" Beaudine to direct. One Shot earned his nickname due to his propensity to only film one take.^[6] The film cost Babb and his investors $63,000.^[7]

The film was shot in five separate studios over six days in 1944,^[2] mostly on various Monogram Pictures lots, as co-producer J.S. Jossey was a Monogram stockholder. The film premiered at the Warner Bros. Theatre in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on 3 January 1945.^[2]

[edit] Plot

The film tells the story of a young girl (June Carlson) who falls for a pilot (Bob Lowell) and, after some sweet talk, eventually goes "all the way" with him. The girl receives letters from the pilot and requests "hygiene books" from her mother (Lois Austin), who refuses to provide them on the grounds that the girl isn't married. The girl later learns from her father (George Eldridge) that the pilot died in a crash, and tears up the letter she was writing to him, putting her head down as the film fades out. Following a live lecture and bookselling attempt in the theater during an intermission, the film resumes with the girl learning that her clothes no longer fit, and she enters a state of despair. Only after she receives advice from a teacher (Hardie Albright) who was fired for teaching sex education is she able to confront her mother. The teacher blames the mother for the problem, accusing her of "neglect[ing] the sacred duty of telling their children the real truth."^[6][2]

The film then presents reels and charts, including graphic images of the female anatomy and a live birth. In some showings, another film was shown with Mom and Dad, containing images of syphilis and venereal disease. The film typically ended with the birth of the girl's child, sometimes stillborn and other times put up for adoption.^[6][1]

The plot, like many other films of the era and genre, contained a large amount of filler. As the scenes were filmed very simply, it is believed that the scenes were included to strengthen the production value, but the usual motivation was to extend the films so they would reach a feature length. Professor Eric Schaefer noted that the "primary purpose" of the plot of the film was "to serve as the vehicle onto which the spectacle of the clinical reels can be grafted," such as Mom and Dad's live birth scene. The marketing materials also suggest the latter, as many posters for the film promised that "You actually SEE the birth of a baby!"^[1]

The dialogue is also carefully worded, using generic slang to describe various terms that may have been controversial. For example, at no time does the film explicitly refer to sexual intercourse or pregnancy.^[6]

[edit] Marketing and presentation

According to Kenneth Turan in The Washington Post, "Mom and Dad did not flourish because of its birth footage...or because of its puerile plot, which Babb himself disparages...[t]he success flowed, rather, from Babb's extraordinary promotional abilities."^[8] Exhibited across the United States via over 300 prints,^[7] the presenter would stir up controversy by writing protest letters to local churches and newspapers in the weeks preceding the film's arrival, often presenting fabricated letters from mayors of nearby cities about young women who gained the courage to discuss similar predicaments following a viewing of the film.^[1]

This campaign would sometimes be done by an advance person sent by Hygienic Productions a number of weeks before a film opened^[6], but much of the promotional material came in the form of a large pressbook, which contained cast and crew information as well as other promotional material and marketing instructions.^[2]

Mom and Dad's pre-exhibition campaign was based on Babb's marketing strategy, which involved overwhelming a small town with advertisements and causing controversies. Keeping with his motto of "You gotta tell 'em to sell 'em,"^[5]:

Babb advocated a "100% saturation campaign." In his sample situation--The Deadwood Theater in Movie-hater, Missouri, with a potential audience base of twenty-four thousand--Babb suggested sending tabloid heralds to all seven thousand homes in the area at a cost of $196, spending $65 for newspaper ads, $50 on radio, plus an additional $65 for three hundred window cards, hand-out teaser cards, pennants, and posters. The total came to almost $400, or the same amount the theater owner would normally spend on advertising in the course of an entire month. Babb always claimed that with his formula the profit would outweigh the investment...^[1]

The film became so ubiquitous that Time said that the film's presentation "left only the livestock unaware of the chance to learn the facts of life."^[7]

Babb made sure that each showing of the film followed a similar exhibition strategy. The presentation included adults-only screenings, was segregated by gender, and featured a live lecture by "Fearless Hygiene Commentator Elliot Forbes" that took place in between the film's acts. At one time, hundreds of Elliot Forbeses, typically hired as out of work actors,^[5] would be giving a lecture at the same time in a variety of locations.^[1] In some predominately African-American areas, Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens was hired to make appearances instead of an actor playing Forbes.^[6] According to entertainer Card Mondor, who worked for Babb as an Elliot Forbes in the 1940s and later purchased the Australian and New Zealand rights for Mom and Dad, the Elliot Forbes actors were "mostly local men (from Wilmington, Ohio, the headquarters of Babb's operations at the time) who were trained to give the lecture...[I]t was a cross-section of the male population, mostly clean-cut young guys. ...The whole concept would have never worked with a trashy look."^[9] Along with Forbes, presentations were often held with "nurses" in attendance, in the event that someone fainted due to the content of the film,^[6] often hired from local strip clubs.^[5]

Following the show books were sold that were relevant to the subject of the film. For Mom and Dad, Modern Film Distributors, the film's eventual marketer and distributor, sold over forty-five thousand copies of their books Man and Boy and Woman and Girl (which were written by Babb's wife, Mildred^[10]), netting an estimated $31,000.^[1] According to Babb, the pamphlets cost an estimated 8 cents to produce, and were sold for $1 apiece. While Modern Film Distributors were able to sell forty-five thousand copies on their own, Babb estimated total pamphlet sales of 40 million, citing "IRS figures."^[10]

Babb insisted that the program be followed very closely. As the Forbes lecture was part of the program along with the film, exhibitors were required to show the program in its entirety without extra newsreels or short films, although previews were allowed. Furthermore, the regulations did not allow for matinee pricing, set specific times for the segregated viewings, and prohibited the showing of the film on Sundays.^[1]

[edit] Reception

Mom and Dad ended up as the third highest grossing film of the 1940s,^[7] making approximately $63,000 for every $1,000 the original investors contributed,^[11] and the Los Angeles Times estimated that the film grossed anywhere between $40 million and $100 million dollars.^[8] The film is the most successful sex hygiene film ever made, the biggest pre-1960 exploitation film, and would be ranked among the top ten grossing films in the 1940s and 1950s if the film was listed with conventional releases.^[1]

The film was also at the center of numerous lawsuits and condemnations, as the exploitation genre faced numerous challenges during the 1940s and 1950s standing at the forefront of censorship battles and the motion picture censorship system.^[1] David F. Friedman, who worked with Babb on a number of films, estimated that Babb was sued over 400 times alone for Mom and Dad^[5] (Babb himself claimed 428^[8]). Often, Babb would use the supposed educational value of the films as a defense. He recommended that tactic to theater owners in his pressbooks, stating that "When a stupid jerk tries to outsmart proven facts, he should be in an asylum, not a theater."^[1] One successful challenge was in New York City, where Mom and Dad remained censored until 1956 when the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court overturned the ruling of the censor board, deciding that human birth was not "indecent."^[1]

According to Modern Film Distributors, the film was dubbed into a dozen languages as of the end of 1956, and estimated a worldwide attendance figure of over 175 million people over 650,000 performances.^[2] Card Mondor would eventually purchase the rights to exhibit the film in New Zealand and Australia during the mid-1960s, almost twenty years after the film's debut,^[9] and a story on Babb from the Press-Enterprise circa 1978 estimated that the film had been dubbed into 18 languages.^[10]

The film's success spawned a number of imitators that eventually flooded the market. One, Street Corner, essentially reproduced the plot from Mom and Dad, substituting the concerned teacher with a concerned physician. In 1948, Universal produced their own version of a hygiene film with a similar plot titled The Story of Bob and Sally, although they were unable to exhibit it due to the production code, and eventually sold the rights.^[1]

The overlap prompted the major exploitation filmmakers of the time to form Modern Film Distributors to keep from booking over each other,^[6] but the movie was such a success that it was still shown decades later around the world,^[10] and a version was ultimately added to the National Film Registry in 2005.^[7]

[edit] Cast

• Hardie Albright - Carl Blackburn, the teacher.
• Lois Austin - Sarah Blake, the mother.
• George Eldridge - Dan Blake, the father.
• June Carlson - Joan Blake, the teen-age girl.
• Jimmy Clark - Joan's brother.
• Bob Lowell - Jack Griffin, the pilot.
• Jane Izbell - Mary Lou, Joan's friend.
• Jimmy Zaner - Allen Curtis, Joan's hometown boyfriend.
• Robert Filmer - Superintendent McMann.
• Willa Pearl Curtis - Junella, the Blake family's African-American maid.
• Virginia Van - Virginia, Dave's girlfriend.
• Forrest Taylor - Dr. Ashley, the obstetrician.
• Jack Roper - The coach.

The official credits also acknowledge The Four Liphams as well as the California State Champion dancers of the jitterbug.^[2]

[edit] References

[edit] External link

• Reason: Kroger Babb's Roadshow. Joe Bob Briggs.